S.S.L. - THIS POST MIGHT JUST SAVE YOUR LIFE!

Ok, so if you read my last post you found out that I have had a fair amount of writers block as of late, so I decided that I would try and break it with a topic that is near and dear to my heart, in movies, and in everyday life. And to do that, I need to give you a scenario and a bible verse or two so you will understand, so bare with me and it will all make sense. So here we go.

Give it a couple of minutes and this picture will make more sense.

Scenario # 1
You are driving on a family vacation through the back roads of, of, well, you know what, it doesn't matter, it could be forests, or

 mountains, or desert, or Detroit, truth is it doesn't really make a difference, but what does matter is all of a sudden your car stalls, your cell phone doesn't work and there is no sight of CAA, The Auto Club or any local, county or state law enforcement anywhere in sight. What is in sight is, or at least, in ear shot is the sound of a chain saw starting up, (possibly accompanied by a banjo, it depends on the movie or location) and that is usually followed by some form of maniacal laughter and then the slaughtering of all your loved ones starts to happen. Does this sound familiar? Ok, good, now onto scenario number two

Scenario # 2
You are home alone, and the phone rings, you answer, expecting to hear either one of three things, 1.) Your best friend calling to see if you want to hang, maybe even check out the latest Christopher Nolan 1 movie. 2.) A window or heating duct company trying to get you to try out their latest deal, or 3.) A robotic message lying to you about the proper polling station you should go to in the up coming

 election. But no, instead of any of those incredibly useful things, what you get is some psycho deep breathing with a voice modulator informing you that he is in the house , (possibly in the basement, but more likely in the closet 2) and that you are going to die cause he is going to kill you when you least expect it. Is this ringing any bells, or metaphorical phones, good, (I am just gonna assume you had your metaphorical phone bells rung, if you didn't, don't worry too much about it, life is full of disappointments, this is a very minor one) moving on to the last scenario, which strangely enough is kind of an end of the world thing.
 
Scenario # 3
ZOMBIES!!!!!

Yep, you heard me, Zombies. Flesh eating, stumbling around, arms outstretched, want to eat your brains for breakfast Zombies. Do I really need to write more, they're freakin Zombies, Nuff said. So there they are, the three scenarios that give you a little glimpse into what I am talking about, so now let me give you three quotes from the good book  3 before I actually get to the point of all this.

We will start in Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 12, which says, "The word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It cuts all the way through, to where soul and spirit meet, to where joints and marrow come together. It judges the desires and thoughts of the heart." Next up is Ephesians chapter 6, verse 16, "At all times carry faith as a shield; for with it you will be able to put out all the burning arrows shot by the Evil One. And accept salvation as a helmet, and the word of God as the sword which the Spirit gives you."
 

 
Ok, now ask me, "What's your point?" Well, go ahead, ask, I'll wait. Who am I kidding, it has been so long since I have blogged I better not waste any more time, so here's the point, S.S.L. Now, give me a minute,(or a couple of minutes if you are a slow reader) and I will explain. In the last bunch of years there seems to be a bunch of sayings and slogans that have used the first letters of each word for a short form. Now this is way before texting short forms took hold of the world with their lol's and brb and my personal favorite, AMRMTYFTS 4, but no, I am talking about the whole WWJD thing and such, and probably the most famous one in history, S.O S., (which is an old sailor term for distress ships which stands for Save Our Souls 5). Well, for me, I say forget about S.O.S., cause it is all about S.S.L.

S.S.L BABY!!!

S.S.L. simply means this, SWORDS SAVE LIVES. Ok, so here it is, take all those scenarios from earlier, the chainsaw wielding hillbilly psychos, the serial killers in stupid masks and the flesh eating zombies, and then give yourself a sword.

Now sure, it sucks that you are in the situation you are in, but be

 honest, don't you feel a whole lot better knowing that when the zombie comes to eat your spleen, (little known fact, Zombies love spleens, not sure why, but trust me, they do) that you can cut it into a bunch of pieces 6, or as the serial killer comes down the stairs with his stupid taunt, that

 you are going to get a chance to cut the arm off that he dialed the stupid phone with in the first place. You see, I love swords, always have, always will, there is just something awesome about them, so much so that even the bible recognizes this. In the bible, as shown in the above verses, a sword is given an incredibly high honor, it is said to be the metaphorical equivalent to the WORD of God. I can't stress enough how awesome that is. So it makes perfect sense to me that this love of swords has carried over to movies, so be it Highlander, or Seven Samurai or your run of the mill ninja movie, if swords are there, then I am a happy camper.

Me, as a sword wielding tennis ball looking happy camper.

So, with that, every time I watch a movie and any of the above scenarios occur, or countless others, all I keep thinking is, "Man, if that guy just had a sword he would be fine right now." So think about it, next time you are watching a movie and the fit hits the shan 7, remember S.S.L., and you can thank me later.

A classic choice, you can't go wrong with.

Oh, and for those really smart people who noticed that I only gave you two bible verses when I said three, here is the third one, (and good for you being so smart, go eat a cookie, my treat). In Matthew

Not really Jesus, but pretty cool anyway!

 chapter 26, verses 51, 52, it talks about when Jesus was being arrested, and the disciple that shares my name decides that he was going to take my advice, and pulled his sword with the following results, "One of those who were with Jesus drew his sword and struck at the High Priest's slave, cutting off his ear. “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him. “All who take the sword will die by the sword." Now, Jesus was not a violent guy 8, and although I love swords I have no problem with what he said, cause it is true, those who live by the sword will die by the sword, but as far as I am concerned, that beats getting eaten by a zombie any day. So thanks for reading, I will try and post more often, until then, stay safe, stay dry, and for my sake, stay living, cause I have no interest in taking out your zombie corpse 9, with a sword or otherwise. Anyway, until then, blog at you later.

 

1 Man can that guy make outstanding movies or what, and if you say, "or what" do yourself a favor and just stop reading my blog, cause clearly, you suck.
2 And I am not referring to the killer being homosexually in denial, incase you were confused.
3 And by the good book I am referring to the bible, incase you might have been hoping for the latest Stephen King novel.
4 To be truthful I just typed in "funniest texting short form" to Google and that one came up, I don't have a favorite, cause I am not lame like that, oh, and it stands for "All My Roommates Thank You For The Show" incase you were wondering.
5 And now you know, and knowing is half the battle! Go Joe!!!!
6 Actually cutting it to pieces would be a waste of time, here is a video staring Zach Levi to educate you on proper zombie killing technique, enjoy.

7 Yeah, you read that right.
8 He actually took the time to reach down and pick up the dudes ear while still being arrested and healed him there on the spot, how awesome is that.
9 I wanted to use a different word here then corpse, but my wife would have told me off, so feel free to make it cooler by picking any word you think fits best and I will get to stay out of trouble, how is that for team work.

George Lucas, You Suck

Ok, for those of you who know me, you know that I love the original Star Wars movies, (that's episodes 4, 5 and 6 for those playing along at home) and that I hate the lame prequels. For me, numbers 1, 2 and 3, despite all the cash that was dumped into them, and a cast of good actors, were just horrible movies, that amounted to little more then a cash grab. I found this sad, cause I thought better of George Lucas, but because of the originals, I still held a warm spot in my heart for the man that has given the world and me Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and the force. That has now changed.

Anybody got some carbonite I can borrow?

On October 31st of this year I celebrated my 13th wedding anniversary, (yes, you got that right, I got married on Halloween, long story, but I will say this, my wife is awesome to have married me 13 years ago and stuck with me all this time) now because we were going trick and treating with our daughters, (they were Wonder Woman and A Dead Bride, in case you were wondering, and they looked great) we decided to go out and celebrate our anniversary on the 30th instead. Now I am telling you this because that night after we went out for a nice dinner, (Lone Star, ummm, Chicken) we went and saw the new Three Musketeers movie, (which is an ok Paul. W.S. Anderson action movie, if you like Paul. W.S. Anderson action movies).

Now as it was, there was only one other couple in the theater with Bethany and I, (they were sitting behind us and seem to be very kissy kissy, so we made sure not to look back during the movie, cause I didn't want to know what they were doing) which is a good thing, cause for the first time ever, I yelled out profanity in a movie theater. And here's why.

This is back when Lucas had a soul.

A little while ago a friend and I were talking about older movies being released back into the theaters with 3D effects added, (Lion

King, I am looking at you, shame on you Disney, instead of making something new and awesome, you took the easy way to make a little cash, shame on you) and he asked me "if Star Wars was released like this if I would go see it?" To which I replied, "Not even if you bought me dinner first!", (in truth, I can't remember my exact response, but that sounds about right) I then went on to say that George Lucas wouldn't lower himself to such a pathetic cash grab with Star Wars, not for a gimmick like 3D. Well, as I sat in the Three Musketeers previews, I saw this.

So, I was wrong, apparently Georgy is a cash whore, and is taking his greatest cinematic achievement and changing it to make a quick buck. This caused me to swear loudly at the movie screen, (I am not proud of it, but I did it) So, this leaves me with only one thing left to say.

George Lucas, YOU SUCK!

Half The Force, Still The Same Price: A Fullscreen Movie Rant

It doesn't seem that long ago that I was in the cashier line at Best Buy with the newly released Star Wars Trilogy DVD in my hand, (I am talking about the real Star Wars trilogy here, not that fake piece of "dirty word" that Lucas tried to pawn off on us a while back) you know, the cool silver one that looks like this.

Well, as I was standing there, waiting, I noticed that the lady in front of me had a Star Wars trilogy in her hand that was gold instead of silver, and then I noticed that the silver ones were widescreen and the gold ones were fullscreen. Now, at this point I leaned forward and politely asked her if she didn't actually like seeing the whole movie, (Ok, I didn't really say that, I actually just shook my head and wondered if she knew what she was buying, but I said it in my head, so that is good enough) and that brings me to a nice little walk down memory lane.

You see, loving Star Wars as I do, my parents bought me this really cool collector set with all the movies on VHS, (VHS refers to video tapes, these were like ancient dvd technology, for those of you young people who might be reading and didn't understand the reference) and for the first time ever I was introduced to, WIDESCREEN movies*. Now at first I didn't get it, the picture seemed wrong, squished kinda, but it was explained to me that when you watch a fullscreen movie, you are actually missing some of the picture**, and that widescreen lets you see it all. Here are some pictures comparing the two so you can see what I mean, first with Star Wars




Sorry its a little blurry, the internets not perfect you know, but you get the point.

 And then with an even better example from Lord Of The Rings 

So you got to see the whole picture, that was cool, but what about those annoying bars you might say, they are just so......annoying! Well, thats kinda what It thought at first too, but then it was explained to me that you are supposed to watch the movie in the dark, and the bars won't bother you. And you know what, its true. So, this was all before dvd's came out, and when they finally did, most of the time they came in widescreen, but if not you usually had the option to either watch it in widescreen or fullscreen, and on the same disc no less, (although some of them used Double Sided Discs to accomplish this, and that is a whole other rant all together)

So here is my question?

Why the heck are they still putting movies in fullscreen!!!!!!?

I mean, what is the point? If they could fit both formats on dvd's before, why not now? Plus pretty much every dvd player I have ever seen has the ability to zoom in, which basically gives you an

option to make any widescreen movie into a fullscreen movie, (that is assuming you like missing the complete movie experience). So why do they still make full "frickin' annoying missing the scope that was intended" screen movies? So, if you know, feel free to let me in on the secret, cause it bugs the crap out of me, especially when you accidentally pick up a movie that you have been looking for and buy it, take it home and unwrap it to find that it is fullscreen, (this happened to me on more then one occasion, stupid rabbits, fullscreen is for....., well, schmucks). So, that is my rant, until next time, remember, stay safe, stay warm, and for the love of Pete, (hey, thats me) stay widescreen. Blog at you later.

*It helps to put a deep loud movie announcer voice in your head for that part, but if you want a less epic post, feel free to just read it in your own normal pedestrian voice.
**What they do is actually called Pan And Scan, which means that when they go to put the movie on dvd, someone actually has to sit there and watch it and decide what the most important part of each film section is, and then focus on that, leaving everything else in limbo like some half eaten taco that you ate and then put down, and your mom put it in the back of the fridge, and you find it years later. Now, what ever you do, no matter how much you like tacos, do not eat that one, sometimes, if you love something, you just have to let it go, this, is one of those times. Unless of course you are watching the widescreen version of the movie, which is like eating the complete taco and going back for seconds, and even thirds possibly***. So to recap, fullscreen is two year old moldy half eaten taco, Widescreen is taco paradise, and now you know.

***Man, now I really want a taco, and I am writing this at work at 1:35 in the morning, this sucks.

Keep Your Shirt On: A Needless Nudity Rant

There are few things in the experience of film that bug me more then needless nudity. Now, before I can really get into this properly I have to be honest, I have always been a fan of, how do I say this, emmm........ok, breasts, there I said it, (please don't judge me). From my youth to my teenage years I was very breast obsessed, and loving boobs and movies as I do, seeing the words, "This movie has nudity"* always seemed to make it that much better. Cut to me being all growed up, I'm still a big fan of breasts, but now that I have matured a bit, (what, really, I have!) and I have a wife and daughters, I look at nudity in films much differently. Where once upon a time nudity in a film = awesome, now it is something that I am always happy to not have to see.

Now this is not to say that nudity in film is always wrong, (now hear me out) you can't possibly do certain films without showing naked people. For example, Porn, JUST KIDDING, ok, for example, Schindler's List, (If for some incredibly strange reason you have never heard of Schindler's List, first of all that is sad, and second of all check out my post here) . You may ask yourself**,why was nudity necessary in S.L., (I am just going to use the initials for Schindler's List, cause I am lazy, and I figure you are smart and can follow along) well, when making S.L., Spielberg was trying to capture a realistic portrait of what happened in concentration camps during

The doctors who decide who goes to the
showers are in the white coats on the left

 the holocaust, and in that, the Jewish people were often humiliated and degraded in many ways, one of which was to all jog around in a circle naked to see if any of them were sick so they would send them to the showers, (in case you are really clueless, when you were sent to the showers in the concentration camp, it is usually where they killed you) where again, it would make sense to show people naked there too. So in the case of S.L., and other movies like The Shawshank Redemption where they bring prisoners in to the cells naked, or movies set in Africa or Australia that have indigenous nudity, (that is just a fancy way of saying the people normally walk around naked, so it makes sense to have them naked in the movie) in these cases nudity is necessary to tell the story. But in truth, that is really not what this rant is about.

This is not what I am talking about.



What this rant is really about is needless nudity, now here is my problem, and let me set the stage for you so you fully understand what I am talking about. Ok, shut your eyes, and imagine that you're watching a movie, and while you are sitting there, watching this movie, you think to yourself, self, this is a good movie. I bet other people I know would like this movie, in fact, since I am a youth leader, I think that this would be a great movie to show to my teens, cause they would probably wait a minute, did that woman just take her top off. Why, WHY!*** Ok, so did that ever happen to you, cause it happens to me all the time. So just so you think I am not insane, let me give you an example.

K2 is a movie about the true story of 2 climbers that join a climbing expedition to reach the summit of, you guessed it, K2, (if you didn't guess it don't feel bad, Jesus and I still think your awesome, maybe not smart, but definitely awesome). So how could there be nudity in a movie about mountain climbing? Well, the one guy in order to go on the trip needs to ask his wife for permission, and he has trouble sleeping trying to figure out a way to ask her, which she picks up on and bugs him to tell her what is bothering him, so he finally does and she gets mad and storms off. So, here is the thing, the guys wife sleeps naked. So for about 4 seconds when she gets up you see her completely undressed. Now, in S.L. nudity has a reason for being there, but why was it in K2? Beats me. I know why boobs are shown in many films, and that is for one

I only did it for the sake of art!

simple reason, $$$$$, (I like to call this the Halle Berry Clause, cause she got paid a bunch of money in Swordfish to show her twins**** for a few seconds of screen time, $500,000 to be exact, and I will be honest, I think they over paid, but they actually did get their money's worth, cause a bunch of guys coughed up $8 to see Swordfish for just those few seconds of screen time). Men like seeing naked women***** and film makers know that, so although I would prefer there be no nudity in a

OK, I admit, it was funny, but still not necessary!



movie, at least you can see why they are putting it in, $$$$$, (I just watched Piranha the other night, Boobs in 3D, now that is art******) but why the heck did they put it in K2, or Forgetting Sarah Marshall, or one of the biggest movies of all time, Titanic, (which I refuse to ever watch, but come to think of it, why was there nudity in Titanic? AAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!)

Hey, do you want to pretend that you're flying
and then you can show me your boobs later?
FOR SURE! 

So, that's it, I hate needless, pointless nudity, ruining movies for me

This is good!

 and the people who I could have shown them to, but now I can't, all because some guy decided that a woman in the movie had to expose her Thelma and Louise******* for a few seconds of screen time. So, ladies, keep your girls under wraps, whether on film or in life, and guys, stop being such horn dogs. That's all I got for now, so until next time, stay dressed and rant at you later.

*Actually, if the words, "This movie has violence, nudity and course language" appearing at the front of it, I generally thought that no matter what it would be awesome.
**Bonus points if you actually did ask yourself.
***Now if you shut your eyes, how did you read the rest of my post?
****The twins is just one of the slang terms I have heard for breasts, here are some more, many of which I have heard from women. Balloons, Bert And Ernie, Bonnie And Clyde, Cha-Chas, Dairy Pillows, David And Goliath (not sure I understand this one unless they were particularly disproportionate in size to each other), God's Milk Bottles, Holmes And Watson, Hubcaps, Milk Wagons and my personal favorite from Leonard Cohen, The Upturned Bellies Of Fallen Sparrows, or Ta-Ta's, its kinda 50/50.
*****Some women do too, but I don't have time to go into that here.
******Please note the sarcasm, plus I saw it in 2D.
*******That is another name I have heard used.

What's That Ripping Sound? Oh, That's Just Hollywood!

Someone asked me a while ago, "Why do you like movies so much?" and to tell the truth, I didn't have a really good answer, I just do. And here's the thing, I don't just like one particular type of film, I pretty much like all of them. From action to drama, comedy to, well, not comedy, (I am having a little trouble thinking of anything else right now, but I am sure there are lots of categories) heck, I will even watch a well done chick flick from time to time. I mention this because out of all the films I watch, I also watch a fair number of movies made from countries other than Canada* and America, and they sometimes have subtitles cause they are not in English. So, right about now you are saying to yourself, what is your point you super handsome blogger genius you, (I know, its scary that I just read your mind like that, its a gift, sometimes a curse, but mostly a gift) well, one of my big pet peeves is when Hollywood takes a perfectly good film, and remakes it in English with American actors. You would be surprised at how often this

I'm here for the killer sandwich audition!

happens, in the last 10 years alone there have been a bunch of horror movies such as Pulse, Quarantine, The Grudge, The Ring, The Eye, and The Sandwich, (ok, I made up that last one, but I would totally love to see a movie about a killer B.L.T. that is trying to take over the world) you also have other genres, like Romance, (The Lake House) Action, (Bangkok Dangerous) and Comedy (Dinner For Schmucks) that were all based on movies from other countries. Now I am not saying that remaking foreign films is totally a bad thing, sometimes it gives us great movies, like Clint Eastwood's "A Fistful Of Dollars" and Yul Brynner's "The Magnificent Seven" which are based on  Akira Kurasawa's Japanese masterpieces 

"Yojimbo" and

"Seven Samurai" . But, there are some films that are excellent all on their own, and really, the only reason Hollywood has to remake them is that its an easy cash grab and they have a total lack of originality. It is with this thought that I give you three movies that should have been left alone, no matter what critics may say.

Let The Right One In

First up on the list, and the main reason I wanted to do this rant, is a terrific movie made in Norway called Let The Right One In, here is the trailer for you to check it out.

Beth** and I watched this movie sometime last year, (I could actually give the date and everything, if I wasn't so lazy. What, my bag with my book in it that has all my movie watching info is all the way down the hall, and I am way too lazy to go get it, so just take my word that we watched it, Ok) and when we finished it and deleted it off our PVR, (man do I love deleting things off of the PVR, it gives me a feeling of accomplishment, that I watched that, and now, I can delete it to save space for more movies to be recorded, aren't I awesome, yes I am) the first thing we both thought about was, "Hey, that was a really good movie, I sure hope Hollywood doesn't remake it, cause it is so good the way it already is."*** Cut to sometime in September of 2010, and I started hearing about this awesome movie called, Let Me In, so I decided to check out the trailer for it online, (I have a confession to make. I am addicted to watching movie trailers, I love going on Apple Trailers and Flickster and seeing what new ones they have up. The only downside to this is that I am rarely ever in a movie theater and get to see a trailer for a movie that I have not already seen. So when a trailer starts I usually turn to Beth** and tell her what movie it is for way before the title comes up, but she still loves me, so its all good) and after 10 seconds my blood started boil****, watch the trailer and you will probably see why.

Yep, freakin Hollywood did exactly what I told them not to, (frickin Nazis......, sorry, I mean, frickin Hollywood people). Now, whether or not Let Me In is a good movie or not, I will not say, although it probably is, cause look at the source material, but I can only probably say that, cause I will not be watching it. If I ever get the urge to watch a small female vampire stand up for a kid that is being bullied at school, I already know where to go to see that, so take that Hollywood, and big ups to Norway.

Infernal Affairs

Infernal Affairs is a movie that I took out from the library, (big shout out to the Pickering Library here, you guys rock, sorry for the late fees) and watched one night while I was at work. I popped the DVD into the player, sat back, and within 10 minutes felt completely ticked off. Now I wasn't ticked off cause Infernal Affairs was a bad movie, or cause it had terrible acting, or even cause it was a double sided DVD and was full of scratches. No, I was ticked cause I had watched this movie before, only it had big name

American actors in it, was directed from a hugely famous American director, and was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning 4, including best director and best picture of the year. The movie I am talking about is The Departed. Yep, the Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon*****, Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, highly praised, Oscar winning, juggernaut of a movie is a total ripoff. Now here is the thing, The Departed came out when I was living in Winnipeg for a short time, (DON'T ASK) and there was a guy who lived in the same building as us that actually owned more DVD's then me, (which is kinda impressive, back then I was probably at around 450 or so, and he seemed to love movies as

And then I said to her, "Yeah, but my ego is this big!"

much as I did, although some of the movies that he thought were great I think are down right terrible, War Of The Worlds with Tom Cruise, I am looking at you here) and this guy, we will call him Mark, (cause that was his name) told me that The Departed was the greatest movie of all time. So when I finally got to see it, I was expecting to be blown away, and.......I wasn't. I am not saying that The Departed is a bad film, in fact, I think it is a pretty good one, but to have it win the Oscar and Martin Scorsese win best director, (I personally think that he only got it that year cause the academy realized that they had yet to give him one, so that was as good a time as any. Heck, he won over Clint Eastwood for Letters From Iwo Jima, which is a

He should have won for this.

 much better and more original movie, and he only gave Infernal Affairs a two second nod, mentioning the directors but not the films actual name) for a movie that was laid out for him to copy, even using about 85 to 90 percent of the shots, he won an Oscar for that?That was just WRONG, (I am not saying Martin Scorsese is a bad director in any sense, I think he has made many incredible films, like Gangs Of New York, Casino, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, but to give him the Oscar for The Departed is a bit of a sham) In case you don't believe me, here are the trailers for both, starting with The Departed and then Infernal Affairs, you decide for yourself, but as for me, I like the original more, although seeing all the big names in the remake is cool none the less.

Death At A Funeral

Ok, last on the list is a brilliantly funny British film directed by Yoda no less, (that's Frank Oz for all of you who don't know). Death At A Funeral is the story of a dysfunctional family that has to come together for a Fathers funeral, with the sons, mother, cousins, in-laws, in-laws to be hopefully and one little person,  

Bust A Cap In Chris Rock I Will!

all bringing their problems with them, and hilarity ensues. It was really funny, and when we finished watching it I never really thought that anybody would try and remake it, but I guess Chris Rock saw it and thought, this movie would make a lot of money and be really simple to make if we just replaced all the actors that were English with funny Black actors instead, well, everyone except the little person, they kept him. As with Let Me In, I have watched the original, so I have no interest in seeing the remake, plus Alan Tudyk gave one of the funniest performances ever in the original, so watching the remake would just tick me off. You can decide for yourself what you want to do, but no matter what I don't want to hear anybody talk about how creative Chris Rock is, cause in this case, he is not.

So that is my rant, sure, you might have never seen these stories if they were not remade, but for us that have watched the originals and thought they were great, to see them so blatantly ripped off, is well, it is *$##$%$#%****** annoying. So, remember, stay original, and off drugs, yeah, drugs are bad, unless perscribed by your doctor, and even then, they might find out later that the drug they gave you for headaches might make you grow an extra toe, on your forehead, so sometimes those drugs suck too, now what was I saying? Oh yeah, stay classy true believers, and rant at you later.

*Believe it or not there are a bunch of movies made in Canada, some you would probably never even know about, such as X-Men and The Incredible Hulk were filmed in and around Toronto, and we even have movies that are totally Canadian, check out Foolproof starring Ryan Reynolds for a good example of this. And now you know, and knowing is half the battle. YO JOE!!!!!

**Beth is my unbelievably super beautiful wife, in case you were wondering.

***I am sure that was not the exact words, but it was something like that, I probably said, lets go get Dairy Queen somewhere in there too, but I figured I would leave that part out of the main body of the post, aww, now I want Dairy Queen, stupid subliminal advertising.

****Just a figure of speech ladies and gentlemen, my blood usually stays at the same temperature as everybody else's, but it does have an unusually high acidity level, so lets just say if we were in a space ship, you probably don't want to cut me, what, I'm just sayin*******.

*****

******I wasn't actually swearing here, I just pushed a bunch of random keys, so if you put any swear words in there, well, that's all on you.
*******I'm Just Sayin is my youngest daughter Zions excuse for saying anything she wants, she will tell me I am fat, or that her grandma is old, and when she is told off, she looks at us and says, "I'm Just Sayin" cause that apparently makes what she said ok.

Don't Drink The Koolaid: Gratiuitus And Pointless Use Of 3D Rant

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, movies became successful due to the merit of their acting, directing, storytelling, plot and originality. It basically went something like this, a movie was released and if it was good, after a short time word of mouth from people seeing it would spread, thus gaining the movie an audience. That was until a little thing called special effects changed movies entirely. Now, I really have nothing against special effects, especially when they enhance the storytelling of a movie, like Star Wars Episodes 4 to 6, or The Matrix, but more often then not, movie makers rely on things like CGI (that's Computer Generated Images for those of you who don't know, but if you don't know you're probably not reading this, because you don't own a

Old School 3D Glasses

 computer). Now before CGI came around, there was a fad in the 70's called 3D, where movie goers were made to wear lame cardboard glasses and watch movies that they probably would not have watched or payed money to watch before. Fast forward to a couple years ago, and all of a sudden, I started seeing adds for movies in 3D again. The first one I really remember seeing was My Bloody Valentine, which again hearkens back to the 70's.

Ohhh, wow, a lame horror movie, but wait, is that a 3D Pick axe, now I have to see it

Making a lame horror movie be profitable can sometimes be hard, but the fact that it was in 3D, made it seem like a movie that you should go and see. Its funny, cause most of the teens and early twenties of today have no memory of 70's 3D, so they actually think they are seeing something new, and guess what, they are drinking the movie industry's koolaid, cause they are buying it like crazy, (ahh, koolaid, what great memories I have of that giant pitcher of juice, crashing through the wall to save kids from their terrible thirst, hey, I wonder what the koolaid guy would look like in 3D).

Watch out for those flying 3D Bricks, Oh Yeah!!!!

Ok, so like special effects, I don't hate 3D, but it seems to me in the last two years it has become a terrible fad again. You see, I think 3D can be a really cool effect to enhance the movie going experience, but the problem I have is that it is now actually changing the way that movies are made. What I mean is that, once upon a time, like special effects, movie makers dreamed up the story, and how they wanted to tell it, and then either worked with the special effects of the time to do it, or created their own special effects to make it happen, (George Lucas was a pioneer in this with the original Star Wars movie, Episode IV: A New Hope, he saw what he wanted in his head, and since there were no special effects to make it happen, him and his buddies invented a bunch of stuff, a lot of which is still used today). But now, movies are being made the opposite way, in that the directors are looking at the technology and making actual story and plot choices to fit the tech. (sadly, George Lucas is also guilty of this, unlike the original Star Wars movies, when he made the 3 prequel abominations, he sat down with a bunch of people and looked at the tech aspect and then tapered his story towards what it could do, to show off the CGI and how smart their computer nerds were, boooooo) The first movie I actually saw in the current version of 3D was Avatar, and after seeing it in 3D and also normally, I can say that they did a good job, and it worked, but I think it worked because it is a big action movie that has lots of stuff that suited the 3D experience, but it would have been fine even if they had not put it in 3D. On the other hand, you have a movie like Monsters VS Aliens, (now before anyone starts harking on me, let me say I love Monsters VS Aliens, it is an awesome movie, and that is kinda my point in this) which used a shot like this,

Wow, I am so glad that the script called for a paddle ball scene



So, what is the big deal right, the guy was playing paddle ball, who doesn't love paddle ball, (well, actually, my oldest daughter doesn't, she has had about 8 paddle balls and every time she tries her best to hit that little red ball and after a minute the string breaks and she throws in on the ground in understandable frustration) but think about it, why was he playing paddle ball? Here is your answer, he was playing paddle ball because someone figured out that it would make a cool 3D effect to have the ball come out towards the viewer in 3 dimensions. And that is a problem to me, cause right there you have a technique dictating what was show on screen. I would be willing to bet a million dollars* that if you looked at the original script for Monsters VS Aliens that the whole paddle ball gag was not in there, but only added because they decided to put the movie in 3D. So I don't think 3D is bad in and of itself, but just like in the 70's, more and more movies that really do not have any business being in 3D are, in hopes of cashing in, are grabbing at the proverbial 3 Dimensional straw. Here are just a few movies that were not confident enough to be viewed on their actual merit and are guilty of this offense.


Really, No, REALLY!



Smarter then your average 3D?   

This shouldn't even be a movie, no matter 3D

A sad attempt to breath life into a lame dying franchise

And lastly, here is a you tube video that kinda drives my point home at how overused and pathetic this whole thing really is.

So yeah, I hate gratuitous and needless uses of 3D effects, it insults our intelligence and is the worst type of film making. I am not saying that movies that use 3D when they shouldn't are bad movies(well, except for the four I used as examples, they all suck in ways that are too graphic for me to actually talk about here) but they should have had the courage to put their storytelling out there without jumping on a bandwagon, 3 Dimensional or otherwise. To finish I just thought I would mention that out of the 10 movies nominated for best picture of the year for the 2010 Oscars, only

These glasses were actually modeled
after my friend Jade's glasses

 one of them made any use of 3D, and that was Toy Story 3. I think that says something, good movies don't need gimmicks, sure, they had special effects, (Inception was actually mind blowing in that department, but it was done the right way, the story drove the effects, not the effects driving the story, plus I love the fact that Christopher Nolan will not even consider using 3D for making the next Batman movie, kudos to him) but they were all story driven, and effects are just another tool in the film makers toolbox, like lighting or music. Well that is it, I hope my 2 dimensional rant didn't bore you too much, have a good day, whatever dimension you may be in, and I'll rant at you later.

*Bet will not be honored.