Ugh…
Pills… Here…
Need caffeine or something, seriously.
I couldn’t sleep at all last night, and I ended up being too tired to get up when I needed to. IE: before going to work. Long story short: I didn’t go to work. I was kind of feeling like shit anyway. Even now, I feel crappy. Worst part is: I’ve no idea why I couldn’t sleep last night.
Looking down on my desk, I see my “Two-disc Ultimate Edition” of “Born To Fight.” It is a movie that I have learned to despise over the years. It’s worst than any Michael Bay epic I’ve ever seen. Although I haven’t seen Transformers 2 yet.
I should send word of this movie to MovieBob. Maybe he’ll get a good load of rage from watching this pile of crap.
Granted, I’ll just say that I’ve actually written something that turned out WORSE than this, but at least I stuffed it into the darkest corners of my hard drive, never to be found again. I didn’t figure “This is a damn good movie idea! I’m going to blow a good few millions n’ shiz to make this a super-epic action flick!”
But anyway, the reason it’s right here on my desk, and not up in my movie shelf collecting dust is because I’m going to make a video review on the thing, kind of in the same style that Spoony usually does.
No, not a simple Vlog with me talking to a camera for fifty minutes. I’d do editing, show clips of the movie, riff on it if possible, point out the TRUCKLOADS of flaws, mistakes, plotholes, and just-plain-stupid crap.
Even thinking about it is starting to piss me off, so I’ll just get to a different subject.
Anyone ever check out Jon CJG’s blog recently? Part of me says that it’s just another stunt to try to get people to sympathize with him.
Then again, that same part of me says the same for EVERYBODY ON THE CELEBRITY GRID. Hell, maybe even myself. What with talking about Jakob and his list of “actresses he’d love to see topless.”
But yeah. Drugs? I detest that shit. I’ve been depressed a fair number of times, but turning a little sociopathic has almost given the side effect of becoming impossible to depress.
Well, save for being utterly disappointed in humanity, but that only happens with utterly putrid movies and games and such.
By the way, there’s another Asian movie that I saw a trailer for before watching Born To Fight. The title kind of translates to “The Host,” but I sure as hell know that it isn’t that Stephanie Meyer book.
For one, it’s already out. For two, it’s based in Thailand… again. For three, the movie actually seems damn interesting. Although I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a comedy or a monster-horror movie. There’s funny shit in the trailer, but it’s generally trying to be scary, especially with the quotes saying “On Par with Jaws” and such.
I personally didn’t like Jaws, but the cinematography made me watch it to the end. If they would copy the cinematography that Steven Spielberg mastered, then maybe this movie would be worth a watch.
… Then again, kung fu is passed through training and copying the techniques off of the master. Loads of martial arts was developed over there, so maybe they’re masters at copying stuff.
There’s this other movie with Jet Li, called “Fearless.” I’ll be honest here: Visually, it looks a lot like Ip Man. I almost thought that the two movies were under the same director, whom already tried making movies with the Auteur Theory tripe.
Auteur Theory. I detest that, to be honest. Any real storyteller worth his or her salt would be able to tell two different stories in completely different ways with absolutely no similarities. Sure you could call that schizophrenia, but look at that one guy depicted in “A Beautiful Mind.” He got a funking Nobel Prize despite his mental condition!
And he also got the pens of every Nobel Prize winner in a room. I’m not sure which is cooler, getting a plaque of awesome, or getting a crapload of pens and pencils.
… I’m reading back through this post, and it just occurred to me that while I write loads of stuff sometimes, I can’t hold a conversation worth a damn in real life. My mind becomes a complete blank before, during, and after my turn in saying something.
All I’ve got is “Wait for some opportunity, say something witty, hope for laughter, repeat step 1.”
Maybe it’s because I dislike having to rely on my ow dialogue as much. I’m more like a guy who would watch silent movies or kung fu flicks, where it’s almost entirely physical action, comedy, storytelling and such.
There’s this other movie I mentioned before, called “The Prodigal Son.” It has dialogue humour, and then it has physical humour that makes my laugh hysterically. Although the plot itself was full of holes and the kung fu actually kind of sucked.
I really shouldn’t blame it. At the time, Wing Chun was a deadly form that was still generally being kept a secret. All the movie did was subtly discussing some Wing Chun history, and showing a few basic techniques and a few sets on the Wooden Dummy.
That’s it. Really!
It then went to “Improvise Hell.”
Okay… what else…?
Clint Eastwood needs more recognition. Sure he got it back when the Westerns were High N’ Mighty, but he still deserves it. I haven’t seen Gran Tarino yet, but if there’s one thing I seriously respect the guy for, it’s how he can show you what kind of character his characters are in very subtle, but powerful ways.
In The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, he visually showed who was the good, the bad, and the ugly. That South Korean knock-off I reviewed earlier (Oddly enough, I still laugh at that Shanghai Noodle Western joke. Call me a retard.) saw that same visual storytelling and applied it to its own characters, which I actually liked.
In the Unforgiven, the only written backstory given to the main character was that he was once a criminal, but he then fell in love and gave up crime. When his wife suddenly died, he became depressed. Clint Eastwood showed the guy as a hardened man whom had a difficult past, made easy through love, and then he lost that love with death. He’s now an old man of sorts. A cranky old man. Kind of like Carl from Pixar’s Up, except he runs a pig farm and actually has a criminal record.
When he takes up his coat and hat to try to make money, he looked like he didn’t want to enjoy what he was doing.
The Sheriff of the town is a complete jackass. It was never said that he was a jackass, but his subtle, authoritative attitude, the camera angles, and the reactions of other people in his presence showed us that the guy was a jackass.
And then there’s Morgan Freeman, whom didn’t do any narrating for once. I won’t get into that.
Point is, Clint Eastwood knew how to show characters through anything but dialogue. As for myself and Unexpected, I kind of have no choice but to use dialogue.
Best thing to do in that situation is to have natural conversation… Which is one reason why I’m not exactly proud of
Episode 3. The conversation in the first scene didn’t sound natural enough to me. Maybe it’ll pique the interests of others, but I personally am not fully proud of it.
In fact, the beginning four episodes were the toughest to write, because I had to try to keep it as solid as possible, try to get rid of early plotholes. The episodes after that were smooth sailing.
… Westerns need new silver screen vibe. Horror movies need to cut it out.
Wait, check that. The SAW series needs to cut it out. One day I hear there’s suddenly a SAW 4, then an apparent week later, there’s a SAW 5. A few months after that, I hear about development on SAW Funking 6!
(Sure it could’ve been longer, but it SEEMED like a frickin’ week!)
Right, right… Where was I? Oh yeah. Jon CJG’s story of woe, drinking, anti-depressants, and that crap about the DHS crap he just went through.
I personally cannot sympathize over the Homeland Security crap, as I’ve yet to actually buy a ticket, let alone board a plane.
Wait, check that. I have been on a plane, but it was a private one while visiting some relatives, and it never took off. It was bloody cramped.
But my point is: I’ve only been to an airport once, and that one time was waiting for my mother to return from a visit from… I don’t remember.
Still, I’ve heard countless stories on how Airport security is sometimes filled with assholes who act like jackasshole… asses… Screw it. But three hours interrogating a guy coming from Canada? What? Does he have a bomb? Does he have drugs? Does he have toothpaste or pocketknives? Does probing one’s ass take three hours?
I mean, sure it’s for anti-terrorist measures, but don’t you think probing the ass of an old wheel chair-bound woman would be able to put up the strength to discreetly roll to the cockpit and efficiently pull a knife on both the pilot and co-pilot? Wheelchair. One push-kick to the shin and the pilots are fucking safe!
Heck, the stories are kind of reminding me of that one Police Chief character from Wrongfully Accused. (with Leslie Nielson.) You’ll know it when you see him giving orders. That movie’s just too good to pass by.
… Okay, my rambling well just ran dry. I’ll get back to what I was doing.
-HolyJunkie.
