Wanted: A confused pile of filth that sets action movies back twelve years. Of all the violence that occurs in the film, the most painful thing to watch is Angelina Jolie. A non-actor whose acting prowess is about as strong as her 80 pound scarecrow body, she fits perfectly into a movie like ‘Wanted’. For, this movie is not about acting, storytelling, or even attention gathering. It is a perfect “non-film”. It is the corn flakes in the meat loaf of summer movies-pure filler that is just there. The disgust that it displays for its viewers, (”I was once normal and pathetic like you” says a voice over to the audience) it shows for the medium of movie making. Muddled and without vision or creativity or even the effort to ‘phone it in’, this is a creative endeavor similar to a drunk 15 year-old spray painting “Megaballs” on a Burger King’s dumpster.
Indiana Jones and The George Lucas Shitball: I’ve seen Indiana Jones’ last installment twice now and I had really hoped that the second viewing would prove me wrong in my initial judgment that it was as exciting as a toupe colored insane asylum’s bathroom. Instead I found that whatever fun I had imaged in the first viewing was really just a reaction to eating my Peanut M&M’s too fast. Rule #1: George Lucas is about as cool as Condie Rice’s war planning parties, and Rule #2: Steven Spielberg should be freed from his “Best Friends Forever” pledge he made with Lucas at summer camp.
Iron Man and Hulk: Men and violence.
Speed Racer: Actually, probably for all its faults, might be the most fun I’ve had a movie this summer.
Note: ‘fun’ doesn’t mean necessarily ‘good’. I laughed, and the audience I saw it with was all into it, so it was fun.
A word about movie audiences: I don’t know what’s happened, but seeing a movie on an opening weekend has become the most traumatic thing I now do. People talking through the entirety of a movie, people screaming at each other, fights nearly breaking out, drunk homeless people talking loudly to the racist and classist delight (which is probably more appropriately self hating unease), people chewing gum loudly, etc.
The experience of being with an audience has proven much more frightful and engaging than the movies themselves. Is this a reaction to the tripe that’s being screened? Are people taking it upon themselves to create and feed of an inhumane and disjointed ’interaction’ with others for the catharsis and emotive stimulus that our modern art cannot provide?
A dark room filled with anonymous people and the ability to hold them as a captive audience brings out some interesting social situations.
Or…I must wonder how much is it a cultural expectation that a movie be watched for what it is? Maybe like a curator at a museum, I’m wanting to enforce an unnatural reaction to a work of art: “No! Don’t touch the statue!” “But it’s pretty to look at, and even better to touch!”
What is art anyway? What is the communal experience of art about? Are we being bound together, all of us, by the experience? Just as I want everything else in my life sanitized and solitary, maybe I’m just expecting that of my filmic viewing. Sheesh. Its getting harder and harder to watch and criticize movies.
Yeah I hear there’s a war between nations and generals
but all I wanna do is get a hold of your genitals
Why should we worry about some fabled U-boats
when we got this beautiful vista and ship load of scrots?
The Ottoman Empire is causing grief
now show me what you got goin’ on in those briefs!
A cruise across the Atlantic is soundin’ quite quant,
now don’t mind me as I size up your taint.
I see your scrot is Bic-ed
so let’s get sea sic-ed
Until we gets blowed up
let’s get that chode up
Just because it is now World War One
doesn’t mean that we can’t have some fun!
(folk song break down a la Gordon Lightfoot)
The legend lives on from the British Isles on down
Of the sex cruise they call the Lusitan-y
The sea, it is said, a perfect place for some head
When the skies of Nineteen Fifteen turn gloomy.
With a load of hot chum during World War One
The dress of the Lusitania’s crew was skimpy
That good ship its true had some bones to be chewed
And the deckhands were feelin’ quite squirrelly
The ship was the pride of the American side
more heady than the beer from Wisconsin
And as codpieces go it had bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.
(Back breakin’ beatz)
yeah! If you get a sinking feelin’
itz because I’m going down
if you feel the sea is reeling
itz becuase I’m going down!
Lusitania! Lusitania! (etc, with moans and audio of the Kaiser)
*This song is dedicated in loving memory to the victims of the Lusitania.
You all should know how much I adore colonial-style wigs. In fact, once upon a time I hosted a Wig Party with freshly brewed mead!! But the portraits below aren’t of any old wigs, mind you. These wigs just might save the world!
The artist, Justin Richel, has a lovely and reasonably-priced Etsy shop and I just ordered the mushroom print for my friends Jared and Becky. Don’t tell them; it’s a surprise!
Posted by Ryan McGivern under
Art,
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Videos [2] Comments
Now that I have conquered three Tom Clancy novels and “The Life of Pi” (it’s confusing),
I can assure you that I know what’s best for you.
You got a question about gay marriage or abortion?
I’ll be able to reach deep into my 5th grade reading level to really
knock your fucking socks off with erudite insight and worldly wisdom.
You’re not sure how global economics work huh?
Let me tell you all about it.
You’ve got questions about what life’s meaning is?
Let me inform you.
My mom took an online class through a church once
and told me all about it, so I pretty much have a handle on what’s what.
Seriously, I know my shit. I’ve got a well-read issue of
“People” if you don’t believe me.
I just got done reading a synopsis of some book about evolution
on an advertisement display at my local Christian bookstore,
so if you want some knowledge thrown your way, lemme know.
C.S. Lewis is like totally my favorite philosopher and Tim LaHaye is my
favorite theologian.
I receive and sometimes read an email newletter about gay marriage that
uses bright colors and has ‘links’.
You best come correct if you wanna debate me sucka.
I wish people would begin to respect my education which would then allow me to
educate them which would in turn make us both equally fit to almost finish the
“US Weekly” crossword puzzle.
It’s lonely at the top of this ivory tower.
Ryan McGivern
My mother said this reminded her of me!
Like most things, diamonds fascinate me. They symbolize wealth, purity, struggle, forever, blood, extremes, beauty, and many other words. I just read this article about them in Smithsonian Online and learned this:
The largest diamond so far found in the universe is the size of a small planet and located 50 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. Astronomers with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered the gigantic stone a few years ago, and they believe the 2,500-mile-wide diamond once served as the heart of a star. It’s ten billion trillion trillion carats. The astronomers named it Lucy in honor of the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”
That’s totally the engagement ring I’m going to get my lover once I get a lover. And then I learned this:
Credit for the modern cult of the diamond goes primarily to South Africa-based De Beers, the world’s largest diamond producer. Before the 1940s, diamond rings were rarely given as engagement gifts. But De Beers’ marketing campaigns established the idea that the gems are the supreme token of love and affection. Their “A Diamond Is Forever” slogan, first deployed in 1948, is considered one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time. Through a near total control of supply, De Beers held almost complete power over the diamond market for decades, carefully hoarding the gemstones to keep prices—and profits—high. While the company has lost some of its power to competitors in Canada and Australia over the past few years, it still controls almost two-thirds of the world’s rough diamonds.
Have you ever slept in a dumpster? That’s how I feel this morning, disoriented, uncouth, some neck pains, two days without a shower, a partly cloudy disposition. Reasons for this discombobulation are too unsavory and personal for me to feel comfort posting them to the Internet masses, so instead I’ll talk about my bladder.
But before we hike through my nether regions, I’ll instestinize about the context, a laser light show last evening featuring music from Radiohead. The light show was fantastic, the music not so much. I’ve never understood why Radiohead is so critically acclaimed. To me they sound whiny and muddled, like jazz without the fun and soul.
Anywho, I prepared a womb of blankets on the laser dome floor, laid down in comfort, chomped on chocolate and sipped mint flavored water, and then the music and colored light extravaganza slipped inside my brain and massaged and tickled my skull from the inside. It was lovely, lovely, lovely, until…
…about a third of a way into the show I felt an extreme need to urinate like a racehorse (do racehorses pee more than non-racehorses?). Peeing was all I could think about:
- I have a minuscule bladder and I know of other people who do as well. This is an odd thing to know about someone, and I feel judged because of it. When someone is peeing next to me and takes three times as long as me, spraying at supersoaker full blast, I do feel jealousy.
- Why when sometimes when I NEED to pee so bad it burns there isn’t that much urine that comes out, when other time it doesn’t hurt at all and I could fill up your bathtub?
- A reoccurring fear I have is if somehow my pee-hole got super-glued shut and I just can’t pee. And then my interior implodes and explodes and the world is a gross and painful mess.
Our daring MindFlowers reporter JJ spoke with former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan today.
Scott McClellan has recently released a book titled
“I Will Gladly Eat Poop Directly From Your Butthole For Money”.
JJ: Scott, thanks for speaking with us today.
Scott: I can’t answer any questions about the weather, sports, current events, or my favorite movies.
JJ: Well, okay. There goes my whole ‘Back To The Future or Ghostbusters’ line of questioning. Well, what can you talk about?
Scott: How about Arsenic?
JJ: Uh….
Scott: You see, Ms. Flufferbee’s Brand Arsenic is the nation’s BEST arsenic.
JJ: Best in which sense?
Scott: Taste. Color. Smoothness going down. Deliciousness.
JJ: It’s come to my attention just now that arsenic is poison.
Scott: Not true.
JJ: Actually, I just looked it up on Wikipedia, and it says….
Scott: Look. We’ve been through this before. There are ongoing investigations.
JJ: I just fed arsenic to a lab monkey and it died a horrible screeching death.
Scott: I know Ms. Flufferbee personally. I have asked her if her brand of Arsenic is poisonous. I trust everyword that comes from her dry, sore-spattered mouth. Without question.
JJ: Well, Helen Thomas just joined us to ask you a few questions.
Helen Thomas: Arsenic is poison.
Scott: No! Not true! Helen. Helen. No. That’s. That’s simply just…The world is a safer place with Saddam Hussein removed from power.
JJ and Helen Thomas: Huh?
(a letter is handed to Scott McClellan reading:
“Dear Press Puppet,
Sales are slumping! Stock price dropping! You’re fired!
signed, Your God and Master Ms. Flufferbee”)
Scott: …Arsenic is poison.
You can buy your copy of Scott McClellan’s new book from
www.please-tell-the-thousands-of-dead-Iraqis-I-made-an-oopsie.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lFUohKcZxw
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~rar4619/Images/Goebbels.jpg
