On this edition of "Disclosure": Angels, Teenagers and Nazis.

The Movies: Chick Flicks That Don't Suck

You know those “romantic” movies where the woman is always going off and finding some new guy who listens to her and changes her way of thinking so drastically that she begins to see that her entire life up to that point has been a travesty? What’s up with those movies? For the most part I hate those movies. They all seem to start the same and end the same. You’ve got a woman who’s fed up with her boyfriend. She finds another man who fascinates her because he’s different than anything she’s known. Something happens which makes their love impossible. They overcome this obstacle. They hold each other as the screen fades. The part they don’t show you is that ten years down the line the woman now has three kids she resents, the man she ran off with decided to run away with some other, younger woman. And you know that guy she left behind because he was too stuffy and old fashioned? He runs a multi-billion dollar company and divides his time between his home on a tropical island and an exciting life meeting famous and powerful people. But hey, that’s okay. She left him for love. While we’re on the topic, isn’t it possible for a person to be rich AND be a nice guy?

But anyway, here are a few movies which fall into this category that I didn’t hate.

Angels and Their Fetishes
I liked the 1998 remake of “City of Angels” for the oh-so-weird combination of Meg Ryan as a doctor who’s beginning to have misgivings about the choices she’s made in life and Nicholas Cage (who seems to be constantly inebriated or maybe that’s just what happens when you go to heaven, I haven’t decided) playing an angel who’s become discontent with just helping people. And you can kind of see his point. Who wants to spend the rest of eternity making people feel better about themselves? Also that whole idea is a little creepy. You’re telling me there are these guys standing around ALL the time? Even when I’m in the shower? Hey God, how about some privacy, huh? The premise is just so freaking weird that I can’t help but like it. Also there are few things better than watching Nicholas Cage trying to get Meg Ryan to tell him what an orange tastes like -- "I want to know what it tastes like... to YOU..." There’s something so deep and philosophical about this while at the same time being so completely creepy and, sometimes, stupid. I LOVE IT!

SPOILER ALERT: The Boat Sinks
And then there’s “Titanic”. I didn’t want to like this movie when I went to watch it. I really didn’t. I mean, it had the makings of a total stink-fest. Leonardo DiCaprio had always been (in my mind) “that pretty boy that really sucked as Romeo in ‘Romeo + Juliet’”. I’d never heard of Kate Winslet or Billy Zane. And frankly, there wasn’t a whole lot of mystery about how the movie was going to end. Anyway, I ended up liking it. But something always bugged me about the relationship Rose had with Jack. The plot revolves primarily around Rose being rebellious against her old way of life and clinging to any hope of escaping it, even to the extent of starting a relationship with a person that, by her own admission, was callous and vulgar yet whose way of life she found appealing. Jack, on the other hand, was trying to score. Now, being a man, I think I can see the logic behind Jack’s character. However; I think I’d be vaguely insulted (were I a woman) at the message it seems to put out about the female psyche. First, apparently women can’t make their own decisions and need a man to come along to set it all straight. Second, posing naked for some guy with marginal artistic skill whom you’ve just met is a good idea. Third, killing off said guy in the freezing waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean is a good way of creating fond memories of the past.
On a completely different note, I think this film is a testament to teenage hormones and the intrinsic need to make it in the backseat of a car. Even out in the middle of the Ocean teenagers will seek one out. Also, I would like it pointed out that the character of Rose was underage at the time.

The White House and The Nazi Connection
On the other end of the spectrum you have Casa Blanca. I love that ending. You’ve got the same characters present in all the other movies. 1 boyfriend/husband guy who seems completely oblivious, 1 woman torn between two worlds, 1 macho guy that women swoon for but whose situation makes it difficult to get together with the woman, 1 best friend who is level headed and delivers sound advice. It’s true that part of this movie is played as a mystery, so that one can’t gauge the character’s motivations from the start. However, I feel this is part of the beauty of this movie. The human mind is convoluted and sometimes contradictory thing and the audience only learns each character’s motivation as their prospective lover does. That’s why I like that the woman goes off with her husband leaving the main character to discover his homosexuality, suggested by Bogart’s famous lines “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” shortly before heading off into the mist with a Nazi-sympathizer.

This blog is brought to you by: Fancy Devil Ham... "It's a Hella good Ham".

Advertisement
I've always known advertisements were everywhere and for the most part I've always thought I could ignore it pretty easily. I ignore it so well that it lead to an embarrasing moment with a co-worker who was asking about my Nike shoes. I replied that I didn't have Nike shoes only to look down at the shoes I was wearing and seeing that familiar "swoosh". I can't help thinking there's something wrong with this situation.
Generally I try to avoid clothing that have any kind of logo or slogan on them because I hate the idea that I'm a walking billboard for some company. What's that about anyway? Not only do I have to pay for the clothes but I have to advertise their brand? Are they not in essence saying "You have to pay us for the privilege to wear our brand". Screw them.
The only time I'll wear a shirt with a logo is when someone will give me one as a gift. But even then, I will rarely wear this shirt outside the house. Such is my hate for brand logos.

Product Placement
Now comes the latest abomination of advertising. It's not enough for me to have to sit through 1/3 of a television show's airtime watching commercials, now I have to watch as characters use sponsored products on said shows. Do I really need to know what brand of mayonnaise any given character uses? I don't think I do. I have no interest in that. Do these people honestly believe I will see a character using a brand product and go out and buy it? Because I wont! If anyone out there is listening: I WILL NOT!
But it's getting worse. Now I have to watch movies where the main character uses iMacs, drinks Coke, uses Rolex watches and drives a Mercedes. It's insane and I hate every moment of it. I got used to it on those damned James Bond movies and it's steadily gotten worse.
Video Games have started adopting these tactics and I hate them for it. Luckily I only know of three that use it explicitly and one that integrated it into the gameplay. The first three should be obvious for gamers: "Madden", "The Sims", "Everquest". Luckily for me, I either hate these games or became bored of them long before they started with the nonsense. Madden is a football game. So I can kind of understand them putting ads on there, the same way they do in NFL games on tv. But there is no excuse for integrating a PizzaHut order form in the game as Everquest has. What bothers me about this kind of advertisement is that the creators usually have to go out of their way to include this crap in the games. It's so glaring and obvious that it takes you out of the experience. Oh... How I hate them!
As for the one that integrated it into gameplay so that it's not so glaring: "Oddworld: Munch's Odyssey". This game features soda machines which can be used to acquire power-ups. I still hate it on principle but at least I can ignore it.

Cowboy Advertisement
I suppose there's not much I can do about all these ads. Let's face it. We're screwed. For now I'll leave you with this thought: They're called BRANDs. They are marking you with their BRAND. Therefore they are BRANDING you. This tells me all these companies basically see us as a bunch of cows. They figure people will buy anything they tell us to buy. They think we'll go where they steer us. Are they right? I don't know. They've been right so far... But until the day that these bastards start sending ads straight into our brains, I still have a choice.

I am an untapped well of ideas

Ever had a moment when you've been watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster and thought to yourself " This is crap. I could come up with better ideas than this!" Well... you're probably wrong. But that's ok.
Where would we be if we were not allowed to dream of a better world? Without such thoughts society would stagnate and fester in mediocrity. I mean... more so.
So in the spirit of thinking I'm better than overpaid Hollywood producers here is an idea for a movie that's due.

The Ring 3: The Whuppening
This story begins with a couple of teenage girls checking their e-mail as they gossip about boys, rock bands and (for some reason) internet sites. "Have you heard about that one internet video..." one asks gingerly.
"Ooooh. Which one? The one with the monkey touching his butt and then smelling his hand then falling off the tree. I love that one..." begins the other.
"No. It's... a different one. They say if you watch it and don't e-mail the link to someone in 7 days... you die."
"Oh yeah... the one that looks like a really bad student film?"
"That's the one."
"Yeah, I saw it 6 days and 23 hours and 59 minutes ago. I was going to e-mail it to Jason but then I totally got this e-mail from Samantha... oh, hold on. Just got an IM."
There is an eerie glow from the computer screen... then the horrible screams of the IMed girl who's face begins to contort and distend followed by the screams of the second girl as she is traumatized by the event.

The story continues as we meet a beautiful young woman living with her 7 year old son. The son is clearly a little punk and every time I see him I want to punch him in the face for some reason. Stupid kid. But anyway, the mom is way hot and she hears about the infamous "7 day video".
Soon this woman watches the video as well and begins to believe there may be something to all this talk. As she investigates she finds herself visiting a LAN party. At first everyone keeps to themselves and refuses to speak to her about the mysterious figure known as l337s7rik3r. She does however, meet a mysterious man who explains to her that those she has tried to speak to remain silent out of fear. You see, no male here has ever spoken to a girl.

Anyway, in the end she finds out that l337s7rik3r is some nerd who spent his entire life in the attic of his mother's home, back in the days where you used to pay hourly charges for internet access. After an especially long session on AOL, his parents killed him and shoved him down a well in order to keep him from taking them to the poorhouse. The boy's hatred at being killed and confined in a small space with no way of checking his e-mail (in ways that shall remain unexplained even in subsequent sequels) created an mpg which then e-mailed itself to various people around the world.

And though the woman is saved by e-mailing the link, l337s7trik3r kills that stupid kid anyway.

The End