Food for Thought

Why do you eat Apple Jacks if they don't taste like Taco Bell?

Censorship for Morons

Blazing Saddles was an excellent movie. I don't think I've ever met anybody who has seen it and didn't like it. One thing worth noting is that it's pretty much the only comedy ever to get away with using certain black racial slurs without offending people, due to the manner in which they were used.

Right from the start, you notice that villains swear, but nobody else. Villains are racist throughout the entire movie, other white folk learn the error of their ways, and black people aren't particularly racist to start with. It's made quite clear that foul language is integral to the movie for story, for character development, and for humor.

Not too long ago, TV Land aired the movie. They aired it cut and censored. Though some punchlines were still intact, the movie as a whole was ruined. To make things worse, they tried to disguise the fact that it was censored by using clever editing and erasing audio rather than simply beeping things out. They did it in such a way that if a viewer hasn't seen the movie before, the viewer won't realize that anything's being censored out. This means you can't even GUESS what a line was supposed to be, because it's not obvious that it's been changed. This destroys the timing necessary to make some jokes funny, and does significant damage to the anti-racism message of the movie.

You guys are morons, TV Land. If this language was acceptable in 1974, then it's sure as hell acceptable today. Not only that, but you're a cable network. Clearly, nobody forced you to air a censored version. I have a request for ALL NETWORKS, cable or otherwise: from now on, if you can't or won't air this movie uncensored, don't air it. You don't deserve to.

I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

First of all, in case you haven't seen it, here's the Japanese cellphone commercial that's causing all the commotion:



The problem? Evidently, it's racist. You see, since Obama is black, it's unacceptable to refer to him as a monkey. Only white people should ever be depicted as monkeys, such as George W. Bush, as in this image which I stole from a Google image search.



You see, it's not racist to treat white people and black people differently. It's racist to treat them the same. No, wait, that would be stupid. The truth is that it's racist to treat them any differently except where important differences exist, such as medical treatments that work better on one race than another (yes, they do exist). To say that a particular insult is only appropriate when used on white people isn't just racist, it's stupid and hypocritical. Unfortunately, stupidity and hypocrisy seem to be the leading political forces all around the world.

The thing is, lately there seems to be this trend of assuming that everything even remotely negative aimed at a person who happens to be black is racist. If a black man sleeps with your wife and you kick his ass, you obviously did it because he's black. If a black man robs a store and police need to use force to stop him, it's not because he's armed. No, it's because he's black.

America, please remember that BLACK PEOPLE AREN'T GOD. They have a right be treated exactly how a white person is treated one hundred percent of the time, even if they don't like it. Not to do so would be racist. Dumbasses.

*You're also a dumbass if you think it's even remotely funny or clever to call George W. Bush a monkey, when there are legitimate things to criticize him for other than the way he looks.

The Green Lantern

In brightest day
In blackest night
No evil shall
Escape my sight
Burma-Shave

A Few Reviews

Since I got satellite and a DVR in my bedroom, I've been watching quite a few more movies than I used to. For the most part, I've been recording stuff that I already wanted to see, but hadn't had a chance to yet, but there have also been a decent number that I saw in the guide and decided to check out. Some of them, such as Ratatouille, were quite excellent. There were, however, some movies that I regret having wasted my time on. Here are reviews of some of the crappiest:

Meet the Robinsons
I didn't bother finishing this movie. I got about fifteen minutes in when I decided I simply didn't care about the characters as much as one ought to care by fifteen minutes. Personalities went back and forth between stupidly exaggerated and expositioningly bland. Every single joke or punchline was immensely predictable. The voice acting was uninspired. The animation was smooth, but it felt unnatural.

All in all, I rate this movie a 3/10: Pretty crappy, but at least it's not loaded with technical flaws. And yes, I am qualified to give this rating, in spite of not having finished the movie, because if a movie doesn't have a good start, it should be assumed that it doesn't get better. Yes, I am qualified to give this rating in spite of not being a member of the target audience, because I've seen other movies targeted at the same age range that I didn't hate, such as anything by Pixar, and most cartoons made while Walt Disney was still in charge.

Scary Movie 4
After thoroughly enjoying the first two Scary Movies, and liking the third one enough to watch it again every few years, I'd hoped that Scary Movie 4 would either return to the style of the first two or at the very least stick to the changes made for the third. Since it had the same director as 3, I figured it couldn't be too bad, right? Unfortunately, it doesn't have any of the same writers as any of the previous installments. This meant that even though it looked and sounded like Scary Movie 3, the movie managed to be considerably worse. Every joke was stupid, the story itself was poorly conceived, and every line was uninspired sod.

Scary Movie 4 earns a rating of 2/10: No technical flaws, but still genuinely horrible. Just as with Meet the Robinsons, I didn't finish this movie. I got slightly further into the movie, but only because it kept giving the impression that it might get better. It didn't. Notably, it has a higher average rating on IMDB than the much superior Popeye. I presume this is because people are stupid.

RV
Ugh, why didn't I read reviews of this thing first? Everybody seems to have hated it. The characters are nothing more than clichés, the acting is horrible, and the punchlines are more predictable than a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Somehow, Robin Williams, who normally is able to make a success out of a film that likely wouldn't have been any good without him, such as Mrs. Doubtfire or One Hour Photo, manages to be pulled down by the bad writing instead of lifting the movie above it. I turned it off after 45 minutes, but only because I had nothing better to do.

I'd like to grant another 2/10: No technical flaws, but still just as bad as Scary Movie 4. Also, I'm pretty sure that I've seen this movie before, back when it didn't suck and it was called National Lampoon's Vacation. Honestly the only notable differences are that instead of a hideous green Family Truckster, the trip is taken in a hideous green RV, and that Vacation had GOOD jokes, lines, characters, and acting.

Pulse
Dramatic camera angle. Scary-esque music. Everything looks blue because of the lighting. Ordinary things are frightening for no good reason. Imagery of skulls and stuff flashing on the screen. More dramatic camera angles. They're in a library full of dramatic camera angles. There exists an elevator, which is also frightening. Everything is still blue. The film is extremely grainy, which is frightening. More imagery. A cart full of books moves by itself. HOW FRIGHTENING!

I give this movie a 1/10: No content in the first five minutes (first ten minutes if you count the opening credits). There may be something later on, but any thriller or horror movie which uses the cinematic techniques I mentioned is ever any good. It particularly reminds me of every The Crow movie except for the first, in its shallow attempts at being scary through the ancient art of NOT DOING ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY SCARY, AND THEN PRETENDING LIKE IT IS BECAUSE IT'S BLUE AND GRAINY AND THERE'S FLASHING IMAGERY.

The only of these movies to have a lower average rating on IMDB than Popeye is Pulse. I'm not incredibly surprised, because although Popeye was a good movie, people didn't understand it, didn't understand that it was supposed to be more of a spoof than a realistic adaptation of the cartoon.

That's all for now, and it took a lot longer to write than it should have due to keyboard trouble. Expect another post when I figure out why I have to push my H key so hard to get it to register.