Donald Trump is Saruman

This has been a very difficult time for me.  The election has consumed me to the point where I find myself spending less and less time talking about and obsessing over my love of all things geeky.  My conversations regarding the practicalities of the Starkiller base or why Spike is far superior to Angel have been overtaken by conversations of hacked e-mails and the hate speech of Donald Trump.  I wanted to write something about my feelings regarding this election (even though everyone who knows me knows that “I’m With Her”) but I wanted to do it in a way that remains true to my geek heart.  I think I found a way…

                Donald Trump is Saruman.  Now I’m not talking Saruman before the events of Lord of the Rings, I’m talking Saruman during Lord of the Rings; the Saruman who decides to use the Uruk Hai to try to take over Middle-earth for himself.  Trump, like Saruman, sees the potential for a shift in power now that the ring is in play (aka the US election).  Saruman decides to use the evil spawned from Sauron to help him win the ring.

                Sauron is the big evil, the big bad.  In this context he’s Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Misogyny, Anti-Semitism, Bigotry, etc.  Trump is not the big bad but he’s using the instruments of the big bad in the same way Saruman used the instruments of Sauron, to try to win control.  Trump might not be in bed with the likes of David Duke or the neo-Nazis & white supremacists who follow him but he isn’t disavowing them, and he’s using their support to try and win the White House like Saruman is using the Orcs to find the ring and rule Middle-earth.

                Not all of Trump’s supporters are the hate spewing spawns of Sauron, others more closely resemble Grima Wormtongue, but you know them as Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie & Ben Carson.  Like Wormtongue they are servants who are there to weave discord to help favor their master who has promised them favors for their loyal support.  In Grima’s case he was promised Eowyn while Giuliani, Christie & Carson have been promised cabinet positions in Trump’s America.  Somehow I doubt the three of them will converge on Trump and murder him should he fail to win the Presidency but you never know.

                In the end, as we know, Saruman is defeated and we can only hope it won’t take Ents to help defeat Trump on November 8th.  I hope you enjoyed my attempt at weaving the election into something geek related to help bring me back to my roots which are inane ramblings regarding various aspects of geekdom.  Perhaps I’ll find the time one day to explain how Hillary Clinton is like Gandalf.

The Force Awakens Spoiler-rific Review

Even though I wrote the word "spoiler" in the title I'm going to again say it here that this blog will be filled with spoilers for The Force Awakens.  If you have not yet seen the movie continue reading at your own peril.  You've been warned.

I'm going to start off by saying I absolutely loved this movie.  It reminded me why I fell in love with Star Wars as a child.  Any and all issues I had with the film are completely me nitpicking.  It was fun, it was exciting, it was devastating and it left me wanting to re-watch it immediately after the credits started rolling.

After giving some careful thought to how I could review or discuss this movie in any coherent manner, as with most things I love, I can drone on and one and go off on 50 tangents which would make for an awful review, I think I will review the film character by character.

To get things going I'll start with the smallest character, BB-8.  BB-8 was fine, he was a cute little droid ball who really was used to bring Rey into the mix and as a means to sell toys.  BB-8 is set up to be the R2-D2 for the generation that will call this trilogy their own.  R2-D2 is and will always be better than BB-8 and I loved the fact that R2-D2 was so distraught over Luke's disappearance that he pretty much just shut himself down.  Good stuff.

Original Gangster

Finn was a really interesting character for me.  I'll admit that I purposely avoided any and all Star Wars information leading up tot he movie so his origin as well as anything else about him were totally foreign to me until I sat to watch the movie.  His origin, what little we learn of him, highlights the fact that this First Order will take children and raise them to be their soldiers, even going so far as to take away their names.  Adds a bit of darkness to this group of people that wasn't there in the prequels or the original trilogy.  In the prequels they're clones and in the original trilogy they're people who signed up under their own free will...anyway, I digress.

Finn seemed to have a real noble heart and strong idea of right from wrong for someone who has been raised by the First Order.  His lack of knowledge about the world around him based off his upbringing brought naivety to the character which helped usher in the audience into this world we both know from being raised on Star Wars but don't know because a good amount has happened in 30 years.

Now Rey was a great character that I'm excited to learn more about.  She's a strong and capable person who can hold her own.  I loved the scene where she used the force to make the Stormtrooper free her, leave the door open and drop his weapon on the way out.  I also loved the vulnerability they gave the character as highlighted in the scene where she finds Luke's lightsaber and runs from the responsibility of the moment because she doesn't think she can handle wield that power.  And lastly I absolutely loved the reveal that she was the Jedi because all the marketing and trailers made me believe it was Finn.  Seeing her and Kylo fight and her eventually getting the best of him and fucking up his face was amazingly satisfying.  A female Jedi lead character!

"Let go of my hand! I know how to run."

Poe Dameron seems cool but there really isn't much of a character to dissect yet.  We're told his the best pilot in the Resistance, we have no idea where he came from and he's involved in one of the more annoying "nothing to see here" moments when he just shows back up safe and sound and leading the Resistance pilots after seemingly dying in a crash landing in Jakku.  I've formed zero opinion of Poe and I guess I'll just have to see where they go with him in Episode VIII.

Kylo Ren...fuck that guy.  Kylo Ren is exactly how Anakin Skywalker in the prequels should've been portrayed.  He's a young man with power he doesn't know how to control completely.  He wants to be this great dark side power like his grandfather Darth Vader but he seems to find himself conflicted.  We don't know a lot about him other than his real name is Ben Solo. We know that Luke tried to train him to be a Jedi before Ben lost his shit and killed all the other Padawans resulting in Luke disappearing after blaming himself for losing Ben to the dark side.  He belongs to the Knights of Ren and the movie doesn't really explain much about that either.  I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Kylo Ren...the fucker who killed the one of the coolest dudes in the Galaxy.

Fuck you!

Han Solo is still awesome and he's still hanging with Chewie, the coolest Wookiee ever born on Kashyyyk.  He's back to his smuggling ways and has fallen out of the Rebel/Resistance lifestyle.  He's gotten older but he's still the smooth talking, scruffy looking, nerf herder we all fell in love with in the Mos Eisley Cantina.  Han's best moments in the movie come when he's talking with Rey.  You see a real fatherly affection for Rey in the moments when the two of them talk, even when he's trying to play it off that he couldn't care less, but hey, that's Han Solo for you.

I can't bring up Han Solo here without also bringing up "the moment".  As soon as Han calls out his sons name and meets him on that catwalk of the Starkiller I think we all knew what was going to happen next and I think Han did as well.  Seeing Han Solo is Dad trying to help his son, even if it meant sacrificing himself (something any parent can relate to) was something to see because it was a side of Han we've never seen before.   Seeing Han touch his son's face one last time with affection even after his son just murdered him was a scene I'm not likely to forget.

The movie also did a great job with Chewbacca's reaction immediately after Han's death.  Chewbacca growling in anguish as he shoots every Stormtrooper he can find.  Seeing him mourn made me sad.  Much sadder than a grown man should admit.

RIP and may the Force be with you

Now on to some general thoughts:

• General Organa tough as nails and leading the Resistance.  I love that she hung up the Princess moniker for General.  It seems she'll be more of a secondary character now though.
• Enough with giant space stations that can blow up planets.  It's like when Superman Returns came out and Lex was once again doing evil as a real estate scheme.  Death Star I & II were both destroyed by the Rebels and your answer is to just build a Death Planet.  I don't even want to think about the physics involved with destroying a sun in order to fire the weapon and how the hell does it find another sun to destroy to fire it a second time?  Does it move?  I will say I love that it was called Starkiller (the original name for Luke before it was changed to Skywalker).
• Admiral Ackbar!!!
• Nien Nunb!!!
• Where are you Lando?
• I would've liked a few quiet moments in the movie, it was very faced paced.
• Hat's off to J.J. Abrams for capturing the magic of the original trilogy.
• Star Wars is back!!!

I'm pretty sure I've missed some things because I honestly can talk about this movie and this franchise for an entire month without repeating myself.  Thanks for taking the time to read.  May the Force be with you.

I'm a Feminist

I’m a feminist.  I’ve never said it or wrote it outright but certainly my beliefs for as long as I can remember have been in support of equality for women in all areas of life.  It has always been a belief I knew I had but it has never been one that spent a lot of time thinking about.  That changed when my daughter was born.

Having a daughter has completely opened my mind further to the inequality that exists in even the littlest parts of our daily life and that just makes me angry.  We think of inequality and we think of feminism and some people think of larger social issues like equal wages or women’s fight for the right to vote in the early 1900s.  What I didn’t think about until I had a daughter was the fact that dress up clothes for boys are police officers, fire fighters & doctors, while dress up clothes for girls are princesses & ballerinas. 

 

Can someone tell me why there are “Legos for Girls”?  It’s legos for Christ sake!  For all these years have we been playing with boy legos and didn’t know it?  Holy shit, how did women like my wife grow up to be functional women while playing with boy legos? My daughter is too young for legos but she plays with duplo blocks and likes to make robots.  Everything she builds she says is a robot.  According to society I need to correct this immediately and help her build kitchens and kittens with her duplo blocks.

Which brings me to another thing, why are robots for boys?  Why are robots, cars & trains a boy thing?  My daughter loves cars, trains & robots and as long as she does I’ll continue to nurture that.  Children don’t know boy thing or girl thing…we’ve done that to them.  Adults have decided that a little girl shouldn’t play with a train and a little boy shouldn’t make breakfast in a play kitchen. 

 

Buzzfeed had an article a while back about 21 pointlessly gendered products (found here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinchack/pointlessly-gendered-products#.mlKq6zGApJ) and honestly that list should annoy the shit out of you, I know it annoys the shit out of me.  They sell girl microscopes…GIRL MICROSCOPES!  I mean what the absolute fuck does that even mean?  And as you scroll down the list you can see just how insane we are as a people and how far we haven’t come since women gained the right to vote nearly 100 years ago.

I’m going to ensure that my little girl grows up knowing that she can do anything, that “like a girl” is not a put down and that she can play with any type of legos she wants.

Building a Universe in a Hurry

Let me start off by laying a few cards on the table.  I prefer Marvel to DC, I dressed up as Superman a few Halloweens in a row (even had the forehead curl), I think Superman III was better than Man of Steel, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the best thing to happen to comics in my lifetime.  Now that I got that out of the way let me say that I do not like the rushed away DC is building their cinematic universe.

DC is in a bad position because they are nearly a decade behind Marvel with their universe.  Who knows how long the movie going public will clamor for comic based movies? It's only a matter of time before we reach saturation and DC needs to strike while the iron is still hot.  This is why Superman v Batman: Dawn of Justice (ugh!) movie is stuffed with superhero cameos, got to make up for lost time but while that may seem like a necessity I can't help but feel it is also a mistake.

This movie has Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Aquaman and who knows who else.  Now you may say "hey this worked in The Avengers" and I'd say "yes it did" which may result in you saying "so why is this a negative?" and then I'd reply "because in The Avengers we already had 4 (not counting The Incredible Hulk) movies where we learned about each character and care about them but here we're just supposed to care about Wonder Woman because it's Wonder Woman?".  DC is banking on us giving a crap about these characters just because they're the characters.  Would you want to know what makes this Batman a grizzled & tired crime fighter?  Yeah, me too.

The last thing I'll say is I don't trust the team building the DC Universe.  Goyer's comments regarding She-Hulk "I think She-Hulk is the chick that you could f**k if you were Hulk, you know what I’m saying? … She-Hulk was the extension of the male power fantasy. So it’s like if I’m going to be this geek who becomes the Hulk then let’s create a giant green porn star that only the Hulk could f**k." and the dark and joyless Superman created by Snyder leave me wondering what they'll do to the rest of the DC gang.  Meanwhile, Marvel has Whedon and well...all hail Joss Whedon.

I hope DC can pull it off but outside the Nolan Batman trilogy their track record this decade has been less than stellar.

In The Doghouse

Michael Vick, the Don King of dog fighting, is now a New York Jet.  I'll be honest, I have mixed feelings about this marriage. 

From a football standpoint if he can stay healthy and all the planets align he might actually help Geno mature on the field and can help out at a position that has been lacking on the Jets since Testaverde left.  A lot can go wrong but for once the Jets have a viable option at QB...maybe.

From a human side I don't like it all that much.  I love animals, I love animals more than people and what he did is disgusting and unforgivable but at some a man has paid for his crimes, right? Granted depending on where you live paying for your crimes means dying (am I right Texas?) but Vick has served his time and has, unlike many, many people, actually turned his life around. 

We're used to seeing football players get into trouble with the law and have it become a repeatable issue: carrying illegal weapons, drug possession, shootings, DUIs, vehicular manslaughter, spousal abuse, murder, etc.  And as completely disgusting as his actions were, he hasn't run into any trouble since.  You can argue that he is a role model for turning your life around after making mistakes.

Now some "fans" have decided that they can no longer root for the Jets because Michael Vick is on the team, and whatever, if you're the type of person who can stop rooting for a team that easily I'm fine with you no longer being a fan of my team.  And if you don't root for a team with questionable characters I suggest you stop rooting for any team in any sport.

So while I'm not going to run out and buy my dog a Vick Jets' jersey, I'm not going to burn all my jerseys either.  Hopefully this will be good for the team in the long run and to be honest that's all I give a damn about...but I still don't like it very much.

Agent Coulson Should've Stayed Dead

Agent Coulson should have stayed dead.  Back when the Avengers came out I never thought I would have said that, but I realize now that by resurrecting him for Agents of SHIELD it completely sullied what his death meant.  Considering I'm still not over Fred dying in Angel or Wash dying in Firefly this revelation of mine is a pretty big deal.

Agent Coulson's death in the Avengers was the push that the very separate heroes needed to come together to as a team.  It was a heroes death, he didn't get sliced in half like Anya in an almost blink and you'll miss it moment.  Not only that, but by bringing him back it sullies the impact that a character's death should have, something comic books generally fail to realize. 

It is surprising to me that someone like Joss Whedon wouldn't realize that bringing someone back from the dead would cheapen the impact of the death.  As I've already mentioned, this is the man that is responsible for deaths of characters that I still have not gotten over and it has been years.  The death of Coulson in the Avengers put a dose of realism into a movie about thunder gods and gamma irradiated scientists.  The heroes can win but sometimes it comes with a cost, now that Coulson is back, that cost doesn't exist.

It is still possible that Agents of SHIELD will make this mistake worthwhile (it won't), a hook or a twist that will make me change my mind (I doubt it), but right now I can't help but wish that the last time we saw Agent Coulson he was slowly bleeding out.

Agents of Y.A.W.N.

I want to love Agents of SHIELD, I really do.  I was super excited for the show when it was first announced and even more excited to know that Joss Whedon would be at the helm.  Sadly, the show has failed to live up to the hype that surrounded it prior to its release.

I have watched every episode of this show, including the most recent episode that was said to shed some light on how Agent Coulson was murdered by Loki in The Avengers yet somehow was starring in the show.  So in the eleventh episode we finally found out how Agent Coulson survived and it was not really worth the wait.  I watched 11 hours worth of television to find out how Agent Coulson survived and now that I know I should have just made something up cause it would have been more interesting.

My trust in Joss Whedon has taken a major hit.  I would gladly trade you Agents of SHIELD for a few more episodes of Firefly, hell I'd trade you Agents of SHIELD for a Dollhouse TV movie.  Unfortunately that isn't a deal I or anyone else can make, ABC has shelled out a lot of cash for this TV show (as evident by some of the CGI work) that we're getting at least one more season but hell maybe that's a good thing.

It is entirely possible that the entire first season will just end up being one big growing pain and come season two it'll take off like a bat out of hell, minus Meatloaf.  If that's the case, I'll be happy for it because I love Marvel and I'm a big fan of Joss' work but I'm not holding my breath.  ABC looks to be sticking with the show, I just wish FOX would've done the same all those years ago...sigh.  Browncoats Unite!

I Heart Giant Robots

I was going to say nothing makes me cringe more than the phrase "gritty reboot" and then I realized that is a fucking lie.  It's a powerful way to start a rant, but I'm trying to be truthful here, so I'll just say the phrase "gritty reboot" makes me cringe and fills me with dread.  Now that I got that out of the way let me get to my point.

I recently watched Pacific Rim and loved it and honestly what's not to love?  Giant robots fighting giant monsters, it basically popped out of the screen and said "hey 10 year old version of Jordan, how fucking awesome is this?" and I responded back with "So awesome!".  It was only after I came down from my giant robot high that I realized Pacific Rim made me dislike the gritty reboot of Superman more than I already did.

Hell Yeah!

Why did Pacific Rim make me dislike Man of Steel more?  Because Pacific Rim was a fun action movie that didn't take itself too seriously and Man of Steel was a drama about a guy who is super bummed that he is Superman and took itself as seriously as a documentary about Auschwitz.  Let's not act like just because Pacific Rim was about ridiculously large robots fighting ridiculously large monsters that it was allowed to take itself less serious than Man of Steel; Man of Steel is about a guy from another planet that is super strong because of Earth's yellow sun...that's pretty much it.

Don't get me wrong, I love Superman.  As a kid I grew up idolizing Superman and I think I went as him for Halloween 3 years in a row, that's what makes me so upset about the gritty reboot, I really wanted to love this movie.  Instead I got a depressed Superman who is literally responsible for thousands upon thousands of deaths during his fight with General Zod and never once stops to try to help as buildings come crashing down. The Christopher Reeve Superman would've moved the fight away from Metropolis, hell he would've moved the fight away from a tree if he thought a family of birds lived there.  

I loved Pacific Rim because it made me feel like a kid again, sadly Man of Steel made me believe a man could fly but couldn't make me care.

I'm Back...Sorry

I told myself that when I got a new laptop I would take blogging back up again.  My apologies to all since this blog is pretty much mental masturbation and nothing more.  It gives me an opportunity to write, which I do enjoy doing, and also voice whatever the hell is on my mind at any given time.

The last time I wrote a blog I was getting ready to build a crib for my not yet born little girl.  Needless to say that was a long time ago, nearly a full calendar year, and a few things have happened since then.  I think the biggest thing that has happened is that the crib has been occupied by my daughter now for nearly 9 months.

I'm writing this instead of cleaning the kitchen floor.  She went down for a nap about an hour ago now and I had no way of knowing she'd be sleeping this long.  And as I write this sentence the damn phone rung and woke her up.

You can thank the bullshit card services phone call for my not going into detail about how much I love my daughter and how rewarding it is to be a dad.  Chances are if you're reading this you are already friends with me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter which means you've already heard me talk about that over and over again anyway. 

In conclusion, I'm back...maybe.  I'd like to write more and spend some more time with this blog.  I got a lot of opinions that no one cares about that I'd love to share in 2014.

Crib Building and Other Elvis Costello B-Sides

Has everyone who will get the title gotten it yet?  Yes?  Ok, let's move on then.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, it is also the day that my father and I will build my little girl's crib.  I think I'm going to start referring to her as The Oncoming Storm and to hell with anyone that doesn't get that reference.  My dad and I haven't built anything together since I was a teenager so it should be fun.

I've been told by everyone that building a crib is fun, but they generally snicker after saying the word "fun".  I've been told the dreaded allen wrench is a prominent feature in the building of cribs.  I fucking hate allen wrenches.  Generally they're always required for some tight spaced area that you can't see, so you spend your time trying to find the groove so the wrench will fit into the bolt and all you get out of your hard work is one small turn of the screw.  Bloody useless.

In the end obviously it is worth it.  I want my little oncoming storm to have a nice safe and sturdy crib to sleep in, she will after all be the one choosing my nursing home.

As I mentioned before, today is also the Super Bowl, it is footballs Christmas Day.  For the fans of the two teams it is the excitement of Christmas morning.  For the fans of the other teams it is what Christmas is like for Jews, we can enjoy the pretty lights or the game, but we aren't really participating.

I'm a fan of the absolutely horrible New York Jets so I've grown accustomed to just rooting for a good game and generally picking a side so I have some sort of rooting interest.  When the dust settles today I hope the Ravens win.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday everyone!  Now to get this crib building started.

Fatherhood or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Get Excited

I have been meaning for a long time now to write about one of the biggest things to ever happen in my life, namely, my wife being pregnant and me being a father-to-be. 

At first I thought I would chronicle the milestones, something that I could look back on and read and something my little girl could read as well, once she'd learn to read.  Then my wife mentioned that we should both write something, like a welcome to the world type letter for her, I suppose there is still time to do that.  Finally I thought to myself that I should write a blog and well...here we are.

We're two months away from the big day and as it gets closer the more excited I get.  The little person whose kicks I've felt, whose profile I saw in the sonogram, who I helped create is almost here...and her room is completely not ready for her.  Outside of the farther reaching excitement, there is so much practical shit that needs to get done.

We've got two baby showers coming up, I'm currently sitting in the nursery and nothing has changed in here that would make anyone think we're having a baby.  Things need to be moved, things need to be purchase (hopefully off the registry) for us to be able to put together the room that will go from our extra bedroom into _______'s bedroom. 

Omitting a name above wasn't some clever way to keep people from knowing her name, because I don't know her name.  We have a pretty good idea of what we think her name will be but nothing has been 100% decided upon and well I think we need to get on that too.  It is a big deal to name a person, but it is exciting.

I wasn't always excited, if I'm being honest.  I was terrified at first, and for a few months too.  The idea that I am going to be responsible for another life is just overwhelming.  I'm going to bring this little girl into the world.  I'm going to need to keep her safe, teach her right and wrong and try to help her become the best possible person she can be.  That will be my new full-time job for the rest of my life...it's just crazy to think about.

Bottom line is I'm going to be somebody's daddy and I can't wait to meet her. 

Spoilers: Facebook, Twitter & You!

Hello all, I do apologize for leaving you for so long.  It was never my intent to have gone what I believe must be months at this point without a new blog to fill a few moments of your day with fleeting joy.  If you can all forgive me for leaving you I'd like to jump right into a new bloggy wog.

Spoilers!  Ooooh we all hate them. Just that one word can get people to stick their fingers in their ears and shout "Lalalala! I can't hear you!".  No one wants to have something spoiled for them, especially something you become emotionally invested in.  It used to be that you could just avoid websites that you would know would contain spoilers, that isn't enough.  If you're on Facebook and Twitter you run the risk of following or being friends with someone that may spoil something inadvertently. 

DVR and Netflix make it possible now to be watching a show that may have run its entire course for the first time, leaving yourself open to something that you may view as a spoiler but someone who watched the show feel is nothing more than common knowledge.  Where is the line!  Well I'll tell you.  This is near and dear to me because it is my personal experience, this is the reason for me writing this new blog.
 
I just started watching Doctor Who, in fact I just finished season 3.  While writing on Facebook about how much I enjoyed a particular episode someone that I am friends with posted a comment to my status.  The comment was perfectly harmless for someone who has seen the show and to be honest the statute of limitations had come and gone for something to be a spoiler.  Meaning Bruce Willis being dead the whole time is no longer a spoiler, it is just plain common knowledge and if you don't know that by now it is your own damned fault anyway.  Now the reason why I consider this to be a spoiler is because he posted it to my status. 

Posting something about a movie or a TV show as a comment on someone's status or as a tweet, hey @LegitimateGeek can you believe ________, is a spoiler.  Especially considering that if you are following or friends with that person you are more than likely aware that they are watching that particular piece of entertainment.  I just said I finished watching this episode which means that I am just on that episode, my knowledge of this particular television universe does not expand passed this point in time. 

How could anything said about what comes next, even if it is just to say "wait till you see what happens to _____" not be a spoiler?  Though you've said nothing directly and given away nothing concrete you've now opened up my mind to something it cannot as of yet know, nor does it want to know because it wants to find it out for itself.  It would have been perfectly harmless posted as your own status or as your own tweet, but once you've directed it towards someone you've committed the mortal sin of spoil.

Your place in hell is between the 4th and 5th layers.  Not entirely certain though.

Women Can Be Funny

Women aren't funny, that's what I'm told.  I'm not sure when that became the popular sentiment but it seems to be viewed as common knowledge.  I have very recently watched Bridesmaids, a movie that is currently the highest grossing female comedy beating out Sex and the City (ugh).  That right there is a reason women are universally panned as being not funny, they enjoy Sex and the City, also they think Sarah Jessica Parker is beautiful.

I'll be honest, I really enjoyed Bridesmaids and not as a movie where women are funny but as a comedy.  It had its slow moments but it is rare to find any movie that is brings it from start to finish.  What I will say is that I liked this movie, I'm not going to run out and buy it on bluray but I'll be damned if I'd say it didn't make me laugh. I said as much on Facebook last night and received a few comments to the contrary and it got me thinking about this idea that women aren't funny.

It is true that you rarely see a woman in comedy that isn't meant to just stand there as an object of lust for one of our male protagonists or is clutching her pearls in horror at the hijinks that are being laid out before her.  I'm also reminded of the term "the hole" that I first heard while listening to O&A to describe the woman on a radio show who's job it is to say "oh that's not nice" or "stop that" whilst laughing at something crude being said by the men on the show. 

Won't somebody think of the children?

I argue that women can be funny, sadly my first example was born in 1926 but that doesn't make her less funny or my example any less valid.  Cloris Leachman was a staple of some of Mel Brooks' finest movies.  If you've seen her in Young Frankenstein as Frau Blucher (neigh) or most recently as Maw Maw in Raising Hope you'd have to agree that she is one funny lady.  Never afraid to reach the absurd or ugly herself up, she was a woman that could hang with the boys.

He vas my boyfriend!

I can continue on with examples of women that I personally feel are funny like Madeline Kahn, Amy Sedaris, Tiny Fey, Kerri Kenney, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Jane Curtin, Catherine O'Hara, Jane Lynch, etc.  but what would that prove?  If anything it proves that for every woman I can name there are probably 5 men that I can add. Maybe it isn't that women aren't funny but rather they aren't asked to be. 

I think most women would rather be told they're beautiful than told they're funny.  A woman would rather walk into a room and be longed after rather than laughed at.  Is that true?  Perhaps to a point, and maybe that's the problem. 

Parody Movies Aren't Dead...Yet

I want to say parody movies are dead, but instead I'll be optimistic and say they're on life support.  Last night I watched Spaceballs with my wife, this was her first time seeing the movie.  It had been awhile since I had seen the movie but I still knew every line and still laughed at every punch line.  I realized that I was even laughing at things I had not laughed at previously because I've gotten older and only now got some of the jokes that were previously over my head. 

Spaceballs holds up, as does every other Mel Brooks movie, with maybe the exception being Dracula: Dead & Loving It, but even that is better than the crop of dreck that calls itself parody movies.  The writing duo of Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg have lobotomized the comedy art form that Mel Brooks made famous.  I couldn't help but think that in the hands of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer a Star Wars parody would most assuredly turn Yoda into Yo'Dawg and had the character played by Tracy Morgan.

Rather than create a top 5 worst list of movies these two have "written" because to be honest none of them are good enough to be numbers 2-5, I thought I'd point out what is wrong with all of them. I have not seen them all but much like you didn't need to know Hitler to know he was a bad man, you don't need to see these movies to know they're awful.

These two modern day Shakespeare's are responsible for Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Vampires Suck, Meet the Spartans & The Biggest Movie of All Time 3D.  The premise of all of these movies is to take whatever is relevant right now...right now not three seconds ago but right now at this very minute that they're writing the movie and put that into the movie.  They will shoe horn it into a movie if they have to.

Britney Spears shaving her head is still super relevant and funny, right?

The scene above is from Meet the Spartans where our dynamic writing duo took the short scene from 300 where King Leonidas kicks the Persian messenger into a pit and dragged it on for so long just so they could incorporate a super timely Britney Spears reference as well as the American Idol judges. 

Rather than continue to show examples of the awful shoe horned pop culture references that litter their movies I'd like to instead provide just one example of why Mel Brooks is a genius and these two are putzes.  My example is the comedic masterpiece High Anxiety, which is a take on Vertigo and many other Hitchcock films.

It's not always good to be the King

Dr. Richard Thorndyke suffers from High Anxiety due to a trauma at a very young age.  In his attempt to help a beautiful young woman rescue her father from the "Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, VERY Nervous" where he is the new administrator.  In an homage to The Birds Dr. Thorndyke is attacked by pigeons that shit all over him.  In a nod to Psycho he is attacked by a bell hop in the shower with a newspaper, we see the ink slowly slip down the drain.  In a scene that might have nothing to do with anything the good Dr. is attacked while making a phone call in a phone booth and his heavy breathing and struggle to live is mistaken for a dirty phone call by Madeline Kahn.  I could go on but I won't.

The point in all this is that we are in desperate need of smart comedies and parodies.  We have allowed ourselves to be fed the awful spoofs and Movie that the dynamic duds have thrown at us.  We should be demanding more from our entertainment and from Hollywood. 

I do believe the next blog I write will be devoted entirely to Mel Brooks movies, perhaps a top 5 list of my favorites.  He is one of my favorite directors which should come as no surprise considering we're both non practicing Jews from Brooklyn with a thing for Italian women.

Batman & Robin or: Why Did I Sit Down to Watch This?

A few days ago I got the urge to watch Batman & Robin again, the 1997 movie directed by Joel Schumacher and starring George Clooney.  The last time I had seen the movie was when it came out, don't judge me I was 15 years old at the time and I didn't know that it was going to be that bad.  Maybe a year ago I stumbled upon a four pack for under $10 at Costco of the Batman movies, it included: Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. 

I came to the conclusion that if I was going to subject myself to this terrible movie a second time that at the very least I would get a blog out of it.  I decided I'd try to find things that others have not yet found in the movie, nuggets of awfulness or surprising bright spots.  I set out to write a pros versus cons list for the movie that killed that Batman franchise.  There were no pros so instead here are 5 cons.

#1 Campy without being fun
There is nothing wrong with setting out to make a campy movie, I love the Adam West Batman.  The problem they ran into here is that it was campy without any of the fun that the 1966 movie and 60s TV show brought to the table 

Never leave the cave without it

When Batman pulls out his GothCard with its expiration date of FOREVER I'm assuming the audience was supposed to get a good chuckle out of it.  That bit of awfulness is actually overshadowed by the various cartoon sounds that accompany nearly every fight scene.

#2 Mr. Freeze
I know it has been mentioned before but it is too glaring not to point out.  I'm fairly certain not a single line is uttered by Mr. Freeze that is not a pun.  Not one. 

Freeze! Chill! Cool out! Ice to see you!

Read the script, re-watch the movie, I swear to you not a single line uttered by Mr. Freeze did not contain a terrible pun that would've made Burt Ward roll his eyes.

Holy shitty writing Batman!

#3 Uma Thurman
Above I pointed to Mr. Freeze as being terrible but not Arnold and the reason for that is because Arnold doesn't really act in any movie he has been in.  All of his characters sound the same because apparently decades in the United States can't do away with that thick Austrian accent.  The moment Uma Thurman becomes Poison Ivy she talks like someone doing a bad impression of what women in the 1930s talked like. 

#4 The Story
Alfred is sick, oh and by the way he has a niece that is stopping by and we are going to take the Barbara Gordon we all know and love and make her his niece thus removing the need to have to come up with an interesting way to introduce this new character.

Be sure to buy the action figure though

Alfred has a made up disease that is the same disease that Mr. Freeze's wife has.  The cure has something to do with needing diamonds, which is also the same thing he needs to power his suit, which makes it a really fucking expensive suit to operate.  Meanwhile, Poison Ivy is angry because blah blah blah plants, mother earth, blah blah blah, who cares really because they don't really tell you why.

Somewhere along the way Batman, Robin & Batgirl all learn to trust, love, care for, fight alongside one another and save the day.  The story is so bad and so non-existent I literally watched the movie no more than 30 minutes ago and am having an issue explaining it now here.

#5 Ice Skates
Very beginning of the movie the dynamic duo go to stop Mr. Freeze, when they first leave they do not know that shit is going down, they do not know that Mr. Freeze even exists.  They get into a scuffle with the frosty Austrian and decide it is time to even the scales in this fight.

They just clicked their fucking heels together

Are these a standard feature in the suits?  How would that even work?  Who came up with this and have they been properly punished?

Hopefully the pain I endured re-watching this movie has brought you a modicum of joy while reading this blog.  If you do feel the urge to watch Batman & Robin I suggest you ingest lye instead.  Or just watch any of the other Batman movies, I suggest the Adam West movie for some good campy fun. 

Keep these on you just in case

5 Teams I'd rather see in the Super Bowl

Today is Super Bowl Sunday and I couldn't be more uninterested.  If you know me then you know it isn't because I dislike football but rather due to the two teams playing this year for the Lombardi Trophy.  The New York Giants have appeared in 4 Super Bowls and have won 3 of them, today will be their 5th appearance.  The New England Patriots have appeared in 6 Super Bowls and won 3 of them, today will be their 7th appearance.  As far as I can tell their is no underdog in this fight, no lovable loser finally trying to attain greatness.  That is why I present to you my list of 5 teams I would rather see play in and win a Super Bowl.


#1

New York Jets

This choice is a totally biased choice.  For those of you who know me I'm a die hard Jets fan and for those of you who don't know me...well now you know I'm a die hard Jets fan.  Through bad times and worse, through sickness and death...I'm a Jets fan.  The Jets have appeared in and won exactly 1 Super Bowl in their existence and that was way back in 1969 in Super Bowl III.  43 years have passed since then and we are getting to the point where fans would gladly donate a testicle or two to get them back to the big game.





#2

Detroit Lions

Fans of this franchise would probably dismiss my complaining over 1 Super Bowl appearance and win for the mere fact that they've never even played in the big game.  The Lions have not won a thing since 1957 back before the NFL/AFL merger.  They are also the only team to have ever gone an entire season without recording a win.  If any team deserves a chance to sniff a Super Bowl it is this group of losers, and so long as they aren't there playing against my Jets, I'll be pulling for them.


#3

Cleveland Browns

The Cleveland Browns have the ugliest uniforms in the NFL, but that isn't really the only reason I have them on this list.  The poor Browns have never sniffed a Super Bowl after being one of the more successful teams prior to the NFL/AFL merger.  And if that isn't bad enough, after 50 years in Cleveland their owner moved them to Baltimore where they became the Baltimore Ravens and won the Super Bowl a short 4 years after the move. 



#4

Arizona Cardlinals

The Cardinals made the Super Bowl back in 2009 but that was their one and only trip to the big game.  The team was established in 1898(!) and became a charter member of the NFL in 1920.  They haven't won a title since 1947, which was a 62 year drought between playing in a championship game.  Here's hoping that they don't have to wait for another supermarket bag boy before they see their next Super Bowl.



#5

Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals have been to 2 Super Bowls and had to deal with the dynasty that was the Montana led 49ers.  If the Bengals teams of the 80s didn't come up against Joe Montana we might be talking about the Bengals dynasty of the 80s.  Their best years are marred by the fact that they just happened to be playing great football while other teams were playing legendary football.  




Enjoy the game today!