Looper

Every year has its own though-provoking yet confusing sci-fi movie: In 2010 it was Inception, in 2011 it was Source Code, and now, in 2012, we have Looper. This is without a doubt one of the best movies of the year, but that isn't saying too much. Nearly every other movie this year has been a complete dud, even promising films like The Dictator. Even The Avengers failed to deliver in some respects. And so 2012 has long been due for a saving grace: A movie to define this year.

Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who, by the way, played Arthur in Inception) as a Looper, a hired gun waiting in the past for the mob of the future to send back targets to kill. However, the plot gets a little more interesting when the Loopers start having their future selves sent back for extermination, thereby 'closing the loop'. The movie plays out like The Terminator crossed with Mad Max when Levitt's future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back for termination. When he fails to kill his future self, the chase scenes and plot twists never stop coming as he tries to outrun his fellow Loopers and catch up with his future self before he can alter the course of history.

The movie is, unsurprisingly, well-acted. Not only does it star Bruce Willis in an unusually compassionate tough-guy role, but Levitt is wholly believable in every second of the film. Without giving away too much of the plot, I can say that this is easily the best-acted movie of the year. Although Levitt's abnormally thick eyebrows can be a bit distracting, you will still be riveted.


Looper has been on my sidebar list of Movies to Look Forward to in 2012 for a long time, and it didn't disappoint. It wasn't much what I expected-- I thought it would rely on car chases and shoot-em-ups more than raw emotion-- but I was surprised to find myself watching a frighteningly realistic and hard-hitting sci-fi drama. It is the rarest of all film breeds: Intelligent Trash.

Looper's greatest triumph (aside from a welcome return to form for Bruce Willis) is its plot, a gloriously twisted and mind-wrenching series of great and memorable moments. Willis plans on coming back in time to assassinate the man who decided to start killing off the Loopers in the first place. There's only one problem: The man is, at the time, only ten years old. After narrowing the suspects down to three kids in the city, Willis is forced to hunt down and kill three ten-year-olds. The film's most gut-wrenching scene may be when Willis kills the wrong one and flips out. This kind of depth is rare in sci-fi today. This movie should be treasured.

So, final score for Looper? 8 1/2 out of ten stars. Mark my words, this movie will go down in history with The Terminator, Total Recall (the original), Robocop, and Source Code as one of the most influential and thought-provoking science fiction movies of all time. A must-see.

Bye!

Resident Evil: Retribution

Good holy mother of crap--- I just saw what may be the worst movie ever made ever. It all started two weeks ago when my friend Benny came to school having a complete mindf*** about the latest Resident Evil movie. Now, I never saw Resident Evil 1-4, but I could hazard a guess about the overall quality of the series. Video game adaptations are inherently bad, with the minor and arguable exception of Prince of Persia. And I didn't expect this movie to be any different.

Me, Benny, and Luis went to see it tonight, and I was blown away. I thought it would be a fun yet empty film with little in the way of plot, but still entertaining. Boy, was I wrong. This movie was exhaustingly boring, and even the action sequences were awful. It made absolutely no effort to make any aspect of the movie entertaining, not the plot, not the acting, not the script, not the action, and most definitely not the zombies themselves.

Usually I try to say something good about every movie I review, but I really can't here. There is no redeeming value to Resident Evil at all. The dialogue is as flat as a crepe, and the lines are delivered in flat, monotone voices. It made me sick to my stomach. You might say that I didn't see the other FOUR Resident Evil movies, so I couldn't judge this one fairly. But honestly, does anyone go to see these for their plot?

What gets me about this movie is that, even though the entire planet is under complete assault by zombies, they still never run out of guns, ammo, or skintight leotards.

Seriously, someone just gave up here. This is the result of five douchebags sitting around a table saying "Oh, you know what would make a really good scene in a movie?" And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, the damn movie has Dubstep play during the final credits.

The score for Resident Evil: Retribution? Wow... does it even deserve one? I'll be generous and give it a big fat 1/10 stars. Even in the world of special-effects extravaganzas gone wrong, this is as bad as it gets. Utterly horrific.

Bye!

Gaffe 'Till You Laff

I just got back from the most mind-bogglingly boring field trip of all time. You won't believe it, but all the Freshmen in Drake went out to West Marin to measure rocks. Yeah, that's right. ROCKS. Apparently, there's a line of rocks out in the middle of nowhere, and we had to measure them using the GODDAMN METRIC SYSTEM!!! Also, no one has any idea how they got there. Meaning that we should get the guys from the History Channel down here as soon as possible. I can see it now... ALIENS. A field trip is only going to be as fun as the teacher who dreamt it up. And this was no exception. I'll leave it at that.

Meanwhile, the Romney campaign is gearing up intensively for the Presidential Debates next week, which will be a good chance to showcase Romney's nonexistent policies. I hate to jinx this campaign, but I just can't imagine a scenario where Obama doesn't come back on top. He's leading Romney in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and Missouri. Overall, he's leading by about 4% of the electoral vote. That may not sound like much, but in a presidential election, it's mind-boggling. Usually, an election for the highest office in the country comes down to about 1%. But 4% is thousands upon thousands of people--- the exact number depends on voter turnout.

My favorite election visual aid by far is the ELECTION MAP BY POPULATION!!! In the usual election maps of America, it looks like the Republicans are winning by a massive margin-- until you see this. So, if all of the states vote according to plan, Romney has no chance.

It's not like this was inevitable. At some point, Romney may have had a chance to actually connect with people, but after nearly a whole month of non-stop stupid comments and gaffes, there is almost no hope. The man is pathetic. When and if he loses, I want a really good close up of his realization that he is a truly bad human being.

It's almost as if Romney's opinions exist in all possible outcomes--- it's only when he's asked a question by an inquisitive reporter do the opinions collapse into one reality. I like to call this principle 'Schrodinger's Mitt'.

Bye!

UNhelpful

Aaargh... the blogger website has changed the format of the blog post-creation page. I have no idea what I'm doing. Honestly-- I'm staring at a bunch of buttons and feeling utterly lost. This is not a good thing. I do not respond well to change. Once, my favorite coffee place changed the upholstery on their barstools, and I sat in a corner for a week. I'm very frightened.

Not only this, but I can't figure out how to change it BACK. Seriously, there's something wrong with that. But I KNOW that there's a button I could click on SOMEwhere in the byzantine labyrinth of the blogger website that could get my old settings back. Until then, well, I'm screwed.

But let's not allow this to tarnish what could otherwise be a perfectly serviceable and entertaining blog post: Mitt Romney, the man of a thousand opinions, is still losing traction with whites, blacks, latinos, asians, inuits, koreans, organ donors, farmer's daughters, men, women, transvestites, gays, straights, southerners, northerners, easterners, westerners, and... everyone. He's losing traction with everyone.

Anyway, both the Romney campaign and the Obama campaign are in Ohio today, seeing as Ohio is without a doubt the union's most important state. Not only is it the most populous and the largest, but it also has a rich and fascinating history that the candidates could use to their advantage. That's called sarcasm, by the way. Write that down.

Really, I find it interesting that Ohio holds such power over the presidential election. Not only does it have a picture of a f***ing wheat crop on its seal, but it also gets to vote first in the PRIMARIES! This needs to end. From now on, we're taking turns by population number. And who's up first... OH! That's us! CALIFORNIA!

Meanwhile, in OTHER news, the annual United Nations meeting was this week, meaning we got to sit through another delightful 'Death to the Great Satan, Israel, and Nicki Minaj' speech by the world's favorite sociopath, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, a title he claimed after the death of Mummar Qadaffi. Which means it's time for the UN to break out the BIG BOOK OF REALLY HARSH RHETORIC!!!   And sanctions, more sanctions.

Something tells me that, if Iran and Israel end up in a battle to the death, historians will look back on this time in human history the same way today look back on WWI. If this starts WWIII, it will be the most mind-bogglingly pointless war of all time, beating out Korea, The War of 1812 (seriously? You guys couldn't come up with a better name?), and Afghanistan. And over what? Religion. Basically, it's a bunch of grown men yelling at each other "My imaginary friend is better than YOUR imaginary friend!!!" It boggles the mind.

But then again, I neglect to mention all the atheists who end up killing each other over who believes in God less... oh, right that never happens.

And the biggest problem I have with Iran is that, if they do attack Israel, they say they will also attack US military bases in the region. And by 'the region', they mean Earth. I dunno... but if I end up being drafted when I turn 18 to go off to some godforsaken desert 500 miles from the ass end of Nowheresville, I will either flee to Canada or gouge my eyeballs out with an ice pick.

Bye!

The Gaffe Machine

I am having a fantastic day today, and it only took a few short sentences to make it this good. This is big. Like, TITANIC big. This is one of those days where you sit back and breathe a deep, deep sigh of relief, as you feel all your troubles melt away. If I may share with you... the excerpt of words that made my day.

“There are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.”

That was Mitt Romney, talking to his fellow Richie McRichies about the (supposedly) 47% of people who will vote for Obama because they are fully dependent upon the government for all of their material needs. This is shockingly nasty rhetoric coming from Romney, who has previously only been capable of long-winded robotic monotone speeches. But that's not all. In an interview today, Rick Santorum said THIS:

"We will never have the elite, smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do."

Did you catch it? I sure as f*** did. Santorum basically told Republicans that so-called 'smart people' will never vote for them. I couldn't have said it better myself!

Remember, this is the same guy who famously said "President Obama wants everybody to go to college. What a snob!" So this shouldn't be TOO unexpected. But this is everything I could have hoped for and more. In just one day, Romney alienated nearly half the country, and Santorum called all Republicans morons.

So you can see, this is a very good thing.

Bye!

September the Fourth, 2001

The official anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was yesterday, giving this nation a great pause to reflect back on how much the world has changed in the past eleven years, and also to watch some of the sentimental political speeches given by certain mindless plutocrats (a-hem, Mitt Romney). My favorite September 11th speech, by far, is George W. Bush's. Here is a direct quote.

"September the fourth, 2001. I stood in the ruins of the twin towers. It's a day I will never forget".

Yessss... never forget... Some might say that this was a momentary slip-up, revealing the 'fact' that Bush planned the 9/11 attacks beforehand in order to further his and Halliburton's own political agendas... ha ha... how ridiculous. Good thing you won't find conspiracy theories like that on THIS blog...

But every 9/11, I like to think back to the world on September 10th and how innocent we were. But that world is gone. And the attacks were immortalized in Peter Jackson's landmark film "The Two Towers".

My only wish is that Osama bin Laden could have been taken alive, so he could be paraded through every major city in the nation (even Philadelphia) while people threw every damn thing they could find on the ground right in his face. And then he would be taken to an electric chair, which would be wired to every electrical outlet in the nation, so whenever someone turns on a light switch--- ZAP!!! But I'm not bitter. Not at all.

And we may finally have to say goodbye to that legendary pick-up line: "If you don't let me take you to dinner, the terrorists win".

However, all is not well in the Arab world. A 15-minute clip of a movie shot by an anti-islam nutjob (guess what: HE'S AMERICAN!!!) has sent Egypt and Libya into chaos. The US ambassador to Libya was killed yesterday, and there have been dozens more anti-American rallies in the two countries. Essentially, the movie depicted Muhammad as a bumbling moron. And as anyone knows, depicting Muhammad AT ALL is enough to send all of The Middle East into a frenzy. Just ask the creators of South Park.

I pride myself on the ability to laugh at almost everything... with three major exceptions: The Holocaust, Terrorism, and Justin F***ing Bieber. Yes, those three are on par in my mind. Because of this, I usually make fun of all religions equally. Except Islam. Islam is a great and true religion revealed unto the prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel, blessings and peace be upon them. I just figure that Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews don't tend to get as... explosively upset, shall we say.

The one thing I wish I could do is go back in time to pick up Jesus and Muhammad. I would then bring them into the future and show them the s*** that's going down nowadays. They'd probably crap their pants. Then I'd have them go on national TV and tell everyone to calm the hell down. Jesus would probably light up a doobie during an interview on CNN, sending the Pope into a catatonic trance.

But until then, we will have to deal with the crazy fringe people who burn Korans, blow up buildings, and have their own reality shows. The fact is, most Muslims don't kill people, most Christians don't kill people, and as for reality TV stars... I'm not sure. Does killing brain cells count? So, rest of the world: Let's send all our nutjobs to a deserted island somewhere (preferably one that will be underwater in a few years), where they can yell and scream and throw coconuts at each other. My only hang-up?

We may not be able to fit them all on one island.

Bye!

North Carolina: The Tar-buildup State

Before I start getting hate mail from the people who actually read my blog (both of them), I admit, I did not follow through with my promise to make an official DNC drinking game. I know, I know. What a travesty. I have, however, started the DRAW SOMETHING OF THE WEEK, which you can see at the top of the sidebar. I'll try to change it every Monday, but you know what... I probably won't. What are you gonna do about it?

Speaking of the which, the DNC was held in Charlotte, North Carolina last week! Now, as loyal readers of this blog may know, whenever a backwater little state is drawn suddenly into the national stage, I tend to rip it a new one. But this time, I'm going to point out only the POSITIVES of the great state of North Carolina!!!

North Carolina, one of the 13 original colonies, has a great and rich tradition of tobacco farming. In fact, the state itself comes with a warning label that reads "MAY CAUSE CANCER". It consistently ranks among the US's 'Top Ten Carolinas' list, except for 1977. It was a really bad year, okay?

Unlike it's southern sibling, NC has no horse molesters to speak of, and its governor hasn't gone off on a taxpayer-funded flight to Buenos Aires to meet with his mistress... recently.

The state recently adapted NASCAR as it's state sport. One's liking or disliking of this sport is a good indicator of whether or not your ancestors owned slaves. NC's nickname is 'The Tarheel State' (which some of you may remember from The Campaign), a name which denotes both the state's wide variety of rednecks and the massive tar buildup in your lungs after you've had a little too much of NC's main agricultural product.

The flag of North Carolina may cause cancer.

So, nonetheless, the DNC was held in Charlotte in an obvious attempt to appeal to white southern voters without going 'all the way' and holding it in f***ing Mobile, Alabama. By the way, if a convention is ever held in Alabama, I will thank every God in the heavens for this rich comedic gift. I promise not to squander it.

The Dems were great speakers (as always), and definitely trumped the RNC speeches by Reince Priebus and John Boehner. I don't know if I spelled those right, but as Mitt Romney would say, "I'm not running a blog dictated by fact checkers". True that.

Bye!

The Good, The Bad, and The Smugly

It's been a bad week for Armstrongs. First Neil dies, then Lance gets his titles removed... it's a sad, sad state of affairs. On the bright side, I finally achieved my lifelong goal of having the same number of Tour De France titles as Lance Armstrong!!!

But this isn't the biggest news this week by far. No, that award has to go to the RNC's finale in Tampa. There were speeches by numerous prominent Republicans throughout, but they truly saved The Good for last.

CLINT F***ING EASTWOOD, also known as Dirty Harry, The Man With No Name, and that creepy secluded hermit guy from Gran Torino, took the nation by storm with his inspired performance. Now, I didn't actually watch the whole thing, seeing as I actually am a huge fan of Clint. But from what I've seen in snippets on The Daily Show and other random shows, it's pretty painful.

Eastwood devoted the entire speech to a back-and-forth discussion with a chair. The chair, in this case, was Invisible President Obama. In his twelve minute speech, Eastwood coined such fantastic quotable lines like "Um" and "Uh... hmmm..." Senility has been rough on him.

Now, TGTBTU is one of my top five favorite films of ALL TIME, so you can see how I would be a little perturbed. But you have to cut the man some slack. He was ad-libbing the entire speech, and he probably got a little tongue-tied standing next to the awesome star power of Invisible President Obama.

You know, this makes perfect sense. While Regular President Obama is out doing boring diplomatic missions, he sends Invisible President Obama to do his dirty work! I'll bet Invisible President Obama (or IPO, for short) was part of the Seal team that took down Osama bin Laden! There's a massive web of conspiracies ready to be unraveled here. And who better to do it than a man who literally played a character named 'The Good'?

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney gave a speech, that many say was fantastically mediocre. He highlighted many issues in America today, but also talked about American ideals and the strengths that we have as a country. Yes, I watched it.

On a completely different subject, the anniversary of 9/11 is coming, so brace yourselves for the empty, bland political speeches. And I have to suffer through the stupid questions at school like "What's 9/11?" or my favorite, "When did 9/11 happen again?" That's like asking when the War of 1812 was.

I live in a town of lunatics.

Bye!