I can't wait for PETA's campaign to convince people not to buy the jewel-encrusted eggs of endangered birds. It's those little every day things we can all do to make a difference.
I have no idea what is going on on my computer screen right now. I'm too scared to click on anything.
(I'm curious as to how Gabe found this. Is this a test of the new "Hey, What's Up With Jim Carrey's Website" feature?)
Well, the viewpoint that the show seems to be metaphorically pushing is that Barack Obama is some kind of sinister figure using false promises of "hope" and "change" to brainwash American youth and take over the world or something.
Yes, I understand why this is an acceptable and civil argument for a tv show to be making.
I hate the way it's naturally assumed that the world is currently an unbearably awful place. The gap between the first world and the third is certainly growing and there are parts of the world where that disparity is making things really, really bad for people, but I'd say the world is probably, generally, a nicer place to be born into than it ever has at any point in human history.
You want to complain, go live in the middle ages or something.
A truly dedicated jokester would have bought all the horses in the race and assured that they all have comically suggestive names.
"Big and Hard coming up from behind, That's What She Said catching up..."
On a sidenote, remember when joking about the Snuggie was still funny? I'm pretty sure the first time I saw it referenced outside of my circle of friends and family was when I saw Tim and Eric in January and DJ Douggpound mixed samples from the commercials into his set. Great lols were had by all.
I have reached the acceptance stage of my mourning of Weezer. I understand that they no longer take themselves at all seriously. Thanks to this acceptance, I actually enjoyed the new album. That being said, they are totally lame dads.
"Alternative rock" is a bs term made up by record labels in the 90s to market every bland new band as the next Nirvana or Radiohead. Like Muse. I can understand why you might find Grizzly Bear or Dirty Projectors to be boring, but the idea that a band like Muse is keeping alive some sort of cool punk rock attitude kind of boggles my mind. There are plenty of cool, not-vanilla rock bands out there. Muse is not really one of them.
Okay, I was wrong about the violence, but I still feel like the whole premise is silly.
I love horror movies and have probably seen thousands of horny teenage girls murdered on screen but I am fully aware that actual violence is really, really bad and gross in infinite ways. I do think about violence in film and how it affects me and others and about desensitization. I'm sure there are some people too dumb to understand this stuff, but as has been pointed out, they probably won't watch this movie. The fact that Haneke feels he needs to explain all this to people strikes me as condescending.
(And hello Strangefate. INTERNET WORLDS COLLIDING.)
I have not seen either version of "Funny Games", but the movie already kind of pisses me off from what I've read about it.
It's a graphically violent and self-aware movie intended as a commentary on our acceptance and desensitization to violence. Correct? Is that it? Because if so, that is a ridiculously simple and kind of pretentious premise for a movie. Yes, there is a lot of violence in American films and we've all become quite desensitized to it. Am I not supposed to be aware of this? Did Haneke think that we were all sitting here with no awareness of this fact and that once "Funny Games" was remade for American audiences, the producers of the Saw franchise would realize the error of their ways and throw themselves into an overly complex death trap of some kind? I get the impression that this is mostly just an icky movie based around some kind of obnoxiously moralizing premise about how icky we ourselves are and how ashamed we should be of ourselves. Remember when Gabe reviewed "Goodbye Uncle Tom", that insane movie about slavery? I may not be remembering things correctly, but it seemed like this is exactly the argument he was making against that movie.
I think it all just seems very unnecessary and gross. I mean, I'm taking a class on philosophy in film right now and writing a paper on Bergman's "Persona". "Persona" was my first exposure to a Bergman film and I found it almost traumatic. I mean, I've watched some pretty disturbing movies - particular moments of "Man Bites Dog" come to mind - and they've definitely made me squirm, but a monologue in "Persona" actually had me tearing up, because of the intensity of it. It felt like the emotional equivalent of having someone yell in your face for six minutes. And it was just words. Words in Swedish that I couldn't even understand without subtitles! But it was so skillfully acted, directed, and written that I was drawn in and absolutely horrified. It didn't take some snarky kid in khakis killing an innocent family to seriously, seriously disturb me. In comparison, "Funny Games"' attempts at disturbing its audience just sound very shallow and predictable, in service of a pretty pointless and annoying message.
If I found James Gandolfini in my living room - even in a creepy Homer Simpson mask - I would jizz my pants, not shit them, and then would hopefully remove his.
SORRY BUT I'M JUST TELLIN' THE TRUTH.
It must have really been a stretch of Joe Pesci's award-winning(?) acting skills to rap arrhythmically while staring blankly into a camera.
Did they just drug him and prop him up in front of a board to film this?
UGH. This has been a horrible week and I haven't even had time to read videogum most of the time.
Now to cap it off I've developed what seem to be very flu-like symptoms. Hopefully for y'all swine flu isn't blog transmittable.
In all seriousness, I think these children's strange mannerisms and thin, bizarre voices suggest that they are being abused, or are engaging in incestuous relationships because they've been locked in an attic for their entire lives.
SOMETHING ISN'T RIGHT HERE.
As a trained vagina scientist, I can assure that washing your head with 'feminine wash' WILL TURN YOU INTO A VAGINA HEAD DO YOU HEAR THAT WESLEY YOU ARE NOW A BIG DUMB VAGINA HEAD.
Your only option now is to become a lady.
Has Gabe ever done "You Got Served"? Because it's hilarious! I've considered suggesting it but I thought that dance movies might be discouraged because they are so often ridiculous.
Actually, on second thought, "You Got Served" has far too much unintended comedic value to really be criticized. Even Gabe could never really do it justice. You should all just watch it yourselves.
I was reading Roger Ebert's review of Where the Wild Things Are the other day and he wondered how the Wild Things procreate.
I think Spike Jonze just gave us the answer.
I wasn't here at all this week! And now I'm posting at five in the morning on a saturday like anyone is going to read this!
I was very busy. I didn't even get a chance to post my balloon boy photoshop which I swear was made without ever seeing HarshBrowns' comment:
"I promise you Scott, this video is going to be the beginning of a new era for you. It's going to be so fucking indie, you don't even know. This song already sounds just like Animal Collection, now you just need a hip video to go with it. You'll look like such a cool indie hipster that all the pitchforkers will be blogging about you all the time. You're going to be bangin' Zoe Dashnell and doing lines with The Grizzly Bears all night."
"Wow, mr. video director, it sure sounds like you know what you're talking about."
Good observation.
Another example: The best thing that ever happened to the Beatles was that they broke up. They didn't have time to burn out and become unfairly branded an 'oldies act'. See: the Beach Boys.
While I don't believe in giving him too much attention, I think Limbaugh (as well as O'Reilly and Ann Coulter) clearly belongs in the category of right wing lunatics who are quite "clever" (in an eeevil sort of way) and know exactly what they're doing and that they're pissing people off. They aren't as crazy as they seem and they know that half of what they say is nonsense. It's all an act.
Glenn Beck on the other hand, is of the other type, who are just LOONYTUNES enough to actually believe their own rhetoric. The dude cried on national TV.
It's hard to decide which one is more dangerous.
You guys have got it right.
I'm taking a class in US foreign policy right now and the stuff about the Taliban scares the shit out of me. The main issue is that they're gaining strength across the border in Pakistan, which means they're threatening an already very shaky government WHICH HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS. This is the real reason why Afghanistan is so high priority. While we have precautions in place for that kind of a worst case scenario, the idea of Islamic extremist getting anywhere near nuclear weapons is horrifying for just about everyone. And it our fault, basically, for going into Afghanistan in the first place.
Sorry to get so off-topic and We'reAllGoingtoDiegum but this is all really scary.
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