Most people send Christmas cards (or Moses cards, I guess?). Then again, most people don't do many of the things that I think are generally hilarious - so instead of a silly photo and a list of all the ridiculous stuff I did this year, once again, everyone gets a mixtape. This is actually way better - this has much more to do with how my year went, anyway, and will be around long after memory has faded into Bolivian like Mike Tyson.
I had an incredible year - I mean that in the colloquial sense of "awesome or good or great or fun or cool" but also in the sense of "I'm actually incredulous that some of this actually happened." That's usually a good thing, but the roller-coaster nature of one of the weirdest years in American history is certainly reflected in the tape, just like everything else.
This is the year that rock made a comeback . . . kind of. I feel like the tape is more rock-oriented than years past, although obviously it's nerdy ass indie rock (you don't need me to make a tape of Beyonce tracks, even though "All The Single Ladies" is pretty fucking bomb) - don't read too much into the individual song choices, mostly out of convenience for me rather than any real inability to make a read. Just saying.
The rules are simple: I made it fit onto one standard-length (80 minute) CD, I picked the songs I liked most from this year, one per artist, and I didn't put them in any particular order (save the first track) other than some semblance of genre cohesion.
Download RC's 2008 Mixtape Here
Track List:
-Okkervil River, "Lost Coastlines"
We'll start with the best song I heard all year - somehow, it manages to sound both sparse and lush, with perfect pacing. When the "La-la" chorus hits, it forms a perfect crescendo - unreal.
-Frightened Rabbit, "The Twist"
The best Scottish song about fucking since . . . ever? Anyone who has ever been to a bar or had so much as a single drop of alcohol can relate - and the music frames it perfectly, creating an additional sexual metaphor out of the arrangement, complete with pulsating piano line, drums as heartbeat, and orgasmic climax. The chorus - "So twist and whisper the wrong name/ I don't care, nor do my ears/ Twist yourself around me/ I need company, I need human heat/ I need human heat" - leads directly into a sort of mid-song denouement that sort of makes me poop myself. Amazing - I think I actually lived this song in the last year, which is both amazing and frightening. I'm mostly kidding by the way - feel free to laugh at that.
-The Gaslight Anthem, "Great Expectations"
The proliferation of "emo" as a genre has opened the door to a new emphasis on mainstream music with emotional ties . . . and these Jersey greasers manage to fuse Springsteen to the northeast punk/rockabilly tradition in the process. Who would have thought we'd be better off because of emo?
-And the Moneynotes, "My Kid Smokin'"
I have no idea what to do with these guys as a group, but this song is balls - featuring by far the best chorus of the year. Try not to sing along . . . especially when we all understand that "bros before hoes" (or the female equivalent) often isn't just a cliche - it's an admonition that perhaps mistakes were made.
-King Khan & the Shrines, "Welfare Bread"
So I put the two bands that sound fresh out of the Big Lebowski together, but in reality, they couldn't sound any different - this one is a massive Indian dude pretending to be Jerry Lee Lewis, kind of. Hilariously, I wrote up an entire note about the track "Torture" off the same album . . . not important. Seriously, this song makes me feel like The Dude, to the point where I'm ready to have a White Russian even though it's not even 11am yet.
-Four Year Strong, "Catastrophe"
Yeah . . . this track is pretty much what you'd expect from a guy that owns every single Less Than Jake record (me). How many people in your life would be best described as "Such a catastrophe"? I'm guessing more than you'd care to admit. College rock: not just for people in college?
-Of Montreal, "Id Engager"
There's always that point after a breakup, especially on the 'dumped' end, where you walk outside and the sun shines in just the right way, and you start to feel confident again, like you're a predator and every girl at the bar is made of slow, drunk meat. That's this song - arrogance and confidence and opportunity are the currency we're dealing in. Also it's the only track off Skeletal Lamping that doesn't include overt references to black crossdressers, so there's that too.
-The Black Ghosts, "I Want Nothing"
Yeah, I have a little bit of a problem: electronic music. I try to hide it, but it slips through - it's painful and nerdy, but I have a little Eurotrash in me. However, not only is this a great song, it's the opposite of 'club-ready' - rock without guitars. Another song about being a cold-blooded killer, with the backbone to back it up. In fact, this is what the Killers always thought they would be, post-Mr. Brightside.
-Atmosphere, "Shoulda Know"
It's almost obligatory at this point. Sometimes you follow a band so religiously you start to feel like you "know" them - I forget that the Slug I hear is really a cardboard cutout, an image. Still, I feel like an old friend, so I do what I do to all my old friends: listen, then ignore his advice. Standard. Doesn't change the fact that I should have known better - nor the fact that I really don't care, even in retrospect.
-Deerhunter, "Never Stops"
The sound of floating through something you're not sure you really want to do - whether I'm at my desk or in an airport or riding in a shitty cab to an annoying hotel, this track is it. "Haunts my days" indeed - I have a tendency to pretend I'm facing life head-on because I do things like 'listen to this song in the airport' while I neglect festering real-world core-group issues . . . in a weird way, Bradford Cox taught me how to stop pretending (sort of) and learn how to pretend better (kind of). That has value.
-The Electric Dream Machine, "Dayman"
Literally the greatest thing that has ever existed ever, no hyperbole.
-Bon Iver, "Skinny Love"
The sound of an outpouring - the song is a straight blood-letting, the best track off the saddest, most pained album of the year. I won't even pretend - I went through an awkward breakup early in the year, and this album was a total beating, seemingly made of jagged, sharp ice and insecurity . . . however, it's one of those brilliant pieces of art where I feel like I learned something even as I wanted to die. The "m-my-my, m-my-my-MY-my" chorus makes you shake your head in the same knowing fashion as it was intended, then the hammer drops: "Told my love to wreck it all/ Cut out all the ropes and let me fall . . . "
-Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin, "Some Constellation"
My all-time favorite song is probably the version of "The Orchids" done by Califone. This song almost gets there, but with a sunny disposition (and a shockingly depressing subject). Oh yeah - and the worst band name in history too . . . holy shit guys, who thought this was a good idea? Good weed in Portland, apparently.
-Let's Wrestle, "I Won't Lie To You"
Sparse, rough, fun British rock - straightforward and smart. Party on, sad guy - Everyone can relate to something like "I won't lie to you/ I can't see that things are getting any better." I'm getting a stern look from a few of my friends right now, I can feel it - hey, I'm working on it, OK? Holy balls. You guys are dicks.
-Titus Andronicus, "Titus Andronicus"
Jersey kids who sing like Bright Eyes playing literate, scuzzy rock? Obviously, sign me up - the combination works more that well enough to overcome my annoyance at a song with the same title as the band. Imagine if, like, ABBA or Bon Jovi did this? Actually, I think the Village People did . . . then they got AIDS. Maybe I shouldn't have included this track.
-Lykke Li, "I'm Good, I'm Gone."
So yeah, she jacked "Working in a Coal Mine" - she's Swedish, it's allowed. While this seems like a weird transition from the previous track, it actually makes quite a bit of sense when you listen to the lyrics to each - although I'd much rather have sex with the latter (um, the latter performer, not the lyrics - hi English degree!). She's already an indie-geek sex symbol . . . given the raves about her live performance, a mainstream break seems likely in her future. You heard it here like 10,305th.
-Cut Copy, "Hearts on Fire"
The cheesy "Night at the Roxbury" vibe perfectly frames the song, a backdrop that gives it much more meaning than a track built from its parts would normally carry. The cheesy saxophone in the last third just blows it up when the bass drops back in . . . I secretly want to be Rod Stewart, and this song makes me shake my ass like I'm rich enough to not have to worry about looking like an aging douche.
-Dizzee Rascal, "Dance Wiv Me"
The most charismatic man in hip-hop (he can't really be considered 'Grime' anymore) breaks style to give us the closest thing to a club banger he's ever had - but it's much better suited for the car, or changing up your DJ sets while drunk, because singing is tech. An earworm of catastrophic proportions.
-TV on the Radio, "Golden Age"
The best single from the best album of the year (OMG foreshadowing!) - and a little treat for anyone who actually listens to the CD to the end, since the end puts the toe-tap upbeat shit all together. Total scam, I know.
-Santogold, "L.E.S. Artistes"
A completely un-ironic dressing-down of the Lower East Side crowd that, somewhat ironically, probably helped break her album. Douche bags are douche bags, no matter what.
-The Cool Kids, "88"
As the best things to happen to rap since Clipse got introduced to blow, the Cool Kids tear shit up while bragging about middle-class life, complete with two-door Grand Prixs and a little bit of gold and pager. Two smartasses save an entire genre of music, one jacked beat at a time.
-Lil Wayne, "Dr. Carter"
Whatever. Maybe this should be "Lollipop" - OK, it should probably be "A Milli" (I mean, seriously . . . "They on some f----t bullshit/ Call'em Dennis Rodman" for real?). But there's something about this track off Tha Carter III that hits me a little harder - just listen to Weezy's semi-feigned sigh at the beginning - "Ugh, another one . . ugh!" Perfection, from the best blogger alive.
-Wiley, "Wearing My Rolex"
This ALWAYS happens to me. Totally.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
I Will Not Reveal the Wu-Tang Secret
So obviously my work travel (in which I added yet another tiny-town courthouse bathroom to the illustrious rolls of "places RC has pooped") ended early, and obviously I got exceptionally drunk at the hotel bar playing live poker then internet poker then live poker again, then obviously the only flight I could get on in the morning is at 7am . . . and STL is an hour and a half away. Boner.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that I keep laughing about one of the greatest questionnaire sets I've ever seen in my entire life, which included the following gems:
- A young man of 23 who listed his wife's occupation as . . . "Mother." Dude, how cool would it be if women couldn't vote? I KNOW!
- An old old old man who listed his reasons for not being able to serve as "Prostate has grown - have to pee a lot." There's obviously no better way to describe that - fuck it, let's go with straight-forward. Well played, Guy Who Doesn't Pay Attention To Flomax Commercials.
- And, obviously, the coup d'grace . . . a gentlemen listed his marital status as "widower" and his wife's occupation as . . . "retired." Apparently, permanently. Survey says! "Synonyms for Repose"! Sweet!
Moral of the story: the average person is markedly more stupid than you expect. You think it's bad? It's worse. Way worse. I now must retire for the evening, to the awkward sounds of tears from my non-existent spouse, who will be briefly widowed until I wake up at some retarded hour to drive to St. Louis. Life sucks - be prepared, Joe Buck, because I plan on raping your plastic face should there be any traffic at all. I hate you, and I hate your city, and I hate Rick Ankiel.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that I keep laughing about one of the greatest questionnaire sets I've ever seen in my entire life, which included the following gems:
- A young man of 23 who listed his wife's occupation as . . . "Mother." Dude, how cool would it be if women couldn't vote? I KNOW!
- An old old old man who listed his reasons for not being able to serve as "Prostate has grown - have to pee a lot." There's obviously no better way to describe that - fuck it, let's go with straight-forward. Well played, Guy Who Doesn't Pay Attention To Flomax Commercials.
- And, obviously, the coup d'grace . . . a gentlemen listed his marital status as "widower" and his wife's occupation as . . . "retired." Apparently, permanently. Survey says! "Synonyms for Repose"! Sweet!
Moral of the story: the average person is markedly more stupid than you expect. You think it's bad? It's worse. Way worse. I now must retire for the evening, to the awkward sounds of tears from my non-existent spouse, who will be briefly widowed until I wake up at some retarded hour to drive to St. Louis. Life sucks - be prepared, Joe Buck, because I plan on raping your plastic face should there be any traffic at all. I hate you, and I hate your city, and I hate Rick Ankiel.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
HOLLER!
So a MILF nails an incredibly awkward-looking guardsman from the middle of fucking nowhere, IA . . . and it's not even my favorite story of the past 10 days.
Of course not.
You see, getting drunk and sloppily railing a true American (weekend) Patriot? That's par for the course. Honestly, ol' Lois probably hasn't felt that (drunk and) sexy since about 'Nam - she's just reliving her glory years, blowing the entire baseball team in the old abandoned barn behind Carroll Kuemper Catholic High School. I'm cool with that - chances are, the husband knew what he was getting into before he bought the ring, and realizes he won't be doing much better. No harm, no foul, and hopefully no AIDS. I do feel bad for the kids, one of whom definitely looks in the 15-16 year old range - every single one of his friends will be bringing over a box of Franzia and trying to fuck his mom. That's kind of a pain in the ass, I'd bet. It's awkward being 16 and from Carroll, IA anyway - now imagine dudes asking for camera-phone pics of your mom getting out of the shower? FML, indeed.
Let's be honest - she may well have blacked out, she may well have not, and we'll never know the answer to that question. However, we do know there was chanting and cheering, and that's pretty fucking awesome - I love running into people doing it at the bar, and let's face it, the Metrodome has long been essentially a giant, ugly bar for Iowa fans at away games. Pride.
No, clearly the best story is Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the thigh with his own pistol. Shot himself. In the leg. In a club. With his own gun. Let's run through the specifics:
-Bringing a loaded weapon to a club? Check. (This doesn't even bother me that much, given the Collier/Williams/etc. situations - these guys are targets . . . however, I mean, the club. I'd expect a deer would want a gun if it wandered into an NRA convention, but I'm sure there were other options.)
-Holstering said loaded weapon in the elastic waistband of your sweatpants? CHECK! (note here that it is awesome to be a rich black dude - I can barely wear sweatpants around the house and not look like a total douche, but the club? Baller! Also, clearly Plax didn't take a gun class, or he'd know that you're supposed to buy sweatpants with pockets instead of jamming into the elastic. Amateur hour.)
-Gun slips out of elastic (HA) while carrying a drink back to the VIP? Oh mother fuckin' check! (Booze has done a lot to me in its time - I have injuries, I have embarrassing moments, I have burned-in memories of incredibly unattractive girls . . . but booze has never fucking shot me. Wow.)
-Reaches for gun, shoots self? Obv.
The sheer enormity of this is staggering - think of every bad decision that had to happen for Plax to cap his own ass. If, at any time, that little angel on his shoulder had whispered, "Mr. Burress! If I could interrupt, it's important to realize that, perhaps, it is not the best decision to keep a loaded firearm with the safety off next to your penis, with only the loosest of K-Mart sweatpants elastic to keep it from sliding down into the Mandingo - pardon my boldness!" then this had NO chance of happening. None.
Any time you can do something so ridiculous that it makes the connection between "drink fuckload of wine -> vanish from seat -> meet stranger -> insert penis into kidshitter" look positively linear, you're living an awkward and probably cursed life. Here's to you, Plaxico Burress - just when you couldn't be any more of a piece of crap, you raise the bar.
Of course not.
You see, getting drunk and sloppily railing a true American (weekend) Patriot? That's par for the course. Honestly, ol' Lois probably hasn't felt that (drunk and) sexy since about 'Nam - she's just reliving her glory years, blowing the entire baseball team in the old abandoned barn behind Carroll Kuemper Catholic High School. I'm cool with that - chances are, the husband knew what he was getting into before he bought the ring, and realizes he won't be doing much better. No harm, no foul, and hopefully no AIDS. I do feel bad for the kids, one of whom definitely looks in the 15-16 year old range - every single one of his friends will be bringing over a box of Franzia and trying to fuck his mom. That's kind of a pain in the ass, I'd bet. It's awkward being 16 and from Carroll, IA anyway - now imagine dudes asking for camera-phone pics of your mom getting out of the shower? FML, indeed.
Let's be honest - she may well have blacked out, she may well have not, and we'll never know the answer to that question. However, we do know there was chanting and cheering, and that's pretty fucking awesome - I love running into people doing it at the bar, and let's face it, the Metrodome has long been essentially a giant, ugly bar for Iowa fans at away games. Pride.
No, clearly the best story is Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the thigh with his own pistol. Shot himself. In the leg. In a club. With his own gun. Let's run through the specifics:
-Bringing a loaded weapon to a club? Check. (This doesn't even bother me that much, given the Collier/Williams/etc. situations - these guys are targets . . . however, I mean, the club. I'd expect a deer would want a gun if it wandered into an NRA convention, but I'm sure there were other options.)
-Holstering said loaded weapon in the elastic waistband of your sweatpants? CHECK! (note here that it is awesome to be a rich black dude - I can barely wear sweatpants around the house and not look like a total douche, but the club? Baller! Also, clearly Plax didn't take a gun class, or he'd know that you're supposed to buy sweatpants with pockets instead of jamming into the elastic. Amateur hour.)
-Gun slips out of elastic (HA) while carrying a drink back to the VIP? Oh mother fuckin' check! (Booze has done a lot to me in its time - I have injuries, I have embarrassing moments, I have burned-in memories of incredibly unattractive girls . . . but booze has never fucking shot me. Wow.)
-Reaches for gun, shoots self? Obv.
The sheer enormity of this is staggering - think of every bad decision that had to happen for Plax to cap his own ass. If, at any time, that little angel on his shoulder had whispered, "Mr. Burress! If I could interrupt, it's important to realize that, perhaps, it is not the best decision to keep a loaded firearm with the safety off next to your penis, with only the loosest of K-Mart sweatpants elastic to keep it from sliding down into the Mandingo - pardon my boldness!" then this had NO chance of happening. None.
Any time you can do something so ridiculous that it makes the connection between "drink fuckload of wine -> vanish from seat -> meet stranger -> insert penis into kidshitter" look positively linear, you're living an awkward and probably cursed life. Here's to you, Plaxico Burress - just when you couldn't be any more of a piece of crap, you raise the bar.
Monday, November 24, 2008
The Red Box Menace
This should come as no surprise to anybody, but I'm a nerd. A tremendous nerd - like, just short of comic-book nerd, but way beyond hipster-geek (also note that the very fact I can use these mile markers for different genres of 'nerd' is pretty fucking lame). One area in which I'm consistently dissatisfied with my own nerddom, though, is in film - I love movies. Seriously, I'm semi-hard at a great red-band trailer, and think that the movie is really the last form of transcendent art . . . plus, I laugh at farts, so that's cool too. However, I see far fewer movies than I really should - whether it's due to work, drinking too much, women, or simple laziness (or, likely, all of the above in some combination), I simply do not make the movies as much as I'd like.
Enter: Red Box. First, full disclosure: I'm fucking pissed I didn't think of this idea myself. That's really it - the best ideas are the simplest, and every redneck on EARTH will plop down $1 at the grocery store or McDonald's to see the latest regurgitated bit of shit that Hollywood has steamed onto their chests. Unreal. However, at the same time, the convenience and affordability really represent a new media era, especially as Sony and MS race to get streaming content from Netflix onto their respective platforms - movies are proliferating. This is a good thing - unless you're an idiot like me.
See, the Red Box Era creates a problem - the simplicity means that I can't justify not renting a movie when I have a free evening. After all, I need to catch up on all the shit I've missed, and it's a fucking dollar. However, the Red Box is generally picked over and has shitty selection to start - so we wind up with my last two rentals, which may be the two worst movies that have ever existed in any form anywhere. This is not exaggeration.
(WARNING: Fuck you. Obviously there will be 'spoilers' for the next few paragraphs as I purge my soul of the two films - it will not matter, as they are seriously that bad. I'd rather watch Holocaust footage on loop for days at the National Holocaust Museum than re-watch this garbage. So yeah.)
Flashbacks of a Fool: The Only Fool Was Me
Another confession, while I'm getting all Chris Carraba on your asses: there is a significant part of me that thinks Daniel Craig is the best James Bond, and by a good margin. This is even after the mediocrity of QoS - Casino Royale was actually that good. The brooding, complicated mess of the Craig Bond seriously tops the playboy perfection of Connery, at least in a theoretical sense in my mind - obviously there's no longevity yet, but I'm just laying it out there.
So yeah - the promise of Craig playing a disturbed, fucked-up washout actor with a 'seedy secret' prompted me to think, "Hey, self - this seems like a proven winning formula, there's no chance that a character-driven movie could write itself into oblivion, right?" Yeah. Whoops.
To make a long story short: NOTHING. FUCKING. HAPPENS. EVER. Short of some epic MILF boobs while Young Lead Character goes on a romp with the horny mom next door, absolutely nothing happens. Then, when the "dark secret" is revealed, it's not only a total and complete accident that Craig's character can't possibly consider to be his fault . . . but it involves a naval mine. Like, a mine that you would use to blow up ships. Like this:
Fuck my life. I actually laughed out loud at the denouement - I mean, a ship mine? Plus, this supposedly takes place in some ambiguous seaside village circa 1975-1980 (there is a complete anachronism dealing with timeframe for the flashback - whether this is intentional is completely up for grabs, but surprisingly, this is like the 30th worst part of the movie), and where in the hell would a naval mine from like WWII wind up but on a remote English seaside? Obviously. It's the worst Deus Ex Machina since the Tuck Rule Game against Oakland.
Finally, the movie (mercifully) just ends. I mean that literally - all the sudden, it's back to modern day, and the movie is over. We have no idea if the characters involved learned anything, or whether anything even really happened. We have no real reason to tie the (fucking terrible) plot twist to any sort of realization or character arc. It just . . . stops. It's just Daniel Craig and Eve the Rapper (with her tiger-paw boobie tattoos unfortunately hidden away) driving down the Santa Monica Freeway while I sat slack-jawed and tried to choke myself to death with my bare hands. Holy shit.
88 Minutes That Was More Like 130 That I'd Like Back
I don't even have a cute lead-in story for this one - I'd read the horrific reviews of this movie, but it was literally the only thing on the entire Red Box that I found remotely interesting that night, since I wasn't feeling Ed Norton as the Hulk (note: I'm an idiot). How bad could Pacino really be?
Answer: UNREAL.
Seriously - Pacino's limp-dick 'psychiatric profiler' performance is so badly mailed in that I'd almost have preferred Frank Caliendo doing his caricature of Pacino. The story is so fatally flawed that I wanted to punch myself in the penis during at least seven key points. The transparent attempts to connect the plot holes to Pacino's doting top student (whose unrequited love is so out-of-place, I kept waiting for the 'reveal' to be that she's a Mormon on Rumspringa and can bang with impunity) fall amazingly flat, as you know it's the weird-looking chick who sucks in everything as soon as she makes the crack about the "Law school" in the first 10 minutes. Even worse, the flashback scene unfolds so slowly and lamely that it actually began to make me upset - like "FUCK YOU, just stop with the slow-wipe camera work and the half-diffused look, we know they were drinking, GOD".
Add to this the fact that somehow, Pacino is tabbed as the "prime suspect" in the murders, yet convinces cops to just let him run free for no reason no fewer than FOUR TIMES (including one at gunpoint), and that the movie tries so hard to hide the ending that it becomes convoluted to the point of absurdity, and I can't even explain to you my utter disappointment. It might be the worst movie I've ever seen. Honestly, I can't even go into any more detail, other than to say that an Al Pacino movie was actually worse than a movie whose crux involved a fucking naval mine. Should this keep up, Pacino will rocket toward the early rounds in my death pool rankings for this year - fuck, I might just kill him myself, to preserve his legacy.
Enter: Red Box. First, full disclosure: I'm fucking pissed I didn't think of this idea myself. That's really it - the best ideas are the simplest, and every redneck on EARTH will plop down $1 at the grocery store or McDonald's to see the latest regurgitated bit of shit that Hollywood has steamed onto their chests. Unreal. However, at the same time, the convenience and affordability really represent a new media era, especially as Sony and MS race to get streaming content from Netflix onto their respective platforms - movies are proliferating. This is a good thing - unless you're an idiot like me.
See, the Red Box Era creates a problem - the simplicity means that I can't justify not renting a movie when I have a free evening. After all, I need to catch up on all the shit I've missed, and it's a fucking dollar. However, the Red Box is generally picked over and has shitty selection to start - so we wind up with my last two rentals, which may be the two worst movies that have ever existed in any form anywhere. This is not exaggeration.
(WARNING: Fuck you. Obviously there will be 'spoilers' for the next few paragraphs as I purge my soul of the two films - it will not matter, as they are seriously that bad. I'd rather watch Holocaust footage on loop for days at the National Holocaust Museum than re-watch this garbage. So yeah.)
Flashbacks of a Fool: The Only Fool Was Me
Another confession, while I'm getting all Chris Carraba on your asses: there is a significant part of me that thinks Daniel Craig is the best James Bond, and by a good margin. This is even after the mediocrity of QoS - Casino Royale was actually that good. The brooding, complicated mess of the Craig Bond seriously tops the playboy perfection of Connery, at least in a theoretical sense in my mind - obviously there's no longevity yet, but I'm just laying it out there.
So yeah - the promise of Craig playing a disturbed, fucked-up washout actor with a 'seedy secret' prompted me to think, "Hey, self - this seems like a proven winning formula, there's no chance that a character-driven movie could write itself into oblivion, right?" Yeah. Whoops.
To make a long story short: NOTHING. FUCKING. HAPPENS. EVER. Short of some epic MILF boobs while Young Lead Character goes on a romp with the horny mom next door, absolutely nothing happens. Then, when the "dark secret" is revealed, it's not only a total and complete accident that Craig's character can't possibly consider to be his fault . . . but it involves a naval mine. Like, a mine that you would use to blow up ships. Like this:
Fuck my life. I actually laughed out loud at the denouement - I mean, a ship mine? Plus, this supposedly takes place in some ambiguous seaside village circa 1975-1980 (there is a complete anachronism dealing with timeframe for the flashback - whether this is intentional is completely up for grabs, but surprisingly, this is like the 30th worst part of the movie), and where in the hell would a naval mine from like WWII wind up but on a remote English seaside? Obviously. It's the worst Deus Ex Machina since the Tuck Rule Game against Oakland.
Finally, the movie (mercifully) just ends. I mean that literally - all the sudden, it's back to modern day, and the movie is over. We have no idea if the characters involved learned anything, or whether anything even really happened. We have no real reason to tie the (fucking terrible) plot twist to any sort of realization or character arc. It just . . . stops. It's just Daniel Craig and Eve the Rapper (with her tiger-paw boobie tattoos unfortunately hidden away) driving down the Santa Monica Freeway while I sat slack-jawed and tried to choke myself to death with my bare hands. Holy shit.
88 Minutes That Was More Like 130 That I'd Like Back
I don't even have a cute lead-in story for this one - I'd read the horrific reviews of this movie, but it was literally the only thing on the entire Red Box that I found remotely interesting that night, since I wasn't feeling Ed Norton as the Hulk (note: I'm an idiot). How bad could Pacino really be?
Answer: UNREAL.
Seriously - Pacino's limp-dick 'psychiatric profiler' performance is so badly mailed in that I'd almost have preferred Frank Caliendo doing his caricature of Pacino. The story is so fatally flawed that I wanted to punch myself in the penis during at least seven key points. The transparent attempts to connect the plot holes to Pacino's doting top student (whose unrequited love is so out-of-place, I kept waiting for the 'reveal' to be that she's a Mormon on Rumspringa and can bang with impunity) fall amazingly flat, as you know it's the weird-looking chick who sucks in everything as soon as she makes the crack about the "Law school" in the first 10 minutes. Even worse, the flashback scene unfolds so slowly and lamely that it actually began to make me upset - like "FUCK YOU, just stop with the slow-wipe camera work and the half-diffused look, we know they were drinking, GOD".
Add to this the fact that somehow, Pacino is tabbed as the "prime suspect" in the murders, yet convinces cops to just let him run free for no reason no fewer than FOUR TIMES (including one at gunpoint), and that the movie tries so hard to hide the ending that it becomes convoluted to the point of absurdity, and I can't even explain to you my utter disappointment. It might be the worst movie I've ever seen. Honestly, I can't even go into any more detail, other than to say that an Al Pacino movie was actually worse than a movie whose crux involved a fucking naval mine. Should this keep up, Pacino will rocket toward the early rounds in my death pool rankings for this year - fuck, I might just kill him myself, to preserve his legacy.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
On the NL Cy Young Award -
As first reported by my inexplicably Mormon-loving compatriot (via Facebook, your outlet to the WORLD!), the NL voters definitely got the Cy Young right, ignoring Won/Loss records (somewhat) and going with Tim Lincecum, the only professional athlete whose ass I could probably kick. Now, the strikeouts (A SHITLOAD) sell themselves, as does the sterling ERA, but there's more to the story, as Baseball Prospectus shows us below (click to see the full stats):
SNLVAR is shorthand for, essentially, support-neutral wins above replacement - i.e. how many more wins Lincecum provided his team in an environment devoid of the Pol Pot-level frightening run support Tiny Tim received from the Giants this year. The Giants, remember started a SS opening day that had never put up an OPS above .660 . . . in AA ball. This would be the equivalent of me subbing for a chess Grand Master in a tournament, or me getting Matt Jarmon to take the LSAT for me. LOVE YOU MATTY!
Anyway, the important things to note are that, by really any objective measurement from RA+ (64% above average for Lincecum, 60% for Santana) to SNLVAR, Lincecum put up better numbers while facing approximately equivalent competition (if you haven't yet, click on the image above, and check out Opponent's OPS - now check out the guys in the AL East . . . wow). The NL East simply wasn't good enough to make up the difference in either raw or adjusted numbers between Lincecum and anybody else, but especially not Santana.
Check out Cliff Lee's numbers, though - he's the odds-on favorite to win, and rightfully so . . . hopefully, in a similar season to the NL (where the top teams' top pitchers were markedly worse than the absolute cream of the crop), Lee can pull it out in the AL, and we'll feel all giddy and progressive, like the reverse Bradley Effect from a few days ago. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just don't yell at C - he's sensitive, you know.
SNLVAR is shorthand for, essentially, support-neutral wins above replacement - i.e. how many more wins Lincecum provided his team in an environment devoid of the Pol Pot-level frightening run support Tiny Tim received from the Giants this year. The Giants, remember started a SS opening day that had never put up an OPS above .660 . . . in AA ball. This would be the equivalent of me subbing for a chess Grand Master in a tournament, or me getting Matt Jarmon to take the LSAT for me. LOVE YOU MATTY!
Anyway, the important things to note are that, by really any objective measurement from RA+ (64% above average for Lincecum, 60% for Santana) to SNLVAR, Lincecum put up better numbers while facing approximately equivalent competition (if you haven't yet, click on the image above, and check out Opponent's OPS - now check out the guys in the AL East . . . wow). The NL East simply wasn't good enough to make up the difference in either raw or adjusted numbers between Lincecum and anybody else, but especially not Santana.
Check out Cliff Lee's numbers, though - he's the odds-on favorite to win, and rightfully so . . . hopefully, in a similar season to the NL (where the top teams' top pitchers were markedly worse than the absolute cream of the crop), Lee can pull it out in the AL, and we'll feel all giddy and progressive, like the reverse Bradley Effect from a few days ago. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just don't yell at C - he's sensitive, you know.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Post-election, pre-change: The Thoughts of a Hopeful Republican
I waited to comment on the election, in the hope that the time would allow me to comment intelligently. As a huge Presidential/political dork, I hoped that I would be able to say something thought-provoking or interesting about the election. Additionally, I got involved in a moot court competition (which I did pretty well in) and school stuff, which distracted me. If the following sounds more like the rambling thoughts of an over-worked law student, and less like the intelligent thoughts of a guy with a history degree, well, you've been warned.
As most of the people who read this blog probably know, I'm a Republican. So, this election was a bit of a disappointment for me, albeit a disappointment that wasn't completely unexpected. President-Elect Obama had momentum coming out of the primaries, ran a solid campaign, and never really allowed the momentum to slip. McCain made small gains at certain points throughout the summer and fall, but as anyone who has followed the polls can attest, he never really became a real threat, and the election was all but assured for Obama.
I went through the election with some conflicting thoughts. First, I'm a huge Romney backer, a fact that should be known to most of the readers of this blog. I'm not going to go into the reasons, but, needless to say, I was extremely disappointed when he lost in the primaries. So, after researching all candidates extensively, including Bob Barr, I supported the McCain campaign. Obama is a brilliant guy, with quite the impressive resume, but after doing research, I realized that I couldn't back him with my vote.
As the campaign progressed, I became less hopeful about the direction of the election. When it became apparent that McCain was going to select a woman as his running mate, I thought that Texas Congresswoman Kay Hutchison would be a wise choice. She's smart, has a ton of experience, and could have helped to sway independents. She held a number of conservative beliefs, and was someone I could readily support. However, she is also pro-choice, and while I hope that didn't disqualify her, I understand that the far-right portion of the base couldn't support her. As we all know, McCain chose Palin, and the rest is history.
Somehow, some way, a significant portion of my fellow party members have become anti-intellectual. What began as a way to criticize Obama (essentially, the "pointy-headed liberal" argument used since the Nixon campaigns) became an attack on all intellectuals. To listen to the talk-show hosts and some of the people during the Convention (Mike Huckabee, I'm looking at you), being educated was somehow a drawback. Being educated meant that you couldn't understand middle-class and lower-class America, that you couldn't be a part of the solution, that you were part of the problem.
My biggest fear coming out of this election is that the anti-intellectual portion of my party will only grow in the next four years. That shouldn't happen. Just as the smartest guy (or woman) in the room isn't always the best candidate, the smartest guy (or woman) in the room shouldn't be automatically disqualified. The party should be embracing the intellectual conservatives. We have brilliant conservatives like Romney, Jindal, and others, who could give us a real chance at taking back the White House in 2012.
I believe in the party, I believe in economic conservatism, and I believe that we could have found a way to be more competitive in this election. I just hope the party makes the correct decisions over the next four years, so that we can be in a good position (if not by the mid-term elections) by 2012.
As most of the people who read this blog probably know, I'm a Republican. So, this election was a bit of a disappointment for me, albeit a disappointment that wasn't completely unexpected. President-Elect Obama had momentum coming out of the primaries, ran a solid campaign, and never really allowed the momentum to slip. McCain made small gains at certain points throughout the summer and fall, but as anyone who has followed the polls can attest, he never really became a real threat, and the election was all but assured for Obama.
I went through the election with some conflicting thoughts. First, I'm a huge Romney backer, a fact that should be known to most of the readers of this blog. I'm not going to go into the reasons, but, needless to say, I was extremely disappointed when he lost in the primaries. So, after researching all candidates extensively, including Bob Barr, I supported the McCain campaign. Obama is a brilliant guy, with quite the impressive resume, but after doing research, I realized that I couldn't back him with my vote.
As the campaign progressed, I became less hopeful about the direction of the election. When it became apparent that McCain was going to select a woman as his running mate, I thought that Texas Congresswoman Kay Hutchison would be a wise choice. She's smart, has a ton of experience, and could have helped to sway independents. She held a number of conservative beliefs, and was someone I could readily support. However, she is also pro-choice, and while I hope that didn't disqualify her, I understand that the far-right portion of the base couldn't support her. As we all know, McCain chose Palin, and the rest is history.
Somehow, some way, a significant portion of my fellow party members have become anti-intellectual. What began as a way to criticize Obama (essentially, the "pointy-headed liberal" argument used since the Nixon campaigns) became an attack on all intellectuals. To listen to the talk-show hosts and some of the people during the Convention (Mike Huckabee, I'm looking at you), being educated was somehow a drawback. Being educated meant that you couldn't understand middle-class and lower-class America, that you couldn't be a part of the solution, that you were part of the problem.
My biggest fear coming out of this election is that the anti-intellectual portion of my party will only grow in the next four years. That shouldn't happen. Just as the smartest guy (or woman) in the room isn't always the best candidate, the smartest guy (or woman) in the room shouldn't be automatically disqualified. The party should be embracing the intellectual conservatives. We have brilliant conservatives like Romney, Jindal, and others, who could give us a real chance at taking back the White House in 2012.
I believe in the party, I believe in economic conservatism, and I believe that we could have found a way to be more competitive in this election. I just hope the party makes the correct decisions over the next four years, so that we can be in a good position (if not by the mid-term elections) by 2012.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
