Awww Fuck All

…
Life…
Life is…
Life is a giant fucking shit steaming pile of swamp ass that likes to pick you up and give you a swirlie in a toilet bowl of spaghetti vomit and period blood…
Ok…
Maybe half my life is like that…

Right now I have two aspects of my life. The side of me that is stressing to the point of wanting to kill myself, and the side that is telling me calm down, deal with it, don’t freak out, you’ll solve this problem…you always do. I’m trying to listen to the later more than the former. I’m actually doing ok with it but as the days slowly creep more towards the 5th of January I’m going to start to lose it. That is when rent is due. I was hoping to have the money, right now I have half of it. I turned in around a dozen applications to “real” jobs, jobs I was actually interested in, and I didn’t get a response from any of them. I haven’t tried for a shit job because I don’t really want a shit job. However.

My old boss picked the restaurant back up. He was hoping to re-open the first of week of the year but after some legal issues he doesn’t know when he will be able to open. This kind of fucked me. One: I never went and applied for un-employment for several reasons. A) Every time I got there the line was fucking ridiculous. B) That stupid part of me felt like I was a loser. C) I didn’t feel like going through the bullshit you apparently have to go through. D) I was working. Two: I was looking forward to them opening when they planned because I would be able to cover my rent on time, pay what I owe for utilities, and possibly do something with my life next month. Three: How would I cover rent you ask? If the restaurant opened the first week of January that would mean I would have to go in to do prep work. Which would mean getting paid.

As is I have enough money to get me a pack of cigarettes. That’s it. So I will still have half my rent. This is the first Christmas since I was 17 that I haven’t been able to buy presents. I’m usually the one that gives lavish gifts too. It really sucks.

Then there is the second half of this holiday season and this is the one that depresses me the most. I will have no one to kiss on New Years for around the 7th year in a row. The last time, was a friend of my sisters (albeit a hot friend) who saw that I didn’t have anyone to kiss so she came over and made out with me. But haven’t you been in relationships? Is that the question you have? Yes. However I may have mentioned that I haven’t had a relationship last longer than a year. I tend to start dating someone in January or February and the relationship ends by November or early December. The holidays are like the super silly season for me. Anyway, that means it is going to be another kiss less year for me. I don’t know why that particular aspect/detail bothers me so much, it just does.

I know she hasn’t talked about it but let me just give this a nod to those who are wondering. It appears Trouble and I aren’t attempting to date anymore. She spoke her mind, she told me what she truthfully felt, she didn’t hold back. I didn’t want to hear it. That was that. We, or I (I can’t really speak for her), had a problem with the distance thing, and a problem with attention (or lack thereof). It makes sense. It is kind of hard trying to get something started with someone you have never actually met in real life. Friends though. Not going to lose that. She is still a cool person and a hot Jibette.

Look at me. This is coming from the guy who still has an enormous crush on another Jibette and can’t lose it no matter how hard he tries. I’ve tried. Trust me. I’ve started talking to her a lot again. What can I say…I think she is perfect. Yet again…someone I haven’t met in real life.

The problem there is I have not…in over a year and a half…found a single female here that I want to date. I cannot find the combination of beauty, brains, and class that I want in a woman. Around where I live we get attractive idiot whores. That may sound harsh…but that seems to be the case. If I go to Atlanta I get more of the girls in my style but outside of my price range. Where the girls hang out…the type I like…I tend to not fit in or they tend to vary to two degrees. One degree is money (as in they want/need money from a guy) the second is drugs (as in they are in the phase I lost 7 years ago). Fuck. Guess you could say that maybe it also has to do with my friends. A lot of the women I would be interested in don’t hang out with my type of friends. I’m not really in a position to make new friends though. Nor would I be able to I think. I’m not really open to “new” people. I also tend to frighten most “new” people the first time they meet me.

I’m being positive goddamn’t. I don’t know where this depressing shit is coming from, I really don’t. I have been happy the last two weeks. Even though things have still been moving backwards I have maintained this aura of positive. I’m thinking about that fucking kiss. That goddamn midnight kiss. All these years. Fuck.

I’m going to go see Avatar tomorrow. The sci-fi geek in me is geeking out. All I keep hearing from my fellow dorks is that it is amazing. So hopefully it will be just that.

I’m 15 pages into the behemoth that is Mein Kampf. Jesus. This is going to take me forever to read. Thankfully I have a few smaller, faster reads to do after this one so I will be able to catch up again. The sad thing is. Even in those 15 pages I can see how Hitler kind of makes sense. Maybe not in the direct sense that he is talking about, but in uniting a country. Letting all the people come together to be one. That would be ideal even in a country like ours.

Well…I guess I’m done. I just wanted to share.

#7 The Gray Man

Another book in one day. Woohoo! I always consider it a good sign if you can read an entire book in a day. Wait...maybe that is just saying that I'm unemployed. Whatever! I consider it a good sign. The book in question is The Gray Man by Mark Greaney. At 456 pages it is not exactly a small book, but it's fast paced and entertaining which makes it that much easier. However, it is also nothing new.

The book follows the "Gray Man" otherwise known as Court Gentry. He is your typical, or not so typical, super spy/badass assassin. Think Jason Bourne on steroids. Former CIA he gets burned (like "Burn Notice" and Jason Bourne) and turns to a life of assassinations to pay the bills. however he only assassinates "bad" people. Right...like that would work. He is also considered number one in the world at what he does. The plot? He assassinates a dude, dude's brother wants him dead for it, company needs dude's brother for a muti-billion dollar contract, company uses their connections to find his handler, kidnap handlers family for leverage, send like 12 squads of elite badasses (including one solo North Korean assassin) from different countries after him, let the games begin. Other then the fact that the book is typical, which I will get to momentarily, there is also some code of honor being a "hunter." Think like some weird Samurai code.

How is it typical? Well, like most spy/assassin stories it has all of the exact same elements (minus the sex). Some highly trained dude in various martial arts and weapons is getting fucked over. Said dude kills everyone. Typical. A little not so typical is that he actually gets fucked up along the way (think Diehard). By fucked up I mean he falls down a mountain, gets shot, gets stabbed, walks on glass, etc. Shit, the guy gets a blood transfusion in a car on the way to go kill more bad guys. No, really. Greaney's writing, and character, reminds me a lot of Matthew Reilly's Shane Schofield/Scarecrow series. For those who don't know about that series Scarecrow is a Marine Recon guy who gets put in the most fucked up situations. He is badass though, and usually kills everyone. It's not just the character though. The way he writes, the scenarios, the talk of different weapons and nationalities, and the pace all remind me of Reilly. Especially how the characters end up managing to survive situations that no human being should possibly live through. Another comparison? In this book the bounty put on the Gray Man's head is 20 billion dollars. In Scarecrow by Matthew Reilly a group of assassins is hired to kill Scarecrow...for a bounty of 18.6 billion dollars. How one man could be worth the double digit billions is way beyond me. I kind of wonder if Greaney read that book and wanted to make his character sound a little more intimidating than Reilly's. Note: Scarecrow came out in 2003...The Gray Man came out this year. Another example? He prefers the same gun as James Bond, the Walther P99.

On the back cover to the book it says, "In researching The Gray Man he traveled to seven countries, and trained extensively alongside military and law enforcement personnel in the use of firearms, battlefield medicine, and close-range combative tactics." My only comment is that sounds like a large waste of time, and money. Most of the information he found in his research you can do online in a matter of hours. Trust me, I know. I did research for a short story I did once about an assassin. Who...like these guys, it totally awesome, survives insane situations, and manages to get shot at by a variety of different guys and girls with different guns. You can simply go online and look up any country, their special forces, what kind of training they do, and what kind of weapon they prefer. From there if you don't know a particular weapon all you have to do is look it up, see how it works, then go look for a video of someone shooting the gun to describe the recoil and what it sounds like. It might take you a little while, but you don't have to travel all over the fucking world. Wanna have a battle take place in Paris? Just Google Earth the motherfucker and you can find street names, see what the building look like, etc. Maybe I just know the poor mans research.

Anyway. Greaney is a good writer for this sort of thing. The book is a great book in this genre. It's a fast book so consider it excellent for an airplane ride or a road trip. I can't say he, or the book, really puts anything new into this style but what the hell, who really does anything "new" anymore?

By the way, you have no idea how many times I actually used the word "badass" in this review and had to go back and delete them. You have no idea. I also read that someone has bought the movie rights. So expect another Bourne Identity/Transporter/Crank/Hitman movie to come out eventually.

#6 The Caves of Steel

Finally I managed to get through a book in a day. Thank you Jeebus Isaac Asimov. I can’t really say that I am a “fan” of Asimov, at least in the same sense that I can say I am a fan of Stephen King, until this book I had only read two of his works, I, Robot and Solar System. I have another one of his to read later, Nightfall, and while I guess technically I should have read that one first I couldn’t turn down a good robot story. I love old school science fiction for one reason (The Caves of Steel was written in 1954), that is their predictions for the future that constantly turn into reality. I also love reading older stories like this to find comparisons in later works of fiction, both in film and literature. At 209 pages The Caves of Steel is not a wordy book, and its fast pace only heightens this perception. It is a detective novel, first and foremost (and infinitely better than my last read Watchers of Time), with a wonderful story involving “Spacers” and robots as a background. Let me also say that I am watching Blade Runner as I write this because of the detective story, combined with the use of realistic robots (although not called androids in the book), reminded me of this book (by the way Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick wasn’t published until 1968).

A quick summary of The Caves of Steel goes like this. A murder happens in the “Spacers” compound (Spacers are humans but humans who had colonized planets long before and are considered superior intellects). Modern Earth has become a serious of vast, enclosed, cities (this one takes place in New York). There is no money but rather a caste system. Robots are being incorporated but are being met with hostility. They ask a human detective Lije Baley to work alongside a practically human robot Daneel Olivaw to solve the murder. The story has many plot twists, racist undertones, and environmental one’s as well. However, like I said, the fast pace keeps it moving along swiftly and he doesn’t bog you down with unnecessary information. I highlighted several portions in the book and I would like to share them with you in regards to how his science fiction became realities and/or were used in later works.

“He wore spectacles because his eyes were sensitive and couldn’t take the usual contact lenses.” The regular plastic contact lenses that most of us know came out in 1948. Soft contact lenses didn’t come around until 1971 and then contacts that we are able to wear overnight didn’t come about until 1971. Let me repeat that The Caves of Steel came out in 1954. There was even a moment in the book where Lije tells his son that he would have no problem wearing his contacts overnight. Me personally, I don’t remember contact lenses becoming really popular until the late 80’s and early 90’s. So here is Asimov, in 1954, talking about a society that predominately wears contact lenses. In fact the example of the commissioner wearing spectacles plays out later in the story as being “odd.” (the picture is from "Story Parade" the episode "The Caves of Steel" circa 1964) “I don’t think I’ve showed it to you before. Come over here and take a look. In the old days, all rooms had things like this. They were called ‘windows’…He turned to the window and so did Baley. With mild shock, Baley realized it was raining. For a minute, he was lost in the spectacle of water dropping from the sky…” Now, the first thing that came to mind when I read that passage was the scene in Equilibrium. I don’t know if you remember the scene but it is when Christian Bales character wakes up (after getting off the medication) and tears the screen off of his window to watch the rain fall during a sunrise. The look on his face says that what he is looking at is something that can only be compared to sheer beauty. In the book it even says that Lije, at 42 years old, had only seen rain (or nature for that matter, including the sun) a few times in his life. “Their I.Q. rating, Genetic Values status, and his position in the Department entitled him to two children, of which the first might be conceived within the first year.” Now you can look at this instantly and think of China’s “One-Child Policy,” maybe Asimov got the idea from them? The “One-Child Policy” wasn’t instituted in China until 1979. I think this idea has also been prevalent in other works of fiction, perhaps Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, I can’t remember exactly if it deals with a policy of children but the dystopian view of society prevalent in The Caves of Steel is. This idea can also be seen in many other works, the four that most drove home in my mind while reading were Equilibrium, The Fifth Element, Minority Report (also written by Philip K. Dick in 1956), and Gattaca. Asimov also uses a system of traveling on moving walkways (created in Switzerland in the 1970’s). These moving walkways (some traveling up to 60mph) were how people moved around the city. There is actually a section of the book where a person jumps from walkway to walkway to avoid being detected (think the scene where Tom Cruise jumps from car to car to get away…only more intense). There are many, many more but I find that would only be tedious to your eyesight. Needless to say however, it’s obvious the influence of science fiction writers.

If you’ve seen Bicentennial Man or I, Robot you would know a bastardized and atrocious version of Asimov’s work. In fact, if you’ve seen either you may remember the Three Laws of Robotics (by the way, Asimov has been given the distinction of coining the term “robotics”). The one that is prevalent through both films is the very first law, “A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” Remember that rule. It plays heavily in most of Asimov’s work. Before I end let me go back to the notion of a human cop with a robot partner, a robot partner who is, for all due respect, emotionless. Think Robocop while he may not fit the “ideal” notion it works (except for that no harm humans clause) and, after doing some research, I found that there was a 1977 TV series called “Future Cop” that dealt with a human cop and his android partner. Of course the whole off the wall partner thing is just a random thought, after all, look at “Alien Nation.” As well, if you’re further interested Asimov did a whole series of Lije Baley, four books to be exact, with The Caves of Steel being the first one in the series.

#5 Watchers Of Time

By all accounts I should be sleeping. In all honesty I haven’t been sleeping much lately…even more so than usual in fact. I don’t know what it is. I went from not being able to fall asleep until 4am to 5am and now it’s rolling around to 6am. Ohh well, I wanted to pump this bitch out to ya’ll considering I just finished the book and it’s taken me over two weeks to read the damn thing. Partly because I’ve had to trudge through it, the other reason because I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately. The book, is called Watchers of Time by Charles Todd (although according to his website by his mother Caroline as well). Don’t let that confuse you though, by his picture I would say he is in his 40’s or 50’s. All together they have written twelve Ian Rutledge books based in England after World War I. This one, the fifth book, comes in at 421 pages.

The book follows an inspector for Scotland Yard, Ian Rutledge, as he pieces together the murder of a priest in Osterley, a small town where everyone knows each other. Through his investigation he is plagued by a wound (received in I’m assuming the novel before), the war he fought in, and a ghost, called Hamish. Hamish is a soldier that served under him, who saved his life, and now haunts him. The investigation takes him into the private lives of the townspeople, causes him to step on the toes of the town constable Blevins, and pushes his levels of endurance. It also takes you back in time to a more simpler time, with simple people.

What I liked about the book. While being the fifth book in the series, and having never read any of the others, I was able to flow into the character. Kind of like Anne Rice does with The Vampire Chronicles, Todd does the same. We are told of his past, we are told of his inner demons, we are told of Hamish, and we are given enough to know why he does what he does. I found that most of the women in the story, even the older ones, still have this “beauty” to them that I wouldn’t expect (my favorite being Trent…which will make sense). Now knowing I wonder if that’s his mother at work. All the women speak of duty and responsibility, they tend to like the lives they lead, and go about their “womanly” ways as is expected of them. Even when they hint to prostitutes there is no real obscene look at them, in fact, if anything they are complimented for being “hard” and “survivors.” I also liked the set descriptions in the novel. You are easily able to paint a picture of Rutledge’s surroundings. Enough that by the end of the story the layout of the town is easily in your head. If I had anything else to say it would be that I liked the ending, I was genuinely surprised, and sometimes that is a hard thing to accomplish. Now, what I didn’t like.

I really didn’t like the book as a whole. I felt that if he/they had managed to keep the pacing in say the last hundred pages of the book, that it would have read much smoother. It just plain bored me. Let me say that again. Pacing. Pacing would have to also be my biggest complaint, there were so many times while reading it that I simply just wanted to go to sleep (and I started reading wide awake). Another would actually be the character of Hamish. Hamish seems less of a ghost to me and more of his subconscious. Half of the story Rutledge walks around about ready to pass out. Hamish is the one that finds little clues that he doesn’t pick up on, Hamish is the one that tries to offer him the advice of the normal, everyday person. When Rutledge pushes a woman into mental anguish it is Hamish that tells him he needs to back off. Again, not so much a ghost, more his subconscious. The authors have been praised for their use of time related instances in their books. In this case it is the sinking of the Titanic. That’s cool and all, but I felt it was a little much. Like they are almost trying to force you to connect with the time period. By making you read that and go, “Hey, I know what they’re talking about with that there Titanic. I can totally follow along now.” I remember reading this early on, “We’re used to drunk and disorderly, petty theft, and the occasional wife-beater who won’t learn his lesson.” I laughed. I remember reading Caroline Norton’s English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century (which she wrote in the 1850’s) and then reading that passage and laughing. True, Watchers of Time takes place in 1919, but I don’t imagine that the rights of women had really changed that much. If you can believe what the internets say the first Battered Women’s Shelter didn’t come about in London until 1971. Not to mention a small country town? Yeah…I don’t think too many women came forward about their husbands beating them. I also felt that they might harp a little too much on World War I. Yes, I realize that the book takes place shortly after the war, but with the inclusion of almost every male character having been in the war with an injury of some sort? That’s not really necessary. Hint: They even have a tortured sniper. Even more tortured for the fact that they didn’t “condone” being a sniper. They didn’t consider it manly.

I think what pissed me off the most about this book is that I am tempted to actually go get some of the other books in the series. Why? I think because I really started to like the character of Rutledge (who bored me to begin with). I also really fell into the book the last hundred pages. I think I have been deceived and that deception is making me want to read more. Bastards…the both of them.

Movies Will Rot Your Brain: Part II

Here I go again on my own…
Yeah fuckers, it’s round two time. Yes…I’m kind of drunk while writing this.

À la folie... pas du tout (He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not): Yeah, I went on an Audrey Tautou kick, the film co-stars Samuel Le Bihan (who I know from Brotherhood of the Wolf). The premise? Audrey is fucking crazy as shit and becomes obsessed/stalkerish with Samuel there. The film takes a unique perspective on the story though because it stops about halfway through and shows the beginning from his point of view. I liked it. It was kind of nice to see her as a villain.

Hors de prix (Priceless): Audrey Tautou again. I really liked this film. It was kind of a romantic comedy but not really. The film deals with a woman,
Irene (Audrey) who gets in relationships with men strictly for the money. The more they can give her the better. She thinks Jean has money but he really doesn’t. When she finds this out she takes him for broke. In a twist of fate he begins to do the same thing she does with an older woman. How it plays out? They quickly become friends/partners in crime until she finds out that she actually loves him. I didn’t give anything away, that part is kind of predictable, but its how the story unfolds that really tells the tale.

Le battement d'ailes du papillon (Happenstance): Again…Audrey. This film kind of plays out more of an intertwining story like Pulp Fiction or Amores Perros. You meet a lot of characters, hear a lot of tales, but it eventually boils down to who is right for who. I liked it…even though I wanted to kill the guy who plays Luc…or…well…the character of Luc.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon: Imagine if Jason, Freddy, and Myers were real. Take a guy who wants to be like them and considers them his hero. Turn it into a documentary and this is what you get. I fucking loved this movie. While it was pitched as a horror film I saw anything but. It was a unique perspective, especially when it kind of goes into detail of how they (the guys who slaughter) manage to rig the situations to their advantage. An example…they cut the tree branches reaching out from the second floor so if you try to go out they snap and you fall to your death. I found this film immensely entertaining.

The Alphabet Killer: Sometimes I wonder how films get made. First of all, let me name drop. Eliza Dushku, Cary Elwes, Timothy Hutton, Michael Ironside, Bill Moseley, Carl Lumbly. How? How do you turn this into a piece of shit? The film is based on a real serial killer…that’s about where it ends being cool. An example of retarded? The first girl is killed three years before the last…the medallion the first girl is wearing is still in the car of the killer three years later. Yep. Not to mention Dushku playing a schizophrenic lady is just, well, dumb. PLUS SIDE: You get Dushku topless. I almost had a “Buffy” nerdgasm.

The Perfect Witness: Take Mr. Smith (that Dane Cook/ Kevin Costner movie), make Wes Bentley the Dane Cook character only a filmmaker instead of a photographer and put in Mark Borkowski in for Kevin Costner and there ya go. I actually liked it better than Mr. Smith though. There were some what the fuck moments in the plot, but overall I really liked it. It was new…and I felt it had the look/feel of a film like Seven. I still watch movies like this and it makes me go, “What the fuck happened to Wes Bentley? He had so much potential.” An example of a what the fuck moment? He/they kill a girl in her apartment and yell at the top of their lungs. I’m not talking a concrete apartment. I’m talking a regular apartment. Cops would be called. They aren’t.

Descent: First I get period water drinking…now I get the most brutal rape scene in a film. It’s not the rape of Rosario Dawson…it’s the rape of the guy who raped her. Yeah. This film is very emotional, and pretty powerful. I didn’t understand the reason/un-explained descent of her into a drug phase but thankfully it doesn’t really focus on it to much. The beginning of the movie, and the end, can make you cringe. The rest just seems like a desperate attempt at an explanation that doesn’t work.

Let the Right one In (Låt den rätte komma in): It was good…I liked it…but I wouldn’t consider it a great horror film. For one, I didn’t really see the horror in it. Where was it? Because it dealt with vampires? What I saw was a weird, and at some points uncomfortable, love between young kids (I think they were around 11-12 years old). I kind of got an Gus Van Sant Elephant feel with the film.

Rise: Blood Hunter: Let me name drop again. Lucy Liu , Michael Chiklis, Carla Gugino, Marilyn Manson, Nick Lachey, Elden Henson, Fran Kranz ("Dollhouse"). Again? A piece of shit. Really. The only thing this movie shows is
that they are all horrible actors, at least in this film, especially Liu when she says lines like, "Turn around slow, emphasis on slow." Basically it’s a Blade that’s not a Blade. Liu is a reporter that accidentally (they meant to kill her) gets turned into a vampire. She turns around and starts killing them. Unlike Blade though she also decides to take human victims whenever she needs food. The part that really made me give up? She pees. Now why in the fuck would a vampire need to pee? BONUS: If you like her, which I do, Liu is topless a good deal of the movie, fully nude a few times, and runs around in her underwear quite a bit too.

My Name is Bruce: Directed by Bruce Campbell and pretty much costarring Ted Raimi the film is about a town that gets Bruce Campbell, thinking he is like his characters, to come and destroy the demon of the town. This film is priceless because not only does it make fun of Bruce himself but also of pretty much every film he’s ever done. If you are a fan of his…just watch it. If you’re not a fan of his…don’t bother.

With that I am off to sleep.

Movies Will Rot Your Brain

First of all let me begin by saying thank you to Trouble. Were in not for her allowing me to use her Netflix to watch movies I would likely be going insane right now from lack of alcohol. No shit…I haven’t drank since Monday. Sadly, the downfall to not drinking is that I typically have not been falling asleep until 5am. This is not very conducive to waking up to go to the insanely busy unemployment office…or finding a job in general. However, I am passing the time with movie watching. That being said I felt I would share the films that I have watched over the last 3 days. By the way if sentences don't make sense or my grammar is even more atrocious then it usually is...you can suck my balls.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans:
I thought the film was fairly boring, definitely the weak link of the trilogy. Considering they tell us the story…twice…in the previous films of how Lucian became the leader of the Lycans, you would think they could at least keep the story straight. For example, I’m pretty sure Sonja was either a blonde or a brunette. I’m also pretty sure they never mention her as a badass. Let’s not forget the scene where Raze also fights Lycans…chained up and human mind you…and actually kicks their ass. Really? *yawn * I’m also not a huge fan of Rhona Mitra.

Chinjeolhan geumjassi (Lady Vengeance):
The third of the vengeance trilogy behind Old Boy. I liked the film. I felt it dragged in many places, especially in the school at the end, but I liked it. I would have to say I prefer Old Boy to this one mainly because it was full of action, Lady Vengeance, on the other hand, is more about character development. The scenes of her in prison were the most interesting for me to watch.

Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu (Tokyo Gore Police):
I made it about 15 minutes into this piece of shit before I turned it off. The acting was horrible. The cinematography was terrible. It looked like shit, it sounded like shit…it was shit. Not to mention I am really…really…not into that over the top blood spouting like you see in the Kill Bill movies. The main character is riding in a subway and a guy rubs her ass. What does she do? She takes him outside and cuts his hands off with a katana then opens an umbrella to keep the blood from getting on her. Yeah…not my bag. It seems they are really popular in Japan. The director, Yoshihiro Nishmura, has apparently made this type of film his bag of tricks. With The Machine Girl, about a girl with a machine gun for an arm, and Samurai Princess, the only thing I can remember about that one is that it stars a porn star.

Cashback:
I really enjoyed this flick, which is basically a story about love. The main character, an artist, gets dumped by his long lasting girlfriend for another guy. In grief he can’t sleep and therefore gets a job working a night shift at a supermarket so he can at least get paid for his insomnia. While working there he figures out that he has the ability to stop time and falls in love with the check out girl. The reviews I read for it said there was a lot of nudity…there wasn’t. If I recall there was only one moment where he stopped time, stripped female customers down, and drew them. I also read in some reviews that people bitched that the women were all “supermodels.” Granted, none of the women were obese, but there were some that weren’t rail thin. Anyway, I digress. I think this was a wonderful little film and I would have to recommend it.

Дневной дозор (Night Watch):
Sadly I couldn’t see the first film in this apparent trilogy called Day Watch. The film is basically the age old story of good vs. evil. In this case the Light vs. the Dark. There is a truce that has been going on for, if I remember correctly, a thousand years. Both sides have a police force to make sure that the opposite side doesn’t fuck up. They are called the Day Watch and the Night Watch. I can’t believe this film is Russian. You want to talk about a mutant/superhero movie? Fucking eat your goddamn heart out Hollywood. Fuck off! The acting was decent, the story worked (even without having seen the first one), and it was entertaining as fuck. I got the feel/look of the first two Blade films mixed with a LOTR feeling. The plot would be confusing for me to tell…shit…basically there are two “Great Ones” who, if they meet/fight, will be the end of the world. The father of the evil Great One who is also the lover of the good Great One is the main character whom we follow as he tries to avoid the apocalypse and find the Chalk Of Fate that will allow him to change destiny.

Se jie (Lust, Caution):
Why the fuck I decided to start a Ang Lee movie at three in the morning is fucking beyond me. I have no idea why. The movie was typical Lee. If I was going to have to compare the love story in this one to something it would have to be the love story between Jen Yu and Luo Xiao Hu in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon simply for the love/lust/hatred. The main plot follows a group of college actors who, during World War II, decide to kill a fellow Chinese man who is a traitor to their country. The main character becomes the concubine of the man and eventually falls in love with him. I won’t give any more then that away.

Anatomie de l'enfer (Anatomy of Hell):
What. The. Fuck. Did. I. Watch? It started out with a non-simulated oral sex scene between two men. From there it goes to gaga land. The plot…from what I could gather…is that a woman is trying to entice a gay man and/or figure out why all men hate women at the same time. I don’t understand how the guy was even gay when within the first ten minutes he got a blowjob from her and got off, but whatever. The main male character is played by Rocco Siffredi who, from what I read, is a porn star. It’s just weird. I found that critics specifically talked about a scene in which he goes outside, grabs a rake, and sticks it in her vagina (handle of course) while she is sleeping. He passes out and she wakes up to find the rake still sticking out of her. Boy did the critics go nuts on that scene. Me personally, the one that made me gag, she pulls out her tampon…dips it in a glass of water…and they both drink it. *explosive vomit* I was seriously staring at the screen going “Oh god no…don’t do it…don’t do it!”

They tried to make a point that she had found a gay man to test this out on yet I didn’t get the impression at any point that he was gay. First, the blowjob. Then, the first night he comes over to watch her he ends up sleeping with her (which was also really odd, he would come over, she would fall asleep, he would fuck her). That made no sense. The movie makes no sense. Ohhh, let me not forget when he fucks her and pulls out a geyser of blood, then proceeds to jerk himself off…with the blood…while she talks about how he now feels that he is tainted. WOW.

Brick:
I got a lot of echoes of The Salton Sea with this film. However, while I thought it was good I also feel it was severely flawed. One…I was in the drug culture in high school. The lingo in this fucking film was just way to far the fuck out there. Two…it made no sense that he would hide the body. If he loved her, why would he hide her body. I mean I understand that he wanted to find out what happened to her but why hide her body? Three…why even set it in high school? I think this film would have been so much better if they had set it with adults. That being said. Yes, I understand it is a take off of the old detective movies and a slight addition of A Fistful of Dollars. Yes, I understand its still an awesome movie. No, I will probably not buy it. I won’t say much more…the film has a lot of plot twists that I don’t really want to go into. By the way, my favorite scene, the fight with Bryan…the school jock.

American Zombie:
When I first got onto Netflix I looked up zombie movies and about had a nerdgasm. I’m holding off on most of those for nights of drinking. Anyway, I remembered that I wanted to see this movie awhile back so I decided to go ahead and watch it. What’s it about? Shot documentary style it discusses zombies living in L.A. We learn there are three types of zombies. Brain dead killing machines, slow with limited mental capacity zombies (who are used as slave labor) and ones that can pass for human. We follow four different ones, two men, two female. One of the female’s is artsy…makes funeral flower arrangements. The other is vegan, and works at a health food place, and wants to be “living.” Another male leads an organization to help zombies. The last one works at a gas station and is basically a fucking stoner. I really liked the film up until the point where they make zombies “evil.” I liked the daily interaction and how they were basically like your normal everyday joe. I don’t know why they decided to go all freak out at the end.

So there ya go. I’m going to pass the fuck out now. Someone wake me for the S.E.C. Championship. If its not before the Big 12 Championship make sure I’m awake for that one.

#4 JAWS

Jaws by Peter Benchley rakes in at 278 pages. It’s a fairly quick read, I managed to get through it in a few hours with a pause for food and to watch a few minutes of Zombieland. I was wanting to watch the movie again before writing this review so I could kind of do a comparison like I did with Different Seasons but by the time I finished the book I realized there was no need. It says on the front cover, “Powerful…His story grabs you at once.” -The New York Times Book Review I can’t really agree with that…I think the book started off pretty fucking slow (the intro is brilliant mind you), and slowly got its legs about halfway through.

There is a huge difference between Jaws and Jaws. At first I thought it was simply because there is that gap between a book to film translation. Then I realized its not the gap, it’s the fact that the characters actually have personalities. In Jaws the fucking shark is the real star, everyone else is just a supporting actor to it. Not to say the movie isn’t fantastic, I fucking love it (especially the performance of Robert Shaw). Hell, even my mom said she refuses to get into the ocean to this day because of the film. This is just another one of those cases where the book is actually better then the movie. Let me see if I can explain.

When it comes to the characters you pretty much got the same ones you deal with in the film. There is the Amity Chief of Police, Brody, who is actually a much larger asshole then the Brody that is portrayed by Roy Scheider in the film. The Chief of Jaws has a love for his town, a love for his wife and family, and a love for his job. Other then that he could honestly seem to give a fuck less about you, his friends (he has a friend of 15 years die and barely bats an eye), or any of the tourists. Then of course the ship Captain Quint is almost the same as that of Jaws the only difference being that there is no great war story of a sinking ship with sharks. More than likely the biggest difference in characters is Hooper (who was played by Richard Dreyfuss). Hooper in Jaws is young, arrogant, cocky, and comes from a family of money. He doesn’t really care who he steps on to get things done and he honestly doesn’t “care” about anyone. He is in it for himself and no one else. If someone goes down to feed his infatuation with the shark, so be it. You still have the other rounding out of side characters but Ellen Brody does have a much larger role in the book, however, that fits more with plot.

There are several key differences in the plot from the film to the movie. So let me kind of brush on these without hopefully giving too much away. One, there is town corruption with the mayor that actually involves a mob connection. It is this reason that, like the movie, the town council is so key on re-opening the beaches for the summer crowds. There is more of a dynamic between the townies and the people that visit during the summer that borders on racism. In regards to Ellen she has a whole character struggle of once being that rich woman who came for the summer to being a townie, and in a way, is having a midlife crisis and trying to rediscover herself. Don't forget, she's also described as a total fucking MILF in the book. Included in this struggle is an affair with Hooper. I can understand why they took it out of the movie, even in the book it doesn’t really seem to belong and the only result is an unwanted tension between Hooper and Chief Brody that never really pans out or develops into anything but an annoyance. Brody’s children aren’t even in the book that much. In fact, if I recall correctly, there are actually only two instances in the book in which they are involved. Last but not least is the grand finale. I remember the ending to Jaws seemed to take forever, they were out there on that boat trying to hunt down that shark….chasing it…chasing it…chasing it. In the book, the actual chase of the shark only lasts for a few pages. Now they go out there, I think, four days in a row but unlike in the movie, even though Brody wants to do it, they never stay the night out on the water. There are a few more deaths, one I wasn’t expecting and then it happened (I actually went “cool”), and a few more plot twists that I’m leaving out. YES, the scene where Brody is throwing out chum and the shark just appears behind him is in the book. NO, he doesn’t blow the fucking thing up, it dies like a normal shark.

Overall Benchley’s Jaws doesn’t even really deal with the fucking shark. Its more a look in the life of the people involved. The look in the life of a small town. At the end you’re not left going “Fuck Yeah!” You’re left more with a sad feeling that nothing has really ended. Brody hasn’t really triumphed. He’s going to go back to the little life he has and continue to be the way he has always been. Rich tourists will continue to come and continue to leave and the town will continue to tick. On the back jacket there is a quote from The Philadelphia Inquirer that says, “RELENTLESS TERROR…You’d better steel yourself for this one. It isn’t a tale for the faint of heart.” I realize this book came out in 1974, but I never saw the terror. Except for maybe the naked lady swimming in the water at the very beginning of the book…that part is pretty creepy.