It’s An Oldie But A Goodie
This is a Batman short film. It’s how the Batman movies should be made. Check out the un-rubberfied Batman suit and the freaky Joker. Also, you may want to cut it off at about 5:00 because that’s when it gets lame. Batman vs. Predater is a comic that should never have seen the light of day—and it should never have been reproduced in an otherwise awesome short film.
I’m An Odd Person
Listen, I love the movie Scarface. I don’t watch it the same way other people do. I laugh pretty much the whole way through the movie—yeah, I know. I’m sick.
A major complaint that people have about the movie is the montage. The one in Scarface is set to Push It to the Limit by Paul Engemann. It’s a classic 80s song with yelling and a synthesizer beat.
And I love it. It gets stuck in my head, I sing the female back-up vocals in this odd falsetto that freaks my neighbors out, and I hum along with the instrumental portion.
Yeah, I’m weird. But you knew that already, didn’t you?
Unpopular Opinions About Nothing
These are some of the reasons that I am a pariah in this world. You can’t see it, but I’m crying. Really. Your rejection of me hurts my soul.
1. Oprah Winfrey is not a saint.
2. Frank Miller is bad in every way that a comic book writer can be bad.
3. Post-Modern Art, on the whole, stinks. And yes, I get it.
4. Comic books—when done well—are an underappreciated art form.
5. Video games—when done well—are an underappreciated art form.
6. Cartoon Network now stinks—specifically because they cancelled Justice League Unlimited.
7. Superman is awesome.
8. Charles Dickens is awesome.
9. Saturday Night Live was never great.
10. Yoshi’s Island is one of the best games evah!
There you have it. Only ten of the reasons why I am shunned in this world. Don’t worry—there are hundreds more!
I’m Taking Crazy Pills!
Go here and have your head explode.
The first three paragraphs sum it up:
Monica Goodling, a senior Justice Department official involved in the firings of federal prosecutors, will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings, citing Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer said Monday.
“The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real,” said the lawyer, John Dowd.
“One need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings involving Lewis Libby,” he said, a reference to the recent conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff in the CIA leak case.
In one statement, the lawyer was not only able to explain why Goodling wouldn’t talk, but he managed to disparage the Libby verdict at the same time! That takes skill, people. You manage to make your client seem like a victim by holding up a guy who was just convicted of perjury—because he was a victim too! Don’t you see? The Democrats are dealing in partisan politics! They’re out to get us all! It doesn’t matter if anyone in the Justice Department actually did anything wrong because the Demmies are being partisan.
Take that. Swallow it whole. Ask no questions about partisan politics during the 90s or—and this is a good ole’ Republican line—why they don’t just talk, especially if they have nothing to hide.
Ummmm . . .
I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I’m slightly unnerved by this video. I think something sexual may be going on and it creeps me out. So, of course, my first thought was that I had to share my pain. Enjoy!
The Images Will Be Burned Into Your Brain
I just started reading the book The Neverending Story—shut up! I never read it, but I did see the movie as a child. I decided to see what information I could find on the web about the book and the movie.
My god. The horrors that I have witnessed. People, I may never sleep again. In fact, I believe the man in the video you are about to watch will haunt me until my dying day. You have been warned.
That, my friends, is a mullet with style.
And I will not admit that the song got stuck in my head—even before I saw this video. But now? That song will drive me mad.
They Make My Eyes Bleed
I’m such an exciting person that my idea of a great weekend is to sit around watching bad SciFi channel movies. They all follow the same pattern.
A group of people—preferably young people— enter a jungle/house/compound and proceed to be killed in horrific manners. The men all have the components to be handsome, but most come off as greasy and perverted. Occasionally, an older man will be in the group to lead them. The women need only to be thin, large breasted, and screamers. It doesn’t really matter what their faces look like because they’ll be wearing tight shirts that expose their midriffs.
The military is also always involved. But since all officers in the military apparently believe nothing a civilian—especially a scientific civilian—says, the military men do nothing but yell about keeping people alive. They also have a tendency to want to drop bombs on things.
There’s usually a large monster hunting the group. The first half of the movie will just show the aftereffects of the monster’s attacks—a bloody wall, a decapitated head, or a dismembered arm that falls onto someone’s head.
In the second half of the movie, the audience gets to see how much the special effects people should be paid. And I’m telling you, the people doing the special effects on SciFi channel movies should be paid in used underwear and the occasional half-eaten candy bar.
The special effects usually consist of a guy in a rubber suit, a rubber claw swiping at someone, or the CGI monster, which looks like a cross between a fuzzy picture of my great aunt Mabel and a 5 year old child’s crayon rendition of Santa Claus.
I tried to find pictures from these horrific movies for you, but apparently, even the Internet is embarrassed by SciFi channel movies. Since I watched some movie today about a giant Komodo dragon, here’s a picture from the old video game Double Dragon. Believe me, you’ve come out ahead in this deal.
Here’s Where You Might Want To Start
I know a lot of you don’t read comics. I’m not saying that you have to read them, but I would like to suggest a starting point. You know, if you ever get the urge for stories with pictures.
When people think of comics, they think of little kids buying superhero comics. That’s part of it, but there is a whole other subset of comics that most people don’t know about. They’re called adult comics, and little Billy shouldn’t be buying them.
I could list some of Alan Moore’s work—he is considered by many to be the best writer in comics. But I’m going with a comic that’s not only super smart, but almost the exact opposite of a superhero comic. It’s also pretty well known outside of the comic book community, so you may have already heard of it.
I’m recommending that you read the Sandman comics. Not only does Neil Gaiman, the author, create a universe in which major abstract concepts are housed within characters that have failings just like you and me, but he interweaves the whole narrative with mythology, Shakespearean tales, and horror.
My favorite parts of the whole story are the scenes with the Endless. This is the family to which Dream, also known as The Sandman, belongs. His older siblings are Destiny and Death, while he’s followed in creation order by Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium.
Tiny details leak out throughout the story line and they give us a peek at these characters, but we’re always left wanting a little more. At least, I am. Little things like the fact that Desire is male and female, or that Delirium was once Delight and Despair is the second incarnation of herself.
Plus, there’s a part of the comic where they’re all drawn as children. The Little Endless!
Goth babies are adorable.
Pick up the first trade, read it, and try not to get too freaked out about what happens in the diner.
Libby Revisted
I’ve found the clips that I wanted to show you weeks ago. I know, I know, the world has moved on to fired attorneys, but I just wanted to share these with anyone who wants to watch them. In the clips, Chris Mathews talks sense while Kate O’Beirne stumbles over her own argument.
Let’s Butt Heads
Recently, I was involved in a discussion about sex. The debate started with a statutory rape case in which a 19 year old man was charged for having sex with a 15 year old female. At least, that’s where the debate started. It went through a discussion on 15 year olds being old enough to make adult decisions and women who have sexual relations with a man and then claim rape after the fact—buyer’s remorse.
But where the debate ended up is what sticks with me. The debate came down to one side saying that women had to be responsible for their actions. If a woman gets a man excited, she has to realize that he’ll be frustrated if she doesn’t follow through with the sexual act.
The other side claimed that a woman—or a man—can stop a sexual act at any time. Her partner’s frustration isn’t her problem.
The other side came back with the fact that rape is wrong, but a woman shouldn’t be a tease.
To me, that’s blaming the victim. The “but” in the sentence negates what comes before it. That sentence says “She led him on.”
The argument is insulting to men—they can’t control themselves—and it supposes that there is a point of no return in sex.
But that isn’t the point of this post. I could go on and on about how it’s always the victim’s actions that are scrutinized and never the rapist’s. But the real reason for this post is my dismay at how the argument played out.
At one point, everyone—and I include myself in this—seemed to just stop listening to each other. We had our points to make and we made them. We also dug our heels in and refused to budge on our points. It got to the point where none of us could see the other side’s reasoning and we began to go in circles.
So, I tried to put the other side’s shoes on. I tried to see the reasoning behind the idea that a woman—we’ll stick with the female victim/male rapist scenario—has responsibility in her own rape. That if she “teases” the guy and he gets frustrated, it’s her fault. I understand that the other side claimed that rape wasn’t ok—and I believe that they really believe that—but I also think the BUT in all of their sentences overrides that idea. Rape is bad, BUT she went up to his room. No woman should be raped, BUT she did get naked with him. Those ideas put not just some, but all responsibitlity for a sexual attack on the woman.
If I couldn’t understand the reasoning, maybe I could understand the why. Why would a woman argue that point? I believe it has to do with fear. I believe it’s more comfortable and slightly soothing to believe that if you, as a woman, do everything right, you’ll be safe. Be a good girl, do the right things, and you won’t be raped. The idea that you could be in a normal situation and something as horrible as rape could happen to you and you could do nothing to prevent it is a terrifying, impotent feeling.
So, I could argue all day about how rape isn’t about sex but power, so if the woman stops sex and he refuses to stop, it becomes less about sex and more about him not liking her refusal. Or, I could argue that a victims’s actions are scrutinized, but the rapist’s actions rarely are looked at. I could argue all of these points, but it wouldn’t matter. We dug our heels in and none of us attempted to see the other side’s point of view. Throw in a couple of vaguely insulting comments, and you have a recipe for getting nothing resolved.
