The Gospel According to Prisco

Maybe it’s me.  I’ve always considered myself a hopeless romantic, who believes in poetry and the narcotic bliss of love, and dancing in the rain.  I’m a dude, so for all intents and purposes, I’m not meant to like chick flicks.  We’re supposed to get dragged kicking and screaming to these odious romantic comedies and then sit there scowling, while we then drag our dearhearts to horror and action flicks and watch blood flow like wine. 

This year, I watched Enchanted and loved it.  Fucking loved every moment of that sparkling film.  The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally, it doesn’t get much better than Rob Reiner in his heyday.  And I thought Legally Blonde was magnificent.  So it is possible for me to like romantic comedies.  I just can’t understand how women allow themselves to be represented by this latest flock of crap. 

Hollywood’s been slapping women in the face with its collective dick over the last few months by throwing these poorly manufactured explotation flicks at them.  The last romantic comedy that seemed to move anyone to joy was Knocked Up.  So, it was with the trudge of a red shirted ensign that I went to my inevitable doom in what can only be deemed payback for the unholy miasma of crap I’ve exposed loving Higginbottom to.

27 Dresses was akin to watching an overweight bridesmaid squeezed into her gown: unpleasant to look at, awkwardly forced, blatantly and poorly manufactured, uncomfortably funny at time, and horribly misused.  It was as if this was written by manatees with a penchant for White Zinfandel. 

Katherine Heigl is a perpetual bridesmaid, one who constantly helps her friends out with their weddings.  The movie opens with her zipping back and forth from two wedding receptions in a cab in New York.  She’s got a hopeless crush on her boss George (Edward Burns) who’s an entrepreneur for an outdoor catalog.  Her model sister Tess (Malin Ackerman) comes to town and her and the boss instantly fall in love and decide to get married.  Of course, Heigl has to plan the whole wedding.  Enter convenient love interest Kevin (James Marsden) who stalks her until she agrees to see him.  Oh, but he also happens to be the newspaper writer whose writing she gushes over and saves.  How convenient. 

27 Dresses could have been a better movie.  It really had potential, but it just sort of got the train of the gown stuck in the door and couldn’t go anywhere.  Punching plot holes in chick flicks is akin to pointing out the logistics of character development in a slasher flick, but I think it’s about high time we started demanding more from romantic comedy instead of this formulaic hash.

First of all, I don’t care how wedding obsessed this chick is, she wouldn’t be going to two weddings on the same day.  Not in New York, not in a cab cross town.  Not going back and forth.  It actually makes her really frightening and desperate.  There’s always sort of this nervous edge of stalker/maniac in romantic comedy.  Like mysteriously showing up at places to talk to strangers, or memorizing details of a non-spouse’s life, or offering to go out for “just a drink”.  What’s the alternative?  No, no, we don’t have to fuck until the middle act, right now we just have to hate each other.  I’m going to start asking people to go out for “just a cheeseburger and a handjob.”  What?  Work off those calories.

The movie would totally derail characters that they worked so hard not to set up properly in the first place.  Heigl shows such hatred and loathing for Kevin, when they finally do hook up, it seems so trite and forced.  I’ve sung in bars before. I’ve led bars in song.  You never, NEVER, sing the same song twice.  Not in a row, that’s for goddamn sure.  I don’t know where these fuckers travel.  Apparently the magical bar that appears only during fierce monsoons in upstate New York on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere where people can just have drunken hate sex in cars. 

Plus, they set up this stupid love triangle, where not only does Heigl’s character have to watch her dipshit sister lie her way into the Dockers of the man she craves, but then she has to sit there and watch the relationship blossom like she some sort of melancholy chaffeur getting kicked in the back of the head while the “master” gives it to the chambermaid in the backseat.  Obviously, it’s the screenwriter’s sloppy way of demonstrating how selfish the sister is and how maniac Heigl is.  She can’t say no.  She’ll plan the perfect wedding for her cunt sister to the man she wants, because she loves WEDDINGS THAT MUCH.  That’s not just stupid, that’s borderline personality disorder.

The scene that made me angriest took place in some shitty shop, where Heigl’s character has to go and register her sister and her boss for their gifts.  Since they’ve got better things to do like…something I guess, I don’t know.  So Kevin tags along because he’s doing a story on the wedding.  I’m just pretending that the entire newspaper part of the story didn’t happen.  It was so tacked on and used to ill effect it mine as well have been cut from the movie.  During their exchange, it gets revealed that Kevin’s so bitter and cynical about weddings (even though he writes the beautiful pieces in the New York Journal about the weddings) because…gasp, shock…he went through a bitter divorce.  That’s all we hear about it.  That’s it.  That’s why, even though he dances and pines with all the fervor of a typical romantic comedy asshole, he’s not really into the whole wedding thing.  So, as a caveat, they decide to register the worst gifts for the couple.  It cuts.

That’s what I mean!  I would have loved to see the bonding scene between them choosing gifts.  That would have been perfect, developed the characters, made them interesting.  But no, we have to essentially have the Passion of the Bridesmaid as she gets tortured by her cunt sister and her oblvious boss.  What a waste.  And that’s what the movie keeps doing.  It just seems too stupid to realize when it’s doing things right.

Judy Greer is the only bright spot in this.  She’s fantastic as the best friend.  I now officially forgive her for Cursed.  She’s hilarious, and doesn’t deserve to be saddled with this movie.  She seems like she wandered in off the set of an awesomer movie to say her lines.  That can be the only logical reason for not using her properly in this one.

Edward Burns is criminally terrible as the boss/love interest. He’s the poor man’s Luke Wilson, and the only thing I can buy is that he has no fucking clue about what’s going on around him.  But then again, I’ve seen his writer/director work, so I know this is true.  And Malin Ackerman must suck the meanest cock in Hollywood to keep getting cast in things.  She’s a low-rent Cameron Diaz, and her only talent might be a scapegoat.  She’s so bad, she makes the rest of the cast seem Oscar worthy.  After seeing her in this, I bought a kitten from six year old standing on a street corner holding a box of kittens just so I could kick it into traffic.

But, maybe I’m just asking to much.  Maybe I’m too much of a bitter angry little man to appreciate the subtle nuances.  Higginbottom liked it.  So like I said, maybe it’s my fault for liking good things.

Higginbottom and I were discussing foreign films and the nominations.  She hails from Ohio, and so she explained how, whenever they would announce the films, everyone would sit around and go, “Huh?  Whuzzat?  I ain’t never heard of that?” (The ignorant speech is my elaboration.  Obviously, her kinfolk are much more mannered and proper in their speech.)  But this year, because of my instance on going to see EVERYTHING, I’ve opened her eyes to the glory that is arthouse cinema.  I seriously want to make out with the Laemmle family and that glorious stretch of Pasadena where the four theatres play.  So most of the films we hear about are the actual artsy fartsy.  And I’m all for that. 

So when I saw the trailer for Persepolis, in all its glorious flat comic animation and poorly tuned French accented “Eye of the Tiger” glory, I instantly leaned over and whispered, “Yes.  Yeeeeessss!”  I asked for Persepolis for Xmas, which Higginbottom purchased for me, and then wrapped it like a schoolbook so she could read it herself.  She actually finished the book before I was given it, and it’s sitting on my pile of stuff to read.  Higginbottom is a reader, but she will leap from book to book with a randomness that gives me “the jibblies”.  I’m in the midst of reading four books right now, but even I do it in order.  She’ll just spring around.  It’s like watching someone juggle swords.  I’m in awe. 

When I saw her sitting there, raptly focused on the book for days at a kick, I knew it was bound to be good.  And she said, she really enjoyed the first part of the book, but not so much the second.  (Persepolis is a two part memoir, done up like a comic book.)

The movie is done in black and white animation, in this beautifully minimistic style.  It’s actually my vote for Animated Feature of the Year, if only because it’s so different from anything I’ve ever seen on screen.  (Ratatouille should and will win this.)  Marjane Satrapi narrates her own story of growing up in Iran during the late 70’s and early 80’s, when the country turned back to fundamentalism.  It’s fascinating to see this depicted in cartoon style, and the characters are no less intriguing than anything in The Kite Runner.  The two movies beg parallels, because they depict surviving a childhood in a Middle Eastern country.  Though, being the ignorant American I am, I don’t really understand the vast cultural differences between Iran and Afghanistan.  I just know that’s where my carjuice comes from.

Persepolis follows Marjane as her family sends her to Vienna to study in a convent, and then her return to Iran.  The first part of the movie, her growing up in Iran as a little girl during the riots and government overthrow is spectacular.  The rest of the film, not so much.  It was like the weak middle of The Kite Runner.  The Iranian experience is what made the movie fresh and exotic.  But by the time she’s being an angsty teenager, it’s just that, another angsty teen coming of age story.  It’s lost most of its flavor by then.  So while it’s still charming, it’s not as charming. 

I’m glad this movie got made, and I really loved the visuals.  I thought by keeping the imagery simple, it was just as artistic and striking, if not moreso, as something like Sin City or even better the mostly visual Triplets of Belleville.  It’s worth a gander, and since most of the quality films are eeking out of the theatres to make way for the latest onslaught of garbage, get thee to a cinema and try to check it out on the bigscreen.

Oh, I like Ween.  It’s hard to LOVE Ween.  And the gruesome twosome make up the biggest island in the fucking archipelago that is my iPod.   But I don’t actively listen to Ween. 

For those who don’t know, Ween is essentially two dudes from outside Philly who’ve made a career being fucking batshit insane.  But the good kind of crazy, Picasso crazy, cut off a limb for your art crazy.  Or in their case, drop a shitload of mushrooms and write music. Ween is what radio sounds like in an alternate universe.  It’s a funhouse mirror up against anything that you can imagine, any style, any genre. 

You don’t discover Ween.  Someone introduces you to it.  Either by playing it in the car (as happened to me, thank you Shepard Ritzen, pioneer of all things musical) or someone slips it in on a mixtape.  And it’s inevitably one of those things that makes you crinkle your brow and say “Who the fuck is that?”  And then you’re in the secret cabal.

I once played five songs for a friend and asked them to identify the bands.  It was trick question, all five songs were by Ween, but they didn’t know that.  And they didn’t appreciate my auditory ruse and swiftly kicked my shins.  But that’s the beauty of Ween.  So when I say I don’t actively listen to Ween, I mean, I like to put my iPod on shuffle and let them pop their heads in and out.  Just the tip.  Just so it feels nice.

Ween doesn’t so much parody or appropriate different styles in their wild experimentative stuff as just absorb it into the miasma that is they.  Their sound can vary, but it always sounds like Ween.  It always leaves that kind of spicy, honeythick aftertaste in your brain when you’ve heard one of their songs. 

La Cucaracha, their latest effort, is almost more of a B-sides and rarities album than Shinola.  Its sounds like songs left off of all of their other albums and efforts.  Except its all newer.  Nothing really stands out as amazing, and the entire album doesn’t explode in your ears like Chocolate and Cheese or White Pepper, or even Pure Guava, my own personal desert island Ween.  But it’s sort of the remnant discards of the vast ecclectic quilt that is Ween.

So for my own personal tastes, while I can’t appreciate it as a whole album, it’s a brilliantly welcome addition to my Ween collection.  When I put my Ween on shuffle, these songs will effortlessly fit in the mix.  And since Ween will rarely if ever get radio play and only pop up in the occasional indie film, pray to the gods of delight that someone somewhere will deliver unto you a mixtape. 

And I shall. 

I’ve managed to run a mad streak of just utterly disappointing shit on the HBO On Demand.  I’m learning that I have a pretty good “this is going to suck” detector.  And so, to free up some space on my Netflix queue, I’ve been digitally watching most of these little gems.

First off, before I shred this garbage, let me state for the record two things:  1) I like Hugh Grant.  The only real problem I see with him is that Richard Curtis can only put out a movie so often.  My only disdain for him is that he seems to forget that by parodying yourself as the has-been romantic lead, he doesn’t seem to realize he’s ACTUALLY starting to be a has-been romantic lead.  More Curtis, less other guys stuff.  2) I like Drew Barrymore.  Not all her stuff.  She’s the only hope for starletards.  She’s why I’m not worried about Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears.  Teenyears Drew would have seen them at the clubs, sacrifically immolated them, and snorted their ashes.  Then drank a fifth of Beam and leaned out her cruising BMW to nose a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not worthy line of coke down Sunset.  But then she got her shit together, started her own production company, and reemerged as a goddamn peach.  She’s America’s Fucking Sweetheart, Julia Roberts.  She’s fucking tailor made for romantic comedy, and seems to be the only one to survive the Career HPV that is Adam Sandler.

Having said that….

Music and Lyrics is about a former pop star who’s trying to struggle his way back to a career renaissance by penning a new song for the current Flava of the Month pop diva.  So he hires his replacement plant lady to write lyrics, because despite being a hypochondriatic spaz, she’s apparently also an idiot savant at spewing Hallmark haiku.  Again, here’s a movie that almost worked.  It ALMOST made it.

As a skewering of the celeb nostalgia parade that has turned VH1 to the Mordor of Celebreality, this thing is fucking spot on.  From the cheesy pop video open to the state fair gigs forced on him to the faux spirituality-ubersluttery that is the Pop Starlet, it’s lock and load.  It’s actually the love story that’s the problem.   It’s so poorly put together, and the chemistry between these characters is all wrong. 

Drew Barrymore is actually the problem, or rather her character.  I couldn’t figure out why she was playing this neurotic, spastic, hypochondriac asshole.  But then I looked up who made this film.  This was penned by Marc Lawrence, who has single handledly managed to drive a silver railroad spike into the heart of Sandra Bullock’s career.  He started with Forces of Nature, but then dished up the double dose of Miss Congeniality Uno y Dos, before the neck splintering roundhouse kick that was Two Weeks Notice.  Granted, she’s had no problem fucking things up for herself (Premonition), but good ol’ Marcky was a drivin’ that train.  It was as if he was a child with chicken pox running to hug his favorite aunt who never had it before, and ultimately and innocently putting her in the hospital where she died weeks later.  What’s itchy for kids’ll take out an adult right quick.

Anyway, suddenly it made sense that Drew Barrymore’s character was unbelievable and unpleasant; it was meant to be Sandra Bullock.  I doubt even Amy Adams could have mired up enough spunk to make this movie watchable, and therefore it wasn’t.  The song he ultimately pens, and even worse the song he penultimately pens, were so riddled with saccharine, I had to bolus for fear my pancreas would burst forth from my body and flee for sunnier waters. 

It could have been salvaged, but I guess Marc Lawrence is trying to work his magic on Hugh Grant.  The only way I’ll find out is by watching American Dreamz and seeing what happened there.

Jennifer Government by Max Barry

The cover of this book described it as “Catch 22 meets The Matrix.”  That’s a perfect comparison, and this brilliant sci-fi satire had me hooked from the start.  It’s not only clever satire, and witty, but it’s also got a great pace. 

Corporations have essentially taken over the world.  The United States have spread to take over Australia, Japan, Russia, basically everwhere but Europe (minus London) and other scattered areas.  People no longer have last names, but rather take the companies they work for as their last names.  All institutions are run like businesses, including schools (which are sponsored by McDonald’s and Mattel) and the Police and the Hospitals.  

The satire is rich and plentiful, and while The Matrix took the sharp storyline and bent it down the Noble Path of the Misinformed Buddha, Barry is taking it in a sharper direction.  Corporations rule our lives now, and most of them command our daily functions, so is it really a stretch to imagine them taking over the world?  If you don’t believe that politicians are in the pockets of corporations, you haven’t been paying enough attention.

The plot is tricky to wend out, but only because similar to Catch-22, it involves so many varying characters who cross each other’s paths in strange and beautiful ways.  Hack Nike is a low-level employee hired by the upper ups in US Australia to perform a marketing campaign.  What marketing campaign?  He’s supposed to kill ten people trying to buy the newest Nike sneakers.  That way demand will skyrocket.  He goes to the Police, who instead of helping him offer to take the job as a subcontract, and send it out to the NRA to execute.  Yeah, how fucking great is that?

It spirals delightfully out of control from there, involving government plots, and poor Billy NRA who runs from one crazy ass disaster to the next, when all he wanted was a chance to go skiing.  Jennifer Government, a government agent and woman with a mysterious past, is attempting to bring John Nike to justice, the devilish mastermind who’s orchestrating this sudden violent coup.  

It’s so sharply and yet brusquely paced, leaping furiously from character to character in manic ways, as you watch these different avenues crash together in ways that would make Pulp Fiction blush.  Like most action paced novels, particularly sci-fi, the romances feel forced and corny.  But if you’re willing to overlook that brief hiccup, and in light of how terrible it really could be it’s not too bad, you’re going to enjoy this ride.  How do you not love something that essentially culminates in a riot between factions of McDonald’s and Burger King?

I will be looking up Max Barry’s other works, because allegedly his first novel was another satirical parody called Syrup.

I’m not wasting any more time on this than the Dreamworks suit that rubber stamped this fucking odious commercial to sell plush toys.  I can’t tell if this was supposed to be a message film or a clever satire for parents to appreciate or what, but by the time it slogged in and out of theatres like Snuffalupagus on Valium, it lost its way.

Once more, I’m going to say this.  When casting a film for voice talent, please pay attention to the animals you are going to cast.  Nick Nolte as a bear?  Nick Nolte does not sound like a bear.  Nick Nolte sounds like a coyote that ate a pack of cigarettes.  And please, PLEASE tell me that Wanda Sykes was cast as a sassy skunk merely because the animal is black.  I want to explain to that one to my kids.  

Part of any animated feature for bored parents its trying to figure out who’s voicing what.  This is what made Ratatouille so incredible is that there are major actors voicing some of the characters but you would never know.  Janeane Garofalo plays the love interest, Will Arnett plays Horst.  But it’s not their natural voices.  And Patton Oswalt aside (who I admire greatly, but he wouldn’t be considered a “major voice actors”), most of the principal characters are Pixar behind the scenes guys.  It’s awesome. 

Over the Hedge is basically about a misfit array of forest creatures that are gathering food.  A sneaky….raccoon?….,in an attempt to replace food he destroyed while trying to rob a bear, enlists their help in raiding a surburban neighborhood, all the while claiming its for them.  Do you care?  I don’t.  From the SUV driving power wife to the over the top exterminator, this movie really wants to make the claim that it’s “pro-environment”.  You know, protect our natural resources. 

But the first moment the fucking raccoon entices them to help by offering them junk food, I was done with this film.  I don’t see how it can be appealing to children until I saw Hammy, the obviously marketed breakout star of the film voiced by Steve Carrell, spraying Spray Cheez out his nostrils.  Then I realized.  Kids are fucking idiots.  

I was going to write a big long diatribe about the Golden Globes.  How they were a travesty, how they were terrible, about how I don’t care if you were delusional enough to like Sweeney Todd, there’s not a fucking chance in hell that’s best comedy or musical, let alone Johnny Depp scowling his way to a win, or how Atonement won because the HPFA is a f-in’ FA, and thusly nominated anyone with an accent or who LIVES in a foreign country.  How I was stunned that they got some things so right, like giving a great big old fuck you to network television and basically giving awards to anything on cable.  How I didn’t even watch the reading of the lots, because who fucking cares.

But that’s what Ben Silverman wants me to do.  He threw his little tantrum that how dare we, the writers, piss on his little prom.  How dare we ruin the Golden Globes! Shame on us!  So I’m sure these were rigged like a Rube Goldberg execution machine, and the results were made in order to foster discussion about the wrongness of the selections. 

And that justifies them.  Nobody picked a winner when there was no World Series because baseball went on strike.  Nobody won anything.  I refuse to acknowledge them. 

And Ben Silverman, fuck you.  Fuck you hard, you shitstain.  He looks like some sort of Willy Wonka/Michael Jackson hybrid who’s one “innocent beautiful mistake” away from a huge out of court settlement.  Or as the priests at the parish called it “a pat on the head and a bag of peanut M&Ms”.  He’s sad he didn’t get his prom.  Well, dance away, fucknuts. 

It reminds me of that scene in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels where Michael Caine forces the toothpaste heiress to dance to show up Steve Martin.  Dance and smile!  Pretend it’s all wonderful!  And so, out of anger for Ben Silverman not getting that prom he so richly wanted, I am going to push Steve Martin down a flight of stairs in a wheelchair.

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

I’ve been meaning to read this ever since The Da Vinci Code came out.  Yes, elitist propgandhis, I liked that book.  Maybe it was just pop-arting something you knew for AGES and AGES, because you’re so fucking intellectual, but it was news to me, and it made me want to research more.  Not so much that I actually did read other books, but you know I THOUGHT about it. (I apologize for the unusual level of ire.  It’s just that I had to deal with so much hatred and scorn for actually swallowing the Koolaid on this one from coworkers at the IgNoble).

My brother had bought the Matrix videogames when Da Vinci was making its rounds.  The games take place between Matrix II and III.  In the game you have to fight the Merovingians vampires and werewolves.  So I researched the term Merovingian, and found out that it derives from grail legend, supposedly a bloodline that thought it was immortal.  It’s where we get the myth of the vampire.  Consider my mind fucking blown.  What?  Jesus made Dracula?  Fuck. Yeah.

The Gnostic Gospels are part of a group of scrolls found in a cave in an area of the world called Nag Hammadi.  They supposedly offer extra gospels to the four of the new testament.  It’s all part of the whole Jesus storyline.  The Gnostics were people that essentially believed in free thought and knowledge, and that the key to betterment was within each and every person.  Oh, and also that Jesus passed on some secret to enlightenment like Yoda and the Jedis. 

I had thought that the Gnostic Gospels would actually be expanded out in the book, but I had thought wrong.  Instead, it’s sort of a study of the impact of gnosticism versus orthodox Christianity.  It was very dry and dull, but it made a few really intriguing points.

Essentially, the gnostics were sort of new agey and the orthodox were right wing fanatics.  That’s painfully simplifying things, and kind of inaccurately, but it’s a pretty solid argument.  The Gnostics believed that Jesus imparted secret wisdom on enlightenment to his disciples (and these are the cats who support Mary Magdalene being the wife of Jesus) and that if you reached that stage, you could become Jesus.  Taking into consideration that Jesus’ kinda went on a Eastern Religions World Tour between pulling his teen angsty tantrum kicking over the moneylenders’ temple, and coming back spouting fortune cookie parables even the oldest gramma can cross-stitch on an ominous handwoven craft, it makes sense. 

This, of course, didn’t jive well with how the emerging Christian church wanted things.  They were organizing the hierarchy of bishop, deacon, priest and so they didn’t want people to believe they just had to look to themselves to pray and to find peace and enlightenment.  Even worse, the Gnostics claimed that since Jesus was spirit, you could essentially become a Christ yourself.  So the church spent the next few years hiding and burning all record of these “heretical” texts. 

That’s the part that fascinated me.  That supposedly Jesus was influenced by the Eastern arts.  You know, that the three wise men were from different faiths (Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam).  And so, now Christianity has become hardcore and misogynestic, and all this came about so that Christians could build a core church that would defend against persecution from Rome.  That tenets of meditation and inner spirituality would be thrown away because the Church didn’t want to let girls play. 

Interesting further was the aspect of the Roman persecution.  This was a time when the Christians were being used as spear targets and lion food.  Since Jesus was killed on the cross, tortured, and cast aside, the orthodox Christians viewed their sacrifices as akin to that of Jesus.  They figured they’d achieve enlightenment because they were literally dying as their savior.  The Gnostics, favoring knowledge, felt that to die was missing Christs message of achieving self gnosis, so they would avoid persecution.  This is the same argument you see today among intellectuals versus hardcore faithers.  The same people who bomb abortion clinics can’t understand how a couple of bearded dudes can drive a plane into a building.  The same people call those who won’t die for their country cowards because it’s not a cause they believe in. 

I don’t want to paint the Gnostics in some sort of bright shiny light.  They were more holier than thou than the shiniest haired evangelist.  They claimed that Jesus imparted secret wisdom to his favored disciples and that you had to pass tests and seek this knowledge and then alone would you be worthy.  It’s that sort of self-righteous arrogant assurance one expects from the New Age worshippers.  It smacks of elitism. 

I like the way the new gospels portray the disciples.  As in-fighting, jealous, and scared.  It makes them human.  It makes them fallible.  I like that Jesus might have faked the whole thing.  This book wasn’t what I was looking for, and I have since found websites where I can actually…kinda…read what was in the Gnostic Gospels.  I will be reading further on this topic, as I’m looking towards Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Sword and The Chalice.  Right now, I’m actually moving along on the other aspect of this that fascinates me with the Templars and the conspiracy theorist stuff.

I’m also trying to find a more accessible version of the Eastern faiths.  I plan on trying to read the Tao Te Ching, some of the Bhagadavita (I know I butchered the shit out of that), and some of the Qu’ran.  I really liked Eastern Religion when I was introduced to it college, and I’d like to read more.  I also want to read the Wiccan stuff, because it ties nicely into my Catholicism. 

It’s not giving me the mind opening like I’d hoped yet, but it’s definitely increasing my appreciation for politics, history, and spirituality.

Imagine staring at a turd pie.  It’s obvious that it’s made of turds, there are flies buzzing around it, and it plainly reaks of shitstink.  If that weren’t enough, they’ve put a label on it that says, Ingredients: Turds, Flour, Sugar, More Turds, Baby Diarrhea, Broken Glass, Turd Flavoring, Partially Hydrogenated Turd Oil, Turds.  Even still further, there are people who are vomitting around you, warning you how bad it tastes, to just stay away, it’s awful.  But for some reason, you feel this overwhelming urge to take a bite, just one bite, so you know just how bad something can be.

That turd pie, my friends, is X-Men: The Last Stand.

I haven’t seen a franchise fucked like this since Dewey Corvalis got arrested for sticking his dick in a McDonald’s.  I mean, the blazing disregard for the mythos of the entire story, the sheer nonchalance for the talent of the actors playing the parts, the flaming audacity of just openly stating you were driving a stake in the heart of a series like murdering a magician at a children’s birthday party.  It doesn’t just boggle the mind, it flat out fucking Scattergories it.  

I know Brett Ratner is a hack.  I know he’s a terrible director.  But I had no idea he was on this level of puppy skeet shooting.  If Stan Lee wasn’t so busy wandering from Marvel film to Marvel film like some sort of senile Where’s Waldo, I would sincerely wish he put out a jihad on Ratner.   Not just a carbomb or assassination either.  I mean a total family tree uprooting jihad.  And publicly burning any establishment in which Ratner may or may not have ejaculated so that no DNA can possibly exist.

And Zak Penn, you motherfucker.  I’m not even concerning myself with the other guy, because it is evident you were at fault here.  You comic book murdering cunthair.  I hope someone Gigli’s your fucking career but quick.  I loved you, you bitchnut.  Incident at Loch Ness was a brilliant and ballsy concept.  You wrote PCU and Last Action Hero.  You could have been a contender.  Now you are using your powers for evil instead of awesome.  You are singlehandedly cornholing the entire comic world mythos and wiping your bloody dick on the teddy bear.  How they let you anywhere near Watchmen after Elektra, let alone this boil on the ass of society, is a testament to your unholy alliance with Satan.  I really hope someone, somewhere, is filling a dead cow skull with Anthrax for placement in your home.  What makes me so angry is that Zak Penn COULD be good.  He should be BETTER.  So Shiva, god of death, I call upon you to rain fire and pestilence on his loved ones.  

The rest of this is going to run rampant with spoilers, but to say this film could be spoiled is like saying Hiroshima was an attempt to thwart Godzilla.   Killing off Cyclops is one thing, but essentially doing it like he’s the first teen swimmer doggy-paddling over Jaws is sacriledge.  But then, trying to ruin Ben Foster’s and Ellen Page’s emerging careers by making one look like the cover for a Journey coverband and then giving him nothing to do, and then giving the other lines like “Who says I’m hiding, dickhead?” as Kitty Pryde.  But you decide to kill Professor Xavier?  What?  WHAT?!  You fucking assbags. 

The rest of the film is an homage to why CGI cannot replace character development.  Oooh, so you moved the Golden Gate Bridge.  Motherfucker couldn’t make a barge?  The dialogue was so terrible, they should not only revoke both of their guild cards, but they should use them to paper cut them to the pain.  Not the death, death’s too good for these rhinocerous pizzles.  And you could tell the actors were regretting every penny of the contracts they signed to mumble through this death knell to what was beginning to be a sharp comic book adaptation.  The only way Hugh Jackman is going to resolve his career after this and the Shiny McDouchebag Vegas Style debacle is to get a starring role as Tyler Durden in Fight Club: The Musical. 

Fuck it, I have to go home and chug a fifth of whiskey to wash the assreak of this out of my soul.  Alright, that was my plan anyway, but still.  Daddy needs his medicine after this chlyamidic pustule.  

With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good. Well, with a name like Blue Rodeo, you figure it’s gonna be some emo cowboy shit.  And you’d be a little stunned when you liked it.

Bobbo, of the outstanding band The Fallen Stars, recommended this CD to me.  Well, actually, he recommended it to everyone.  Everywhere.  For forever.  So I relented.  This was going to be one of those pills I’d swallow whether I liked it or not.  Since Blue Rodeo has about seventyteenthousand fucking albums, I asked him which one he would recommend as the bestest.  He said, “Well, Small Miracles, because that’s the one I’m listening to right now.”

When the album starts up, it’s almost nineties rock, something that wouldn’t be out of place around Guster or Toad the Wet Sprocket.  Good guitar riffs, a nice beat, solid sort of standard rock.  You start to think, hey, maybe they aren’t so country.  Maybe they’re rock and roll.  But then the country creeps in on you, steel guitar twanging, mournful baying edging in, lyrics simplifying themselves, and then you’ve been bitten.  It comes up on you like a disappointing monster in a horror movie, and then you’re listening to a country album. 

Now, I got no real problem with country.  And for country, this ain’t bad.  It’s not that Toby Keith “Jesus Wants You To Buy A Chevy, So More Towers Won’t Fall” or even your standard, drinking a beer for every song that starts with the warbly guitar ballad.  Blue Rodeo knows it’s country, and it doesn’t try to pop it up like Shania Twain or the Dixie Chicks, nor does it try to be hardcore dick in your face like Big & Rich.  (Ride my cock and save it, you fake ass cowboys.)

No, this is just sort of melancholy rock with an accent.  I liked it, but I was sort of meh by the end of the album.  It started with such promise and energy, and I felt like they were just sort of teasing me with what the rest of the album would be like.  It felt like background music to a particularly uneventful romantic comedy set somewhere in the East Coastal south.  You know, riding in a car to meet someone’s Carolina kinfolk, sunny day, green leaves on the tress.  But easily forgetable, and not something you’d buy for the soundtrack. 

Bobbo has said that people have compared The Fallen Stars to Blue Rodeo, and I can see why, what with the mix of country and rock.  But, and maybe this is just because they’re friends of mine, but I think TFS are much better.  They’ve got a better energy for my money.  If you want to check out their stuff, go over to MySpace and go to “The Fallen Stars”.  If I were a particularly motivated or internet savvy person, I would put up the link.  Guess you’ll have to do the work y’selves.