aIn the course of my unemployed trawling on the internet over the course of the last few years I have come across some intensely passionate and profound writing. For some strange reason a good amount of it seems to revolve around bad movies. It’s hard to match the vitriol and sheer visual breadth exuded by such masters of movie hating as Mr. Cranky or the people over at SomethingAwful. However, I for the most part have a relatively high pain threshold when it comes to watching movies. This has enabled me to withstand even the likes of such cinematic greats as Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
Everyone faces their nemesis at some point or the other. I met mine yesterday, in the form of a hasty decision to watch “My Super Ex Girlfriend” at PVR Saket, for a hundred and fifty a seat, at 11:30 in the night. I did feel this strange premonition before I was walking through those fateful theatre doors. I had a feeling I’d made a big mistake somewhere. It may have been Uma Thurman’s drawn emaciated death’s head face attempting to look peppy, or her costume which made her look like a tricked out undead dominatrix who’d flunked S&M school for looking too cute, or the constant urge to punch Luke Wilson’s life-sized poster in the crotch, but I just had a feeling.
I’m not going to bother explaining the plot to you. I feel “explaining” anything in this movie may insult your intelligence. Barebones: Thurman play blonde bombshell superhero G-Girl (wtf does G mean? One of the many unsolved mysteries in the course of this complex and subtle movie) who fights crime when she isn’t a mild-mannered bespectacled brunette art curator in a New York Museum. Luke Wilson is the average Joe project manager who doesn’t get much luck with girls and decides that since he is so overwhelmingly desperate, the emaciated body of Uma Thurman will have to do. It is therefore, in the traditional manner that he sets off the resulting bizarre chain of events. He is ably assisted in his endeavours by *, who plays his relationship-guru-from-hell best friend. Unfortunately, what he assumes will be a simple one or two night stand turns into a boiling passionate romance (at least as far as G-Girl is concerned) with the skeleton revealing her secret identity. Wilson, who becomes a little perturbed about Uma’s increasing tendency to smash his car windows and her attempts to tear off his manhood in her lovemaking frenzy decides to break it off. This is where the movie is supposed to flap its soiled, bedraggled wings and fly a bit. Unfortunately it doesn’t. It hops about, spreads its wings and flops facedown in the proverbial box office trashcan it was dragged out of. Uma, in her Shakti-esque fury, boils Luke’s goldfish, almost destroys his apartment, turns his car into a celestial object and lasers the word “Dick” onto his forehead. The sad, pathetic attempt at upping the pace is spoiled by a boring and utterly chemistryless relationship blooming between Luke and * (who, by the way, seems to have gotten into the habit of playing the pathetic waif with inner strength since Scary Movie). The only cheery bit in the movie was the part where the enraged G-Girl tosses a great white shark onto the recently consummated starry-eyed colleagues. I was hoping the shark would remove the offending Wilson brother’s head (or at least his manhood, since that’s what started this whole sorry mess of a movie off anyway). Alas, this was not to be. The conniving two-timer survives and the noble great white (who really has done nothing wrong, really) ends up a sorry mess on the pavement. After this, the movie continues to crawl on to its inevitable finale, where the director (in what he must have considered an attempt to add some class to the show) introduces a full-on super powered cat-fight between the skeleton and the waif. However, the pathetic loser saves the day by introducing the skeleton to the man who truly loves her, her long-time arch-nemesis, supervillian and high-school sweetheart, Professor Bedlam. It was at this point that my subconscious began hurling insults at the movie screen of its own volition, and began screaming “Please make it stop! Please make it stop!” at my eyes. It is important to point out here that somewhere during the intermission I realised that I was fighting a strong impulse to kill the people who had come to the movie with me. And the people in the seats behind me who must have been hired by the theatre administration as live canned laughter.
This is supposed to be a smart New York movie with snappy lines filled with wit and cynical insight. Instead, * the character installed in the movie specifically for the purpose of funny one-liners gives us “I hear you have invaded the female nation and are spreading your democracy”. Of course, he was not the only person responsible for bad one-liners. Our hero the great thinking penis also gets in a few good ones. When faced with skeleton girls almost naked form the obviously dedicated architect goes “Wow! Now that’s what I call structural integrity”. I cannot think of a single intelligent thing said in the course of the entire movie, except for “Maybe we should all kill ourselves”. Oh wait, that wasn’t in the movie. It may have been wishful thinking.
In conclusion, I do not believe that this is merely some bad movie. I believe that this movie is a warning from God. God sent this movie here as a test to us all. It is important that we realise this and heed his message. If enough people go see this movie and it becomes any sort of success, God will kill us all in waves of fire and great white sharks, and the characters in this movie will all come back as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. So do your part to save the world. Stand outside the theatres in picket lines and beg and implore all around you to not watch this movie. If required, use your live bodies as barriers to prevent people from entering the theatre. You may lose a limb or the life of a dear one, but trust me, in the final analysis, it’s worth it and you would have done your part to save humanity.
September 08, 2006
God's Final Test
April 07, 2006
Rocket Raja Kills Pasupathi Pandian
True Breaking News!
Postmodernist I am (apparently)
Its been a long time since I did this sort of thing, but here's my World View. Found this excellent quiz on my cousin's blog (which incidentally, is hilarious, though young, as opposed to tiresome and old [mine]).
I be a Postmodernist. Why didn't someone tell me earlier? Could have saved me a lot of trouble...
 | You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.
What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com |
March 07, 2006
Find YOUR groove on the net. A case study of Dr. McNinja !!!!!!
Dr.
Mc
Ninja
!!!!!!
As an illegal wanderer on the frontiers of the net (hah! Nerd Glorification Alert!!!) one comes across many strange things. In a medium where one's creative potential is limited only by one's capacity to set up a web page (or find some willing sap to do it for you) you come across some pretty interestingly twisted minds. Very often, these guys provide art, literature and entertainment of a far higher quality than your average LCD inspired media publishing industries. To be fair to mass media, the morons who try to sell you Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo and rattrap pseudohighbrow DaVinci Code paperbacks (not to mention Pavitra Parker, what is that?) are just plain playing it safe. They're not going to print a million paperbacks, or sink 50 million into a movie to find out not enough people want to see it. So they go for the shotgun approach to publishing: just spray the masses with whatever crappy sentiment is going to stick to the largest number of them. The natural assumption made by most people after seeing something like Terminator 3 make it to the top ten box office hits for 2003 is this: Most people are stupid and will watch anything you throw at them.
Personally, I don't think this is true. I think everyone finds something in art that rings true to them. Or at least, they're capable of finding such a thing.
Which is where the net comes in. Its trite to say this now, but the net is still the single biggest potential threat to mass media in this day and age. Todays internet is created by and for individuals. Maybe there aren't too many of them, and maybe this particular bunch tends to talk about ninjas, star wars and RPGs a tad more than the rest of the populace, but its them who're keeping the internet alive.
And there's creation out there. Which is what I want to talk about. Witness the multiplicity of aspiring writers out there who're suddenly getting eyeballed (even if its only 4 or 5 pairs, at least someone's reading this). Witness the number of aspiring moviemakers out there who finally have a way to show someone the cool things they've made. Graphic novelists, radio jockeys, comedians, artists, designers, everyone can have a place here.
This is where Dr. Mc Ninja comes in. First off, what is Dr. McNinja? Extremely simple. He is. a ninja. doctor. An irish ninja doctor, so it seems (where does this fit into the 'Mc' angle, I have no idea, could someone please educate me?). The guy who created the free webcomic (Chris Hastings, inked by Kent.Archer.) decided to spin a story around his name on the SomethingAwful forum and ended up churning out this incredibly fun, tongue in cheek tale of a man reared by his parents to be a ninja (psychotic killer) and faced with the angst of being a doctor (compassionate healer). On the way you've got 10 year old 60 foot lumberjacks, animated hallucination-induced thanksgiving (katanakka) turkeys, megalomaniac Ronald McDonalds and Pirates (Arrrrrr). Its pretty freaky stuff. (all this in 3 issues!!)
Ok, is this too much information to fit into the average DC/Marvel potboiler? I'm sorry, did'nt mean to overheat your brain.
The point is, the net makes it possible for people like this to make their own incredibly strange contributions to the world of art/entertainment/whatever. And it makes it possible for randomisers like me to read weirder stuff everytime I hit the net (never get tired of it). And to write long rambling reviews about it.
Dr. McNinja guys, wherever you are, I hope you keep on katanakking.
March 02, 2006
Opniyama - Review in dialogue
I told someone to try Opniyama the other day.
She said, what is it?
I said, it's a game.
Doubtful look, I'm not very good at games.
You don't have to be good at it, there's nothing to win.
Install Wikipedia on your iPod
Its finally here! The future of information in your pocket! Take that Brittanica! Up yours Encarta!! Wikipedia on your ipod. only...
I don't have an ipod.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
Install Wikipedia on your iPod: "Cory Doctorow: Encyclopodia is a snapshot of Wikipedia as an 800MB ebook for your iPod. Link (Thanks, Ted!) "
