Thursday, January 29, 2009
Your Blog Book Sucks
Cory Doctorow blogs for boingboing.net. You know what he blogs about? Two things: anything steampunk related and himself. Cory has written books and good for him. I don't read not-his blog to find out about where he'll be signing them however. I don't care.
Maddox, who I consider to be one of the finest internet writers out there (his points are both concise and humorous) wrote a book. It's boring. It has no tooth. It's watered down in the way comedies about handicapped people are.
Maddox, who I consider to be one of the finest internet writers out there (his points are both concise and humorous) wrote a book. It's boring. It has no tooth. It's watered down in the way comedies about handicapped people are.
Your Internet Writing Sucks
That's write, your internet writing sucks, and by sucks I mean feels like eating twenty miles of camel shit that's been out in the sun for so long it tastes like a milkshake made of rotten rat carcasses and vomit.
Movie Trilogies Suck
The "doye" exceptions being stuff like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.
I'm looking at you Pirates of the Carribean, you seven hour drive to nowhere.
I'm looking at you Pirates of the Carribean, you seven hour drive to nowhere.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Your Segment on Subliminal Advertising Sucks
Do it Inside Edition. Do it.
I must be audiovisual jesus, because I could tell you that's a flash of a McDonalds at without having to "frame-by-frame" it. It's a rather large and recognizable icon.
This seems to be what people mean when they talk about subliminal advertising. The problem is I have a hard time believing anyone under, say 60, can't make out the imagery, yet news segments like the one linked above always insinuate that you don't realize you saw something. Nope, I saw it. So did everybody.
I must be audiovisual jesus, because I could tell you that's a flash of a McDonalds at without having to "frame-by-frame" it. It's a rather large and recognizable icon.
This seems to be what people mean when they talk about subliminal advertising. The problem is I have a hard time believing anyone under, say 60, can't make out the imagery, yet news segments like the one linked above always insinuate that you don't realize you saw something. Nope, I saw it. So did everybody.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Souhtland Tales Sucks
While I hate Donnie Darko, I really, really wanted to like Southland Tales.
It's set in a dystopian near-future Los Angeles. It's cast includes Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson, Sean William Scott, Amy Pohler, Christopher Lambert and Justin Timberlake. I generally enjoy movies with those people and consider all of them a boon to a film.
Sure Donnie Darko is exactly the film a stoned teenager would come up with after watching NOVA's episode on wormholes, but second time's a charm. Right?
Right?
Nope.
It's god-awful.
I was gonna go with the idea, as I have in the past, that the film is some large meta-joke about poor films, the world and all sorts of stuff, but then I blew that apart with two thoughts:
There's a lot of problems with the movie, but by focusing on one, I can hopefully explain why it's so bad. The movie hates republicans, which, okay, fine. But it hates them in such a simple and childish way. Not particularly original other than replacing "Government" almost exclusively with "Republicans", but there it is.
A story, if you'll amuse me:
When I was in high school, I was going to write a play about futuristic people enslaving and torturing other people if I can remember correctly. I was sure that my depiction of the strife of these people was going to bring tears to the eyes of everyone who saw it. I was 16 or 17 at the time. I'm really glad I didn't write that play, but I feel that Richard Kelley's mind sees his stories exactly as mine did back then. When he thinks about his stories, sees the images it's all fantastic, brilliant moving stuff. His worlds are flush with culture and history. I'm sure of it, and that's fine. It's actually pretty awesome. The problem is, much like my aborted dystopian one-act, what the rest of us see does not glow the way it does in the creator's mind. It's awkward, clumsy, cynical and boring.
It's also way too damn long.
It's set in a dystopian near-future Los Angeles. It's cast includes Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson, Sean William Scott, Amy Pohler, Christopher Lambert and Justin Timberlake. I generally enjoy movies with those people and consider all of them a boon to a film.
Sure Donnie Darko is exactly the film a stoned teenager would come up with after watching NOVA's episode on wormholes, but second time's a charm. Right?
Right?
Nope.
It's god-awful.
I was gonna go with the idea, as I have in the past, that the film is some large meta-joke about poor films, the world and all sorts of stuff, but then I blew that apart with two thoughts:
1. Richard Kelley has never made a good film, so it's very likely beyond his capacity to create self-referential super-art.
2. It's extremely cynical, both of me and the imagined creator, to make something that is just one giant "fuck you" to everyone. The best analogy I can come up with is if you took a shit, then managed to convince people they liked eating it to the point where everyone happily would eat your shit, would seek out your shit to eat and would evangelize eating it on the internet, and then you laughed at them. It's a pretty elaborate ruse to pull off in popular media and thinking rationally I don't think either "Wanted" or "Southland Tales" are such attempts, as much as it would make me feel better about the universe...somehow.
There's a lot of problems with the movie, but by focusing on one, I can hopefully explain why it's so bad. The movie hates republicans, which, okay, fine. But it hates them in such a simple and childish way. Not particularly original other than replacing "Government" almost exclusively with "Republicans", but there it is.
A story, if you'll amuse me:
When I was in high school, I was going to write a play about futuristic people enslaving and torturing other people if I can remember correctly. I was sure that my depiction of the strife of these people was going to bring tears to the eyes of everyone who saw it. I was 16 or 17 at the time. I'm really glad I didn't write that play, but I feel that Richard Kelley's mind sees his stories exactly as mine did back then. When he thinks about his stories, sees the images it's all fantastic, brilliant moving stuff. His worlds are flush with culture and history. I'm sure of it, and that's fine. It's actually pretty awesome. The problem is, much like my aborted dystopian one-act, what the rest of us see does not glow the way it does in the creator's mind. It's awkward, clumsy, cynical and boring.
It's also way too damn long.
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