More Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
I am sick, so I should have time to finish these off pretty quick. Tonight I saw the Order of the Phoenix. I quite enjoyed it, although I found the lady in pink from the Ministry really annoying. However, if by now Harry hasn’t figured out that whoever takes the position of Professor of Defense Against Dark Magic has ill intents towards him, he must have suffered brain damage when he picked up that nifty scar. The movies have gotten really formulaic in that regards, and it seems obvious that J.K. Rowling has enough love for the other professors to not make any of them the bad guys, so I guess it will continue.
I did enjoy this movie, and magic duel at the end between Voldemort and Dumbledore was pretty damned cool. Not sure what the whole prophesy was all about, but most of the movie seemed pretty cool. I am disappointed that Cedric showed up as a flashback, as I don’t want to see Robert Pattinson gain any more in his so called career, but other than that pretty good. At least there wasn’t any of Dumbledore thrusting his students into dragons mouths or whatever, and he actually managed to act like he cared about Harry for a few minutes.
Of course, I have questions from this movie (Just because I don’t care doesn’t mean I don’t understand image courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
First off, what is up with wands? Is a wizard incapable of casting a spell without one? Seems like a wand should be something to help you focus your inner power to aid in a spell and not necessarily be totally required for a spell. The actual magic must come from the caster, implying that they might be able to cast some simple spells and cantrips without a wand. They don’t use wands to pull up their brooms or fly them. Why, then, do they all act like a fish out of water as soon as they get it knocked out of their hands? Also, if I were a wizard fighting another wizard and managed to knock the wand out of his or her hand, why just leave it lying there on the ground for your enemy to pick up and blast you with. I think as soon as that wand was on the ground I would use another spell to set fire to it. Also, if you lose your wand the first movie seemed to imply you could just buy another. It’s not like you are bound to it for life. So if someone burns up your wand could you just pick up a stick off the ground, or a handy No. 2 pencil? They don’t look like they weigh a lot. If I were going into battle I think I would have like eight on me. That way, when the bad (or good, depending on which side of the room you are on) guy blasts it out of my hand I’d be like “Oh, you have disarmed me! I am helpless before your might”. Then, when they look somewhere else, pull out wand number 2 and blammo! How about a wand in each hand?
Second, are there no rules regarding corporal and/or cruel and unusual punishment at Hogwarts? Is the only thing keeping the professors from torturing the students for screwing up Dumbledore’s morality? Snape seems to have a dark bent. If someone pissed him off could he concoct some kind of horrible pain potion, once Dumbledore had been replaced by the bitch in fuchsia? If there are no rules regarding corporal punishment delivered onto the kids bodies that seems like the first step in other kinds of inappropriate contact. Sounds like the happy hunting ground for sexual predators.
Is Sirius Black dead, or what? I have had a couple friends tell me what a great character he is, but to be honest he hasn’t had a lot of screen time. I suspect he was banished or something and may well resurface later on.
What is the deal with the Order of the Phoenix, or all the other stuff everyone seems to be perfectly aware of except for Harry and me. It’s almost like J.K. Rowlings keeps coming up with things she thinks is cool, and injecting it into the next book but expecting us to believe it was there all the time. It’s like if I painted my living room green but then when people came over and commented on it was like “What are you talking about? It’s always been green.” Last movie it was the Tri Wizard Tournament, the one before that the Dementors. This is actually one of the big failings in the whole Star Wars prequel series, in that Lucas keeps expecting the audience to accept things that we are both told and not told but never shown. You know, I think it’s OK to have something appear in a movie that is actually a new deal and introduce everyone to it. Like if Dumbledore had formed the Order of the Phoenix during the summer while Harry was getting beat up by his big dumb cousin.
You know, I have pretty clear recollections of my horrible life at age 14 (usually at night, waking up in a cold sweat), and I can say that if there is one thing I and all of my friends would never do is name an illicit group we were all part of after the principal of our high school. There is no way we would have called it Krembes’s Kommandos. So what part of Dumbledore’s Army sound even remotely cool to a 14 year old? Odds are they would have come up with something cooler or possibly sexual, like the Hogwarts Hunters or the Portland Protective Association (tell me where that’s from, kids). It seems an extremely obvious ploy to allow Dumbledore to take the fall when they get discovered.
That’s pretty much it. I am going to take a very hot shower in hopes it clears my sinuses and go to bed. Lots of movies coming out this weekend, so look for something new tomorrow. See you soon.
Movie Review: The Change Up
Baby Excrement Jokes-a-go-go
So I did watch this last night, and realized something important about seeing movies you really don’t want to see: you don’t really mind getting a crappy seat. I was right up front, and while that played out painfully at certain overly visual moments during the film, really didn’t care much. It wasn’t like I was seeing this for the visuals.
So this movie. Was it bad? Yes. Did it have good moments? Some. The problem was it really shifted back and forth without warning. It kind of felt like you were driving down the freeway when all of a sudden you accidentally shift your car into reverse, tearing out the transmission and more or less ruining the trip, except it was happening every ten minutes. You would actually be enjoying a funny scene and then, like wearing a dog shock collar controlled by an insane schizophrenic, you are suddenly subjected to an image or concept so jarring and and disconcerting that you feel like you were physically assaulted. The earliest and most jarring one was when daddy got woken up at 3am by his twin babies. You see the kids and they are cute, if noisy. You are kind of into the heartwarming daddy scene and then all of a sudden he takes off the diaper and you are looking at (no joke) excrement covered baby taint. I know there are some lowlife degenerate perverts for whom this is awesome (and honestly, they should set up a camera in each theater and just arrest anyone who doesn’t cringe), but for most humans this is god awful. Then, as if that weren’t enough of a punch in the balls, the other baby starts puckering his anus (again, I wish I were joking, but I’m not) and literally excretes into daddy’s face and mouth.
You know, I like to think I am kind of normal, but I really have a major problem with human excrement. I don’t want to see it, smell it, or in any way deal with it outside of the limits that I have to as a human being. However, if this passes for normal humor and is not disturbing to the majority of movie goers than I am some kind of super freak. I would be OK with that if this were the case.
This actually brings me to my major issue with this film, and an ugly trend I am seeing in current movies. I know that, thanks to the Hangover, rated R romantic comedies are all the rage, but I am seeing more and more of what can only be described as trying too hard. It’s like in 5th grade when you finally get comfortably saying the F word, so you end up saying it as often as possible to prove to your friends how grown up you are. This movie does everything possible to stay R and more or less almost pushes the X border, honestly to it’s detriment. I am a fan of gratuitous nudity, but they explored every creepy possibility. The occasional F bomb can be used to enhance dialogue when it flows naturally, but when you try to jam it into every sentence like trying to fit eight people into a Prius. It just gets awkward and really stupid. Some prime examples of this over the top effort to stay R rated include but are not limited to: multiple excrement jokes, a soft core porn scene (literally) with an aged porn star with breasts so fake they might as well had Goodyear stamped on them, a naked pregnant women, and multiple discussions of topics best relegated to the dregs of the internet. Really, guys. Rated R is one thing, but completely classless is another. Crude humor in a sophisticated film loses impact and just turns into 11 year old kids saying the F word in the most awkward manner possible.
(Hangover Baby Carlos image courtesy of the funny t shirt category)
Also, this film lived up to my every expectation regarding Ryan Reynolds and his inability to play any character other than Van Wilder. If you have seen him in any other movie he has done in his career than you have more or less seen this film.
Sigh. The movie. Van Wilder and Super Dad are childhood friends. Van Wilder is a slacker actor who gets into soft core porn. Super Dad is a high paid lawyer with three kids and a pretty hot wife. They go out drinking and end up wishing for each others life while pissing into a magical fountain (God, this actually hurts to type). They switch bodies and have to spend the rest of the film not screwing up each others lives. The story grinds out in a horribly predicable manner: Van Wilder learns to be more responsible and not such a flake, and Super Dad learns to relax a little and not be such a workaholic. They both dance around doing stuff they normally couldn’t do but back off before doing anything that could be considered really life altering. The magic fountain was moved and they spent a lot of time looking for it, only to find out it was relocated into a busy mall, where they have to urinate in public (did I also mention that they both have to whip out their penises and urinate in front of a group of Girl Scouts? This movie is like a sexual predator training film).
The stars. Some fun moments here and there. One star. In a weird twist, I kind of got more into the sub plot of Super Dad trying to negotiate a major company merger than the actual main story. Maybe I was secretly hoping it would turn into Wall Street or some other film that didn’t involved scatological humor. One star. In another weird twist, I was far more engaged and interested in the two female supporting characters than the main guys. They seemed much more three dimensional and interesting. One star. That’s pretty much it. Three lousy stars.
Now the black holes. Where to begin? I could give one for every time the movie went from tolerable to claw-your-own-face-off bad, but that would add up to like 150. I will give it three, with one bonus black hole for the baby excrement scene. Four total. The movie pretty much undoes all the good work that Megan’s Law has done. Two black holes. One black hole for the fact that I spent most of the movie trying to figure out who was who between the two guys. You would think with only two characters switching it would be easy, but the two characters are so two dimensional that I honestly had to think about which of the two was saying what. One black hole. Literally none of the nude scenes were in any way appealing, and more or less made for some really painful to watch visuals. They not only made me ashamed to me a man, but ashamed to be human. Two black holes. Way, way, way too much foul language. One black hole. Yet more of the whole “negative behavior without any negative consequences” I have been railing against ever since my review of the Hangover Part 2. Baby licking an electrical outlet and sticking it’s hand in a moving blender? Saying things to a female coworker that should get you and your company sued? Exposing yourself in public in front of kids and befouling a public fountain, also frequented by kids? No way should any of these result in some kind of consequence to pay. One black hole. Van Wilder rides again. One black hole. Total: twelve black holes.
So a grand total of nine black holes, a truly terrible score. Not quite as bad as the other Ryan Reynolds film I have dumped on recently (Green Lantern, with 10 black holes), but really close. Please, please don’t see this movie. If it tanks maybe someone will get a clue and put some thought into the next rated R rom com instead of just vomiting all over a script. I suppose some argument could be made for the whole “bromance” aspect of this movie, but that is like saying that your chemotherapy is saving you a fortune in haircuts. Ironically, the R rating will really hurt this film at the box office, as the only people who should actually enjoy this film are too young to see it. Or maybe in a coma.
The Harry Potter Marathon continues: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
OK, the biggest thing I have learned so far from seeing two of these movies is that they are freaking long. I am going to have to revise my estimate of how long it is going to take me to get through all these. Secondly, they aren’t as annoying as I first thought they would be. Some issues, of course, but no more than 90% of the other movies I have reviewed. They are indeed enough to keep me engaged.
By the way, I recently made friends with some people who do Goth costumes, and since Goths are a kind of nerd I have to appreciate what they do. It occurred to me as I wrote this that you could use their Goth costumes to make a pretty spifffy Voldemort outfit with relative ease. They also seem to have a good selection of Steampunk, which as you should know appeals to me a lot (Steampunk Goth image courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
So it is year 2 and Harry is still dealing with his abusive uncle, who seems immune to all kinds of child abuse laws. Seems last time I checked locking a kid in a room and preventing them from attending school was pretty illegal, but maybe they have different laws in England (I kind of doubt it). He needs his friends to bust him out so he can go back to school. If I were one of Harry’s friends I would have to advise him to not return after the school year and possible hang out at a Motel 6 somewhere, but I predict the next movie will start off with Harry trying to escape his families clutches again. Anyway, again I am not going to get into the whole story, but just run over my impressions, ideas, and questions.
First off, I found out I completely spelled quidditch wrong the other day. Thank you for the zero loyal readers who corrected me on it. My issues with the game rules remain, although I found out that in the books there are games that can last years. However, remember that I refuse to base any of this on the books I have not read. The movie should stand alone.
Second, I will say they are really miking the PG cow by having all the the basilisks victims become paralyzed in spite of the extremely deadly nature of it’s gaze, at least according to the movie. How many devices can they come up with to make his gaze slightly less dangerous? I will say I liked the whole Thomas Riddle/Voldemort plot thread. Nice twist IMO. However, there is definitely a pattern so far of suspecting someone of being the bad guy only to find by the end of the movie it was someone entirely different. Very Scooby Doo-like, except that the Scooby Doo gang more or less catches the bad guy eventually and so far Harry Potter and his crew generally has the villain reveal himself in a classic villain monologue. If Thomas Riddle hadn’t bothered to reveal himself to Harry he could have had the girl take the blame entirely and kept manipulating things for years. However, it seems that villains feel an ego based need to have their cleverness acknowledged by the heroes they plan to kill in a couple minutes, and Voldemort is apparently no exception.
I know I mentioned this before, but why is it Harry is the only person willing to say Voldemort’s name? In his own way he is even less powerful in this movie than the last, and saying his name does not seem to be making him manifest. Just an aside.
If Harry can talk to snakes, why does he have an owl as a familiar? He should be like the snake king. He kind of looks like this kid I went to grade school with named Brian, who was the local weird reptile kid. He had all kinds of snates and lizards. Also, talking to snakes seems like a pretty obscure talent, and even the others who know about it admit it’s extremely rare. Why, then, does it have specific name and everyone except Harry know everything about it? Also, snakes aren’t really known for large brain capacity. Seems like they wouldn’t have much to say except for “Hisssss” and “I want to eat you”. I put that talent on the same level as the fact that I am double joined in my left thumb. Interesting, but usually pretty worthless. However, I suspect the author will find a way to crowbar in something useful for Harry to do with it in every film.
Anyway, that’s pretty much it. Most of my major questions were asked in the last one. I am going to get going as I have a yoga class to attend. By the way, last night at my friends movie night we saw Let Me In. Really great vampire movie. Talk to you tomorrow.
Movie Review: Friends with Benefits
OK. I really, really wanted to hate this movie. First of all, the whole concept of friends having casual sex with no strings attached is so contrary to my experience it sounds like watching a movie about an eight armed hermaphrodite playing baseball. I have no basis for comparison and therefore the alien nature of the premise prevents me from having a connection. I have never successfully engaged in a FWB situation and, in my experience, an kind of sexual activity comes with so many strings that I end up feeling like a marionette. The idea of people getting away with this, especially two people as attractive as Mila Kunis and (I assume, based on what all my friends who are into guys say) Justin Timberlake, is almost infuriating. Also, I am thoroughly sick of Justin Timberlake’s perfect life. How good can someone’s life be?
However, as much as I wanted to pour the bitter bile of my life all over this film, it turned out to be shockingly honest and overall very decent. There is not an original bone in this films body; it is a typical Hollywood boy-meets-girl-for-casual-sex-but-then-they-discover-they-have-real-feelings-for-each-other rom com love story. There isn’t a single surprise in the whole story, except for the idea that there isn’t a qualified art director in all of New York City. The story, however, makes a lot of sense, there is real chemistry between the two characters, and there are a couple decent supporting characters. I won’t say it was a great movie going experience, but it is a good time watching.
The story. Justin Timberlake (just typing his name bugs me) is Dylan (could they have given him a sexier name? How about Studly McSuperpenis?), a guy who runs his own blog (the irony is NOT lost on me) in LA. Mila Kunis is is Jamie, a headhunter in NYC. GQ magazine needs a new Art Director and she recruits Dylan. He is at first hesitant to move to New York and she spends the evening showing him how great the city is. He abandons his employees in LA and moves out. As he is more or less friendless he starts hanging out with Jamie. They are both coming out of a recent painful breakup where they more or less got their hearts tossed in a wood chipper and then dumped onto a compost heap. They turn into fast friends and, as these things inevitably go (except in my life) start sleeping together for funsies rather than realsies.
Meanwhile, Dylan is working at GQ and befriends the gay sports writer Tommy, played by Woody Harrelson. I have to say that Woody doesn’t come across particularly well as a gay guy, but it’s obvious that he knows that and instead plays it so over the top that it gets hilarious. He dominated every scene he was in and added an extremely nice touch to the film. I especially liked him asking Dylan “You sure you’re not gay?” several times. However, for every Yin there inevitably must be a Yang, and in this case the Yang is pro snowboarder Shaun White. First of all, I met him back in my days of working in the skateboard industry (hahahahaha. They call it an industry) and he was kind of a jerk back then. I have contempt for extreme sports pro “athletes”, especially from sports so extreme that they actively try to keep anyone not “core” out. Say what you will about professional runners, but anyone can buy a pair of shoes and go running. Anyway, Shaun White plays a completely unnecessary bit character who brings the flow of movie to a head on collision every time he shows up. In a movie filled with really good actors delivering great performances all around he delivers a stilted, fake, Tweeki-like performance. Honestly, R2-D2 had more emotion and nuance. It is brutally apparent that one of the producers emailed the writers with something like “We got Shaun White to be in our film. This will help bring in teenage guys who would otherwise avoid our chick flick like this like a week old dead skunk. Find some way to crow bar him into the story”.
Anyway, enough of my personal bias. Dylan and Jamie bump uglies in a montage of sex scenes that are really funny and honestly shows a lot of what goes on when two people spend a lot of time together in bed. There were a few moments that seemed to drag on a lot and a couple that made me wish I had been simultaneously struck blind and deaf, but overall the montage was decent. Jamie’s free spirited mother showed up and added to the chaos. It was about that time that the movie started to get real. The whole “friends with benefits” thing really only works if both parties are true sociopaths, and since they aren’t they started to care for each other in ways beyond their original deal. They stop long enough for Jamie to get totally used by a jerk doctor and Dylan to have some kind of weird, awkward one night stand or something. They fly to LA together to deal with Dylan’s Alzheimer’s dad. Other romantic comedy comedy hijinks ensues. Conversations are overheard and misinterpreted. Feelings are hurt. Huge, cheesy romantic gestures are made.
The stars. Good story, well written. One star. Good acting by all the main characters and most of the supporting characters. One star. Mila Kunis was looking so hot with her big, puppy dog eyes and she spent a lot of the movie wearing just a bra and panties. One star. Whoever they got to be her body double for the brief nudity was great too. One star. Woody Harrelson as a gay sports writer. One star. Some really great and funny dialog. One star. I found the “laid back Californian dealing with New York city” entertaining. One star. They let the emotions actually go the way they should. I felt a certain satisfaction in how things didn’t really work out the way they all thought they would. One star. Generally an entertaining film. One star. Total: nine stars.
Now the black holes. Shaun White. One black hole. The script was as predictable as saying stubbing your bare toe is going to really hurt. One black hole. The whole Alzheimer’s dad sub plot, while adding some depth to Dylan’s character, was actually really depressing and out of tone for the rest of the movie. Every time you dealt with him on screen the film really slowed down. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have kept it in there. Just that it was kind of a bummer. One black hole. I also found the Jamie’s free spirited mother kind of unnecessary and a little annoying. One black hole. The entire basic premise of the movie. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
In the annoying-but-not-black-hole worthy category, I have a couple. While I enjoyed the Dylan as the Californian in NY thing, the Dylan having the perfect life in Malibu thing was annoying, as was the young nephew who wanted to be a magician. Not a bad thing, but just didn’t really add anything. Also, how that I think about it, Dylan’s older sister didn’t really ring as true as the rest of the characters (except Shaun White, who ironically managed to sound fake while playing himself).
Total of four stars, a really good score from me for a rom com. Good chick flick, but not really a good date movie unless you are in your relationship already. If it is a new thing she might misinterpret your intentions, which could turn into something really awkward (in a “I just got rejected again” sense). On the other hand, if you happen to have a friend you have been hoping lose by sleeping with for a while, this movie might plant the idea in her head. Don’t see it without a girl, and especially don’t see it by yourself, unless you are going to write a review for it, in which case you look totally normal and not at all creepy.
By the way, I just got copies of all the Harry Potter movies and plan to watch them all back to back over the next few days. Then I will see and review the newest one. I am not going to review each one seperatly but will instead do like a paragraph on each over two posts, than the big review. I think I am going to need a good supply of Diet Mountain Dew for this. (I thought the Wizard Promised you a Brain shirt courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
Warhammer tournament this weekend, so I won’t get it all done this week. Wish me luck!
Movie Review: Winnie the Pooh
What the hell, Dave? Have you seen everything else and your life is so pathetic that you have to see a kids movie to have something to do and write about???
Well, yes, kind of. Tuesday night is cheap movie night, and I have seen literally everything else playing at Jack London or the Grand Lake. I could head to the Shattuck and see something more independent, but I am still a little bitter about missing 13 Assassins. Also, I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to really drive anywhere.
So, Winnie the Pooh. At the time I bought my ticket I was kind of hoping that I would feel a wash of nostalgia and pleasant childhood memories, but unfortunately five minutes into the film I remembered that even as an appropriately aged child I never had really good feelings for Winnie the Pooh. Too sweet and innocent for me. Of course at that age my dad was taking us to the drive in to see One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Orca the Killer Whale, so I don’t think I am really a good barometer for movie age appropriateness. After the first five minutes of tripe cuteness I started hoping it would sharpen up to the point where I could call it Winnie Poohter and the Deadly Hollows, but that was not to be.
So I rolled into the theater and was suddenly overwhelmed by the creepiness of being a single grown man with no kids watching a movie for children. I sat as far away from any of the children and tried to look inconspicuous as possible. Fortunately an even creepier crazy cat lady (she looked exactly like the kind of lady who would kidnap a kid out of a shopping cart at Walmart) sat down two seats down from me, so either I wasn’t the creepiest in the theater or at least I was a member of a club. The usher came in several times during the film and gave us both the stink eye, for which I applaud his diligence. (Stranger Have the Best Candy image courtesy of the funny t shirt category)
Anyway, the movie. I am going to forgo my usual stars/black holes rating system, as giving this movie black holes for plot and direction seems unnecessarily harsh and brutal, even for the cold lump of flint that passes for my heart. I will instead talk about my impressions and then as a few questions that occurred to me while watching this flick.
I will say the film was pretty good in it’s intended direction. The children in the audience seemed enraptured when they weren’t screaming, crying, running up and down the aisle, or puking from eating too much popcorn. The film was narrated by the great John Cleese, which was one of the real highlights of the movie. All the characters had English accents, which was very appropriate considering the Hundred Acres Woods is in England.
Pooh wakes up hungry and is out of honey. He tries to mooch off his friends and neighbors (including single mom Kanga and her son Roo) but to no avail. He runs into Eeyore (easily my favorite character) and discovers that Eeyore’s tail is missing. The rest of the gang decide that they would have a contest to see who can find a new tail for Eeyore, with the first prize being a pot of honey. Meanwhile, Christopher Robin (easily the wimpiest kid in literary history. I predict a rough time of it for him in middle school) disappears and the gang thinks he’s been kidnapped by a monster that Owl dreamed up. Anyway, cute stuffed animal hijinks ensues. I don’t want to ruin the plot for you, but there is indeed a happy and heartwarming ending.
Like I said, I am not going to pick this one apart with my stars and black holes. For what it is, it is brilliant. If I were five and not a victim of parental abuse I would probably love it. Parents will feel a deep sense of smug self satisfaction for giving their kids some quality entertainment instead of the usual folderol. I am sure it is softening our kids brains, but at least it has a good look.
However, during the course of the movie a few questions occurred to me. They are pretty bitter and sarcastic, so if you are a massive fan of Winnie the Pooh you should probably stop reading now. If, on the other hand, you have a good answer to any of these feel free to respond here.
First of all, what is the basis of the economy of the Hundred Acre Woods? In Pooh Bears house you see literally hundreds of empty honey pots. Someone had to manufacture all those clay pots, and someone else had to fill them. Every time Winnie the Pooh tries to get his own honey he gets chased by bees all over the place. At the end of the movie Christopher Robin gives him a pot of honey the size of a refrigerator. Where do you go to get something that size? Then, assuming there is a secret honey bottling factory somewhere in the woods, what does Pooh bear actually do for money? He seems to be shockingly lazy and doesn’t really have employment. For that matter, what do the animals of the Hundred Acre Woods use for currency? It would be funny if they called their currency Acres. Seems to be a lot of borrowing going on there.
Second, is honey all Winnie the Pooh really eats? I understand that it is his favorite food, but really it’s not very filling. Furthermore, if that’s all you eat wouldn’t you end up with diabetes pretty fast? For that matter, bears require protein at some point. Shouldn’t Winnie the Pooh be suffering from massive malnourishment?
Is Winnie the Pooh kindhearted and gracious or selfish and narcissistic? Towards the end he passes up on a free pot of honey in order to bring his good friend Eeyore his tail, which is cool, but a half an hour earlier he had talked his apparently developmentally disadvantaged friend Piglet to do some really dangerous stuff in order to get some honey, resulting in Piglet getting his head stuck in a beehive. Winnie then beats on the beehive (with Piglets head stuck inside) and more or less enrages the bees. Sure, he give of himself for his “cool” friend, but treats Piglet like a door mat.
Where exactly is Roo’s father? Is Kanga divorced, or is he in the merchant marines, or what? In my mind I see him living just over the border of the Hundred Acre Woods in the Three Acre Trailer Park with his stripper girlfriend in a single wide. Maybe Kanga secretly sleeps around with every Joey (haw!) that bounces by and doesn’t know who exactly is responsible. I kind of see a deadbeat dad somewhere in here.
Is Winnie the Pooh (and the rest of them, for that matter) a real bear or a stuffed toy? He eats a lot of honey, but at one point the stitching in his belly comes undone and white stuffing comes spilling out kind of graphically (no danger of childhood trauma there, kids). So where does all the honey go? Eeyore’s tail appears to be attached with a nail, and yet he eats thistles.
Does Christopher Robin not have any human friends? Young boy, growing up alone in the woods with only hist stuffed animals and imagination for company? He’s one manifesto away from becoming the Unibomber. Seriously, this kid has home-schooled weirdo written all over him.
Anyway, I’m going to stop there before my house gets torched by an irate gang of grandmothers, librarians, and cute girls who had a Winnie the Pooh stuffed bears as a kid. The movie? Worth taking your kid to, I guess. Not worth going to as a single man with no kids, unless you plan to write an acerbic review. I will say you shouldn’t pay full price for it, as the movie only runs 69 minutes and about 6 of that is taken up by a cartoon short. However, I suspect that is on purpose as most of the kids were pretty restless by the end of the movie. Personally, I counted the shortness as a kindness.
Nerd Dating: Online Dating pt 20: Getting the number on the first meeting
Sorry again about not blogging a lot this week, but the fact is twice a year I get a ton of new shirts and this is the week they have arrived. I spent the last two days working on 11 new shirts. 
My favorite of the new one has to be this Zoolander shirt. It’s the logo from the Derek Zoolander Center for Children Who Can’t Read Good and Want to Learn to do Other Stuff Good Too shirt. Hilarious (image courtesy of the funny t shirts category)
I’m going to make this one brief, as I have to write a newsletter as soon as I get this done. Basically this is the last of my online dating posts for a while, since after the first horribly awkward meeting the potential relationship usually devolves into a normal dating situation. The one last thing that is significantly different from “normally” meeting the girl is that, unlike meeting someone at a club or political rally, there is a pretty good chance at the end of the date you still don’t have her number. You could simply head home and email her, asking for her number, but personally I don’t like to rely on that. Remember what I said months ago: most women are looking for an excuse to drop you like a bad habit, and being a wimp on the phone number is the perfect rip cord for most of them. Also, remember it is super easy to ignore an email, and her having written evidence of you having to beg her for her number will come back later and bite you on the ass.
You can actually get a pretty good read for your odds of getting her number by how long she sits with you at that first meeting. It breaks down like this:
10 minutes or less-uh oh.
11-30 minutes-not really likely to happen. Odds are she was trying to be open minded and give you a chance, and you blew it. This range can often times result in you getting a fake number, usually to one of those rejection lines but sometimes to something funny like a bowling alley or adult book store.
31-60 minutes-really about 50/50 here. You didn’t offend her visually or verbally, and she has probably put you into the “maybe” category. However, know that you are dating on thin ice here and are one major misstep from a complete dating meltdown. Tread softly, my freind.
61-120 minutes-really good. Probably about 80% here. She had a good time hanging out with you and would most likely be willing to see you again (either that or she has been treating listening to you talk like slowing down on the freeway to look at a traffic accident). You likely have a little more leeway in the making mistakes area, although honestly that varies quite a bit and can still mean one.
121-240 minutes-excellent. Hopefully you took her to dinner and the two of you had a great time. Also hopefully you didn’t tell her your life story or bore her all night with stories about your blog or commercial website. You would have to screw up pretty badly in the last 10 minutes to fail here.
241+ minutes-believe it or not, eventually you reach the point of diminished returns and your odds start to drop. If she feels like she already knows you or has spent a lot of time with you she may well lose interest. If the meeting goes four hours it will feel like a date. If it goes more than that it will probably feel like an all day meeting. Try to cut out after three to four hours. Make it look like you have some kind of life to get back to.
Anyway, it’s time to ask for her number. How best to do this? I find this is one of those unusual situations wherein being straight up and honest works best. Just look her in the eye and say something like “This is great. We should definitely hang out again.” If she replies positively whip out your cell phone and say “What is your number?” It would be polite of you to dial immediately so she has yours and knows you are not some kind of nut with caller ID blocked or something. At that point shake her hand and go home to plan something great for your first date.
Gotta run. Still not sure what do do next for dating. The girl I am seeing turned me on to some new music today so maybe I’ll review the one band she gave me a burned CD of. I’ll figure it out tomorrow. Any dating questions or subject suggestions would be seriously considered.
Nerd Dating: Online Dating pt 12: interpreting photos
Before I get into this blog, I would like to mention that last night I went to movie night at my friend’s house and we saw Machete. I won’t bother to do a review, as it is both kind of old and amazing and doesn’t really need my input. I will say, however, if you haven’t seen it do so as soon as possible and if you have and don’t like it than you must be some kind of soulless abomination.
Anyway, more dating advice. By the way, a reader named Rachel commented on my last one on understanding posted careers and mentioned that incomes on personal listing are almost universally inflated by 30% for both men and women. I guess everyone is a liar.
Let’s talk about photos. Here’s the deal. Everyone on this planet, no matter how repulsive or disfigured, owns at least one photo wherein the light was perfect, the camera angle dead on, the clothing and makeup to the maximum benefit, and the planets in the correct alignment to give them a really good looking photo. Never, as a rule, trust a post that only has a single image. Assuming it’s even the person’s actual photo, there is something remarkably suspicious about a single photo.
That being said, let’s look into the subtle (and less-than-subtle) clues that can be gleaned from the types of images used by posters.
Blurred image. In this day and age, we really have simplified photographic technology to the point where any idiot can shoot a clear shot. Therefore, if someone posts a blurry image he or she is doing it for a very specific reason. Usually this is not a weight issue, as the image has to be Hubble-blurry in order to hide someone’s gross obesity, but it could easily be a bad skin condition, wandering eye, missing teeth, missing ear, baldness, or any number of appearance issues real or imagined. I’d say stay away from this one, as in my experience people who think they should hide their disfigurements rarely have the personality required to overcome them. The ones who have that personality generally don’t hide it.
Head only. Massive body insecurities, most likely for a good reason. This typically translates into kind of or really fat, but sometimes just some major self esteem issues.
Head Shot. This is where he or she went to a professional studio (often in a mall) and paid for head shots. This breaks down into two kinds of people. The first is a wannabe actor or actress and is probably reasonably hot, but a massive pain in the ass to date. They have an overinflated sense of themselves coupled with frustration at having to hang with the unwashed masses, including you. The second type is someone who is actually pretty unattractive but thinks they are stunningly hot. They are also a major pain in the ass to deal with, especially if you ever make the mistake of introducing him or her to your friends. As a matter of fact, just stay away from head shots.
Prom picture with date cut out. This is probably the only photo this person has where he or she is well dressed and groomed. Also, they kind of still wish they were in high school. I tend to find a lot of younger single moms post this one, so odds are reasonably good the baby daddy is in the missing part.
Picture that is obviously a couple with the other person cut out. This is really more of a girl thing than a guy thing. The thing is, some kinds of women are really only happy when they are with their significant other, and therefore only really look good while with that person (or think they do) and therefore use old couple photos to show it. This girl typically defines her existence around her relationship but then two years later feels bitter and angry because she doesn’t have a life outside of it. She will most likely feel vaguely unhappy at all times. Also, if you develop a relationship with her she will probably climb up your ass and set up base camp.
Picture with a dog (or dogs). For guys, this is either OK or kind of fake. It’s OK if he has a dog he loves and hangs out with all the time. He will probably be a decent guy to date and have a really good job. It’s fake if he managed to get a picture with a random dog in the (more or less true) belief that being shown with a dog will make him more appealing to women. Odds are he only wants to get laid and will lie extensively to do so. 99.99% of guys with dog shots will be with a big dog, like a German Sheppard or Chocolate Lab. If you run into the .01% that shows a poodle or Dachshund make sure you are in the men-seeking-women section. (Wiener dog image courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
For women it also breaks down into two categories, but it is pretty simple: big dog or purse dog. If she is seen with one or two big dogs she is probably very independent and harbors a secret hatred of men (I know, I am being kind of a jerk here. This is just my experience). She will never admit it but suffers from some pretty serious self esteem issues and doubts her self worth (again, these are generalizations. I am sure there are many, many exceptions out there and I am some kind of idiot). On the other hand, if you can play through these issues she will probably make a great girlfriend and wife in the “we-are-partners” sort of way. She also probably has a kick ass job so if you are looking to be a stay at home dad roll with it. If, however, she is shown holding a dog that would probably lose in a fight against a hamster, especially if she is holding it’s face against hers in a super annoying closeup with a scrunchy full face smile, than I would bet a lot of money that she is EXTREMELY high maintenance. You had better be able to cater to all her emotional, financial, and physical needs (and trust me, the list will be extensive).
That’s it for now. More tomorrow as long as I don’t get crucified by some of my big dog owning women friends later on tonight (and yet, that would kind of prove my point). As for my who-would-win question, Slimer from Ghostbusters verses Casper the Friendly Ghost, I think I am going to have to go with Slimer. Sorry, Casper, but being friendly doesn’t get you much in a fight to the death (or whatever it is you do when you are already dead).
For today, more Star Trek. Who would win: ego inflated hair pile Riker versus drunken Chief Engineer Scott?
Movie review: Twilight Eclipse
OK, I admit this is not the first movie I would have chosen to see. Also, I know that this movie came out months ago, but here’s the deal. The girl I am currently seeing more or less strong armed me into watching this opus, and given that I have picked pretty much everything else we have seen together I owed her one.
To be fair, this is a movie series I should at least be familiar with. It has vampires and werewolves, two areas that until this series more or less was hijacked by the teeniebopper sub (sub) culture was exclusively goth nerd fare. It is a pop culture phenomenon and if I want to keep my title as self proclaimed aficionado I need to at least watch one of them. She originally planned to show me the first Twilight, but picked it up from a Red Box and accidentally got Eclipse. I had nothing to do with it as I told her I would passively watch it while making snarky comments but would not personally contribute to that franchises cash flow.
First of all, it wasn’t completely painful. I liken it more to an extended teeth cleaning by an overly enthusiastic dental technician as than the full on root canal by a marginally trained orangutan that I expected. We’ll have to see how the stars (star?) and black holes play out, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. My friend said that the first Twilight was far worse and therefore funnier, but such as it is, this thing wasn’t actually physically painful.
First, the plot. Bella (Kristen Stewart), the sort-of hot but painfully bland (both in looks, personality, and acting) is about to graduate from high school and as a graduation gift wants Edward (Robert Pattinson), her vampire boyfriend, to turn her into one one of the living dead. Edward, who somehow manages to maintain a facial expression that makes him look like he is dealing with a painful bowel obstruction for the entirety of the movie no matter what he is doing, wants her to “live” a little in spite of the fact that she is still a virgin (a fact painfully and forcefully delivered in the most awkward father/daughter scene ever filmed) and seems dead on the inside. He lives with a bunch of other vampires in some kind of club or something where they all feel the need to bleach their hair blond while maintaining massive caterpillar-like black eyebrows. He and his buddies apparently don’t drink human blood (?), and the way you can tell is their eyes are yellow, while human blood drinkers eyes are red. Apparently human blood comes with red colored contact lenses. Meanwhile, Jacob, one of several hundred muscular, shirtless teenage boys who are some kind of werewolves (or maybe Native American shapeshifters. The story seems a little vague on this) that all have matching bad fake tattoos that look they were drawn on with a Sharpie is somehow her other love interest. From what I hear, Edward dumped Bella at some point and left her in the woods. Jacob came through as a true friend and bailed her out. Then, when Edward resurfaced later she gave him a classic “let’s be friend’s speech” and jumped back on board with Count Eyebrows.
For a really weak script and two dimensional story, this recount already makes it seem terribly complicated. Anyway, Bella manages to prove herself the cruelest bitch I have ever seen by dragging both Edward and Jacobs hearts through the mud. Some other red headed vampire chick shows up who hates Edward and Bella. Vampire and werewolf battle hijinx ensue. Werewolves team up with good vampires to fight bad vampires, who are for the most part innocent kids pulled into the evil vampires plot and generally slaughtered. There are a couple scenes where the father of one of the kids shows up looking for the son that is destined to get butchered by Edward later on in the movie. Somehow, in spite of the other vampires being stronger than the good ones not a single good vampire or werewolf manages to get killed. In fact, the worst injury appears to be a bad bruise. The movie ends with final resolution of any given episode of a soap opera.
OK, the stars. The werewolves were pretty cool, in spite of mediocre CGI. One star. There were a couple origin story flashback that were kind of cool and broke up the brain damaged Bella/Edward/Jacob love triangle story. One star. The fight choreography was decent. One star. Hmm. Honestly, that’s all I can think of. Three stars total.
Now the black holes. The story. One black hole. The acting. Two black holes. I should give it one black hole for each time they managed to find an excuse to show Jacob or his many buddies without a shirt on, but will hold myself to one black hole. The werewolves have apparently bioengineered a strain of tree in the Pacific Northwest that grows cargo shorts that dissolve into thin air every time they transform. One black hole. Bella is possibly the most ineffective female lead I have ever seen in any movie ever. She is entirely helpless and her only single act during the entirety of the movie is to cut her own arm to distract a vampire with her blood (did I mention that Bella apparently has the blood equivalent of Captain Crunch to vampires?). She does more to damage woman’s advocacy and rights than the guy who invented the chastity belt. Two black holes. One black hole for each of the guys in the movie who lets her treat them like crap and totally disregard and disrespect their feelings and never calls her to account for it, so two black holes for both the sackless Edward and Jacob. The fight scenes were shockingly hard to follow as the wardrobe director decided the thing both good and bad vampires needed to wear was black hoodies. One black hole. Vampires sparkling in daylight instead of burning up. One black hole. A movie about vampires that features less actual blood shown than a typical episode of the Bachelor (did I also mention that vampires, when injured, actually have no blood and shatter like quartz? No joke. Tear off a vampires head and he looks like you just dropped a ceramic vampire cookie jar). Two black holes. Holes in the plot that strained my suspension of disbelief like a size 2 girdle on a 400 pound man (at one point the evil vampire army goes on a killing spree through Seattle that somehow doesn’t result in 100,000 FBI agents showing up. Things like this). One black hole. The wolves, while huge and cool, were completely crap CGI. One black hole. Total: 15 black holes.
So with that we get a total of 12 black holes. A miserable score, but I don’t really feel like my time was TOTALLY wasted. There is something that makes you want to watch it (kind of like slowing down to see a traffic accident). I would probably been more generous if I were in high school and a girl. I could understand seeing this to appease a girl you are dating and, since that is how I saw it, I still feel somewhat manly. I also made her watch a few episodes of Firefly afterward in order to recapture some machismo.
For the who would win, aquatic wimp Aquaman versus moronic macho man Beef Supreme from Idiocracy, I think as long as it was done on dry land I would have to go with the Beefer. Monster truck + flamethrower = win. In water obviously Aquaman would have the advantage. (Brawndo image courtesy of the funny t shirts category)
For today I ask a simple question: who would win, Slimer from Ghostbusters versus Casper the Friendly Ghost. Bye for now.
A night of live music and air guitar in San Francisco
This title should be “Dave tries to get a life.” As any regular reader knows, I’m not one of those bloggers who tells you what I did every day and then shares my shopping list with everyone in some misapprehension that the universe is fascinated by the mundane details of my life. However, last night a friend of mine invited me to see her band play in SF and I was impressed enough by the two bands I saw to write about it, but I am taking it from the concept of reviewing the music I saw.
Before I do that let me stroke my ego a bit by telling you some of the fascinating mundane details of my life as they relate to live music. When I lived in LA I used to go see bands all the time. When I moved to Oakland I was so busy that I really didn’t have time to find the places to go and some new friends who like live music to go out with, so last night was a refreshing blast from the past. It was 1996 all over again, complete with me forgetting my ear plugs, a super hot girl driving me crazy with her loser boyfriend, someone spilling beer all over the place, a tiny cramped club, a bathroom I wouldn’t wish upon my filthiest enemy, and a decor developed by the “flea market meets free crap from beer vendors” school of decorating.
One thing has changed since 1996, however. I don’t know if audiences are lamer, or I have somehow gotten cooler (or more delusional), but as I looked around the room I come to the realization that I was one of the coolest guys in the club. The only exceptions seemed to be actually performers and a good friend of mine, but most of them were pretty lame. Good for my ego, I guess.
Enough of that. Let’s talk about the performers I saw. My friend is in a band called Deeper. She is the lead singer. I had not heard her sing before, and was really impressed. She has a great voice. The band is indie/punk. Kind of Riot Grrrl-ish with a couple of Y chromosomes. Really good, and worth listening too. Unfortunately I was late and missed seeing my friend trip and take a header into the drum kit, but I got the story later on.
The second band was called Thumper, and I liked them a lot too. I am not a fan of hip hop in almost all it’s forms, but Thumper is a really cool fusion of indie rock and hip hop. It’s not some lame mash up or rap with a guitar. It is honest to god rock with rap-ish lyrics. Really cool, and they sell t-shirts so they are near and dear to my heart. I talked to the drummer (electric drums, which you don’t see a lot anymore, but sounded really good) after the show and he seemed like a cool dude, so I decided I would talk about them as well. I think I will look around and see where else they are playing. I think they are out of Fairfield, which is more or less BFE as far as the Bay Area goes, but maybe when they come back to SF.
I wasn’t going to stay for the last band, and so thought my evening was more or less done. How wrong I was. At that point they had an extra special showing of the San Fransisco Air Guitar Regional Champion Matthew “Cold Steel Renegade” Feldstein. I have to say I have never been more impressed by a man in silver spandex and no shirt before. He was amazing and hilarious. Apparently Air Guitar is a highly competitive sport (?) that requires some kind of nickname to become a participant. Check out the US Air Guitar Rankings.
I kind of wish I were joking and had made all that up, but I’m also kind of happy that I didn’t and it’s all true.
(Huge in Japan image courtesy of the novelty t shirt category).
Not sure what I am going to do tomorrow. I’m torn between completing my review of the Expendables or doing some more cheap date ideas. If you have a preference let me know.
P.S. I did stop at the grocery store on the way home from the show, and my shopping list was yogurt, grapes, cheese, tortillas, salami, cucumber, and apples. Who says I am not a hypocrite?
Nerd Dating: Dating on a budget pt 6
Here is another idea for a cheap date. If you live in any kind of a metropolitan area check you local paper or community site. Odds are somewhere in your city is going to be some kind of outdoor theater in some park during the summer. A few months ago in San Francisco I went with a couple friends to see Grease. It was totally fun, and had I been on a date with a girl instead of being the third wheel with my friend John and his girlfriend it could have been great.
This is a perfect date for a number of great reasons. First of all, it makes you look totally cultural and/or hip. It is totally fun, and for the most part totally free. You will need a few things. Here is a short list.
1. A clean (<–important) blanket or three. Even if the weather is nice you will want something to sit on. A couple pillows are not a bad idea, but don’t have a ton of stuff to carry. DO NOT bring folding chairs. You want to create the intimacy of being on the same blanket together. Note that if the weather is chilly that is even better, as you can then cuddle up under one of the blankets and get comfortable, if you know what I mean (by the way, if that sounds sleazy or duplicitous get over it. There is no way any girl on the planet is dumb enough to get tricked by something like that. I can guarantee if she is cuddling up under a blanket with you that was her intention all along. Girls are freakishly smart when it comes to something like that. You aren’t fooling anyone).
2. Warm clothes, unless you absolutely, positively, 110% know it is going to be hot. Remember that girls tend to get colder than guys and you can gain gallantry points by offering her your extra jacket.
3. Something to eat and drink. This can be as simple as some water or soda and a bag of popcorn or candy, or it can be a full on picnic basket with china plates and a wine bottle, glasses, and a corkscrew. By the way, if you plan to indulge in adult libations be sure to have something to hide it with from the police who will surely be patrolling the event. In most cases the cops won’t really care if you have a couple beers or a glass of wine as long as you don’t 
rub it in their face, but there is always the chance you could run into a total jerk who wants to make your life hell. I do recommend this, as the actual breaking of the law in such a juvenile way will likely make you look like a bad boy to your date as well as flash her back to high school (in my opinion, this is such a minor thing that it doesn’t even register on my bad boy radar, but odds are likely most of you don’t have the breadth of destructive and outright illegal experiences that comprises my childhood. I Drink Beer image courtesy of the funny t shirt category, by the way).
4. A ready means to and from the event. This can be your car, a public transit system, or taxi money, but don’t ruin a great date by tromping miles across the city carrying blankets, pillows, and a picnic basket. Kind of a mood killer.
5. A modest amount of information about the movie or performance going on. This is again where ten minutes of research will really pay off in increased chances of scoring. If you end up talking about he movie before or after the performance you will look more worldly and smarter if you can drop a couple factoids that were not obviously gleaned directly from the performance. Don’t overdo it, but two or three tidbits that she can feign interest in will make you look modestly better.
That’s it. Next dating post I will try to come up with something to take the place of this activity if you are a hayseed living in a cowtown, but I think next post I will review a couple movies I saw over the weekend while at the Firefly show. I feel the need to show my ability to talk about things other than dating once in a while.
