Rants
Man’s guide to shopping at Urban Outfitters
Jul 30th
1. Don’t be tricked by the commercialized indie feel that washes over you when you enter, this is excessive A/C.
2. You’ll probably be greeted by a hipster who looks as if she would play opposite Michael Cera in an awkward overly contemporary indie movie dripping with coming of age love failure.
Fucking Hipsters with their god damn PBR
3. Ignore the sunglasses on the racks, these can be purchased else where for 90% less.
4.Spend sometime looking at the coffee table books. Don’t commit to one of these books, things white people like and pictures of Banksy art are readily available on the internet, you don’t need a book.
5. Reminisce: spend some time looking at the tee shirts that have pictures on them. Whether it’s Alf, Where the Wild Things Are, or Ninja Turtles, in some way Urban has attempted to destroy your memories of youth.
6.Pearl Snaps…. just leave these alone, they don’t work for you.
7.Check out the BDG shirts. These t shirts are great, but they shrink like a bitch and the sizes are overstated to make you feel bigger than you are. This should help:
8. On your way out be sure to pick up 10-12 pairs of Haviana sandals
Rich and Powerful Bigots Frighten Me.
Jul 10th
Its all over the interwebs, but if you haven’t heard the latest from Mel Gibson, check out the audio here.
Mel has once again solidified himself as the most insane racist asshole in Hollywood. Those Scientology actors don’t hold a candle to this whacked William Wallace. I remember the quite rumors of antisemitism after the release of Passion, as well as the clip of him raving about Jews to police officer, but telling his ex-wife that she is going to be “raped by a pack of niggers” plants Mel squarely in the realm of bat shit insane. He goes on to tell the Russian pianist/used-to-be super hot model that he is “going to come and burn the fucking house down”, but that she has to give him a blow jay first. I hope i’m not alone in being frightened that this kind of person is one of the richest actor/directors currently in the biz. What scares me more is that he doesn’t like fake tits. Somebody please find out what happens at the very end of Braveheart, then actually perform it on Mel.
4 Ways to identify a faux football fan (American edition)
Jul 9th
- Brand new World Cup 2010 Donovan/Dempsy/Altidore Jersey -
Maybe people will think i like that sport the English take seriously...
After acquiring their Confederations Cup knowledge solely from SportsCenter’s Top-ten plays, narrated by equally ignorant “experts.” These fans found a shallow, yet to them, entirely affluent devotion to the sport of football (or soccer as they still refer to it). This admiration is merely an illusion, driven by the “Patriotic”, A.K.A Nationalist viewpoint, that Americans can and should dominate any sport in which they participate. The kicker here is that other than the limited coverage that these futbal fools have been exposed to, they know very little, if anything about the players for which they hold such superficial respect. Asking any one of these newfound “fans”, which clubs their stars play for? What positions they excel at? and why, will leave you with a blank stare, or at best an ill fated attempt to sound intelligible.
- Referring to football as soccer well into the World Cup –
After all, these fans have always considered Football to be a game played with more padding than any other sport in the world, excluding of fat-suit sumo wrestling, which in its own regards is still quite awesome. Yet I digress, it would seem the longstanding and seemingly obvious contradiction that a game named football, should be in some way be played with the foot , all the while utilizing a ball; Defined by Google as: “One of the two male reproductive glands that produce spermatozoa and secrete androgens. “… err, “An object with a spherical shape” Seems simple enough, I mean Baseball encompasses all that its name implies, without any tomfoolery or whatnot. As opposed to the classic American ideal of football whereas the “Ball” is some sort of oblong, egg shaped apparatus, far more apt to be thrown with the hand, then kicked with a foot. It’s confounding, preposterous and downright stupid.
- The belief that the US can compete on the highest levels of international play consistently –
Ask anyone whose devotion to “soccer” began with the Confederations cup, the U.S. qualifying campaign, or the World Cup, and you will find a truly ignorant ideal of the sport and America’s position therein. Yes we have defeated immaculate teams such as Spain, once… but as any football fan knows it’s a game of chances, opportunities and capitalization on the latter. Upsets in soccer are not unheard of, to be honest they are fairly common, but to assume that a victory over a superpower launches us into an equal realm of competitiveness is unfounded and foolish.
- The belief that we currently have players of serious international caliber – Regardless of our superior facilities and population, the United States has only recently begun to implement youth programs that vaguely resemble those of top European clubs. Some of the best European clubs have been established for well over a century, giving them ample time to solidify their place in football. In Europe most if not all clubs have youth programs, whereas they seek out and hone the best talent in their country from a young age. The United States is eons behind these nations. The simple fact that there is only one league for the entirety of the United States (Population 307million - 2009.), Meanwhile the Brits across the lake (population of: 51.1 million- 2007) have multiple football leagues. Just one of them The Premier League contains a total of ninety-two club-teams over four different divisions. America simply does not currently have the necessary football infrastructure to produce players that can compete at the highest levels dominantly.
Extra: The belief that VuVuzelas are a normal part of soccer.
THEY ARE NOT
I liked ‘Signs’, ‘The Village’ was okay, and ‘The Sixth Sense’ was great.
Jul 6th
That being said….
It all went south with ‘Unbreakable’. You have this premise (a good one) and an audience of comic book fans, Bruce Willis fans, fans who liked the “I see dead people” movie, and people who enjoy a twist. What goes wrong is a movie (‘Unbreakable’) with weak performances, weak structure, and weak execution all hinged on a weak twist. ’Unbreakable’ wasn’t terrible but it shows how dreary half-assed direction can’t be justified by a nifty ending. Then came ‘Signs’ which had great performances, a great plot, and efficient casting….so it seemed. The first time through, ‘Signs’ had it all, but after seeing ‘The Happening’ and realizing that Mel Gibson is a self righteous prick, the film hasn’t been the same. Having enjoyed signs, I paid the $8.50 to see ‘The Village’ which was another mediocre film. The cast in this film was perfect and the photography was beautiful, but the film lacked a back bone.
Because of fresh ideas and brave writing, I remained a fan of Shyamalan’s movies through this string of mediocracy and was excited to be blown away by ‘Lady in the Water’. This was the worst movie I had ever seen. So badly, I wanted this to be a good film, but too many times I was embarrassed for Shyamalan and his cheesy attempt at God knows what. I wasn’t sure if I was watching a contemporary fairy tale or a school play written by a 3rd grader who felt witty using symbolism. Either way, at the most dramatic point in the film, I had to leave and laugh my ass off in the lobby of the theater.
For some reason I went to ‘The Happening’. This movie is the reason I am not going to ‘The Last Airbender’. Mark Wahlberg succeeds in two roles, one is when he is continuously yelling (‘The Departed’, ‘Four Brothers’), two is when he is an idiot (‘I Heart Huckabees’, ‘Boogie Nights’). When Mark Wahlberg does not succeed is when he plays a generic, peaceful, science teacher in an apocalyptic environment. You can’t blame his performance for the disaster ‘The Happening’, but I had trouble watching him without laughing. The movie immediately became the worst I had ever seen, making ‘The Lady in the Water’ #2 on that list. But at least there was death in a Shyamalan movie, right?
When you boil it down you have a decent writer, with good ideas, and passion for his projects. Beyond that, his films lack enough direction to stand alone without a gimmick to prop them up. ‘The Last Airbender’ will have to rely on stunning 3D and visual effects to be successful. Other than these elements I know the film will have no chance of escaping the shadow cast by the dead people movie he wrote last century.
