TITLE: Dead Man Down
GENRE: Crime Thriller
RATING: R for violence, language, and bullying scenes
GRADE: Mixed
Victor is a man with anger in his heart and revenge on his mind after his wife and child were murdered by mafia boss Alphonse Hoyt. To satisfy his vindictive needs, Victor infiltrates Mr. Hoyt’s crime syndicate in an attempt to find the right opportunity to kill the brutal boss. While Victor bides his time, he befriends a disfigured, yet beautiful neighbor named Beatrice, who at first wants to date him, but then blackmails him into exacting her revenge against the drunk driver who disfigured her in the first place. The entire movie is a struggle to find the balance between justice and vengeance as well as coldness and love.
The slow, dramatic pace, Victor’s convincing cover, and his relationship with the forlorn Beatrice make this movie a believable crime thriller. Everything was executed correctly from the shootings to the explosions. Plus, they were executed at the right time. The whole film is about a man who bides his time for the right moment to strike. Not only does he strike first, he strikes hard. Victor knows exactly what he’s up against and times his attacks perfectly so Alphonse Hoyt doesn’t suspect a thing.
Having said all of these things, you’re probably wondering why this movie receives a mixed grade rather than a passing one. The crime thriller conformity was perfectly done, but there’s one aspect of the movie that makes me cringe every time I think about it. Beatrice was disfigured in a drunk driving accident and as a result, the neighborhood kids bully her relentlessly. The bullies’ main gimmick is calling her a “monster” every time they see her and build “jokes” off of that. They even went so far as to carve the insult on her apartment door. These kids need to have the shit beaten out of them, but it never happens. They get away with everything they do and are never heard from again. As someone who experienced bullying in high school, this lackadaisical approach is sickening to me.
The other issue I have with this movie is the lack of screen time for Bad News Barrett, a WWE superstar whose role in the movie was so hyped up it’s the only reason I agreed to see it. Anybody who watches wrestling knows how convincing of a villain Mr. Barrett is. He enslaved John Cena, he led a team of rookies into destroying a WWE arena, he insults the crowd on a regular basis, and he just might win the Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic award for 2014 because he insulted a kid from the Make a Wish Foundation. With all of these evil credentials under Bad News Barrett’s belt, why would they make so little use of him? Why even bother calling Dead Man Down a WWE films production? Sounds like false advertising to me.
If you make the decision to watch this movie, do it because you love crime thrillers. If you’re doing it because you want to see revenge against bratty bullies or because you want to see Bad News Barrett kick some ass, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Despite the flaws this movie has, I can’t really hate it at all. I enjoyed the movie, but not enough to give it a passing grade.
I’ve been watching the wrestling tag team of The French Pirates in my head for quite sometime. It appears as if they’re living…two lives. One of the lives is Jonathan Thief. He broke away from the tag team and became a successful multi-time world champion and future Hall of Famer. He has a social security number (not really). He pays taxes (to his home country of France). He even takes out his landlady’s garbage.
The other life is Billy Rogue. He couldn’t find the same success his tag team partner did and fell into obscurity. He is also guilty of virtually every drug crime the US has a law for. One of these lives has a future. The other does not. Billy Rogue is the one who doesn’t have much of a future.
The French Pirates draw a lot of comparisons to the real life WWE tag team from the early 90’s, The Rockers. Jonathan Thief found the same amount of success Shawn Michaels did. Billy Rogue couldn’t, a la Marty Jennetty. Having said that, what do you give a man who has no future? A bottle of poison? A loaded gun? A grudge-match storyline against his old tag team partner? No, no, and yes.
But more importantly, you give Billy Rogue drugs. Lots and lots of drugs. You make him so depressed with his lack of success (that rhymes) his only option is to use every kind of illegal drug imaginable. Pot is becoming legal in a lot of states and it has no harmful side effects, so that doesn’t count. I’m talking about the hard stuff. The extreme stuff. The tubes of glue. The balloons of cocaine. The bigger balloons of heroin. And then wash it all down with a nice big bottle of vodka.
Sending Mr. Rogue to rehab would seem like the right way for a wrestling company to spend its money. If he followed the right steps, he could make a full recovery much like former WWE superstar Joey Mercury did and become an inspiration to those wanting to be sober. But how do you sell such a gigantic bill of goods to someone who still harbors jealousy toward his former tag team partner? If he gets sober, can he stay that way? Even if he does get sober, will he not find another destructive outlet for his raw feelings?
Let’s say it’s possible. Let’s say for the sake of argument Billy Rogue quits drugs and alcohol altogether and becomes a better person for it. His criminal record is spotless and he’s actually able to hold down a job. What kind of life is there for him on the other side of recovery? He didn’t have much of a life before he turned to drugs, what makes you think he’ll have one after? You think he’s going to be content with sitting in an office building or getting his computer science degree? Or maybe he can completely dork out and sell popcorn for the same wrestling promotion he was a part of.
This is a struggle that is all too familiar in drug fiction and nonfiction. It can be said about any kind of addiction, really. You don’t have to constantly shoot heroin in your arm in order to relate to addiction. There are porn addicts, adrenaline addicts, self-harm addicts, and then there’s that one addiction I personally can relate to: food addiction. Billy Rogue is to drugs what I am to food.
I’ve been addicted to food ever since going on my first round of schizophrenia medication. I used to be a skinny little twig in high school. In today’s world, my belly is large, my clothes barely fit, and my energy is gone. Food was the one thing I could turn to that gave me just a little bit of satisfaction in a world where mental illness kept me from having fun. One Reese’s Cup was more intense for me than any song written by Rammstein or Pink Floyd. Because I was so attracted to that constant high, my weight spiraled out of control and now I’m left with the daunting task of having to lose all the weight and keep it off permanently.
Addiction is the only thing Billy Rogue and I have in common. Though I live through my own characters, I don’t want to be the guy who lives through someone who openly admits to having no future. I refuse to accept dystopia. If I have a big belly and a weird appearance for the rest of my life, it wouldn’t matter to me as long as I still had a future worth working toward. That future starts with editing the crap out of Brawl Mart and sending it to a reputable publisher instead of doing the heavy lifting myself with Smash Words. I don’t know how far away that time in my life will be, but it is there. I will make my own dreams come true one way or another. I’m an adult. It’s my right to make my dreams come true.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“I’m torn to pieces. I’m broken down. I still see your face when you’re not around. I sit here in misery wondering if I’ll ever be half the man you wanted me to be.”
-Pop Evil singing “Torn to Pieces”-
TITLE: Godzilla (2014 version)
GENRE: Monster Sci-Fi
RATING: PG-13 for language and disaster-style violence
GRADE: Pass
If you hear the name Godzilla, you can expect the movie he’s associated with to be all about mass destruction. He’s a multi-story tall monster with other multi-story tall monsters to contend with. And when they fight, they’ll take the entire world with them if they have to. Entire cities will fall into piles of rubble and their people will either be displaced or brutally murdered by these gigantic warriors. Even America’s military is powerless against these monsters despite having nuclear weapons at their disposal and tanks that would otherwise knock over entire buildings.
This extreme feeling of hopelessness is paramount in creating a disaster movie of any kind. The lower your chances for survival, the more amazing it’s going to be when you finally achieve your goals. We all know most movies will end happily. What we don’t know is how and why. Even with the biggest guns and the most destructive bombs, it’s not enough. So how else can the world combat these multiple giants? Seems impossible, right? It just might be. If you’re made to believe it is, then the movie you’re watching will become much more entertaining.
Aside from the extreme violence and mass destruction, Godzilla has also been praised for having a memorable storyline, particularly as it relates to the Brody family’s strong bond. In the beginning, Dr. Joe Brody is determined to contain the moth-like monster he has imprisoned in a nuclear reactor. He’s so dedicated to his work it interferes with his ability to sleep at night. Fifteen years later, Joe’s son Ford joins the military and has his own battle to fight: civilian life with his wife and child. The love and dedication the Brody family shows for each other is a beautiful thing. Their love is so strong not even monsters as tall as a skyscraper can keep them apart. They will fight for each other to keep from being bubblegum on the bottom of Godzilla’s foot.
The last thing I’m going to touch on deals with the movie’s pace. As with books, I also enjoy a fast pace when it comes to movies and TV shows. Godzilla has a slow pace and it doesn’t bother me one bit. With a rich storyline and brutal destruction rolled into one neat little package, a slow and stalking pace shouldn’t bother the people who watch this movie. You’ll get your chance to be on the edge of your seat. Don’t think of this movie as being slower than a snail crawling through peanut butter. Think of it as slow torture for your mind. Picture your face being scraped across the concrete ground for two-plus hours. The only difference is it won’t hurt your brain; it will hurt your soul. Badly!
I gave this movie a passing grade and you will too. If you’re not like me and you use a letter system, you’ll probably put enough pluses next to that A to make a novel out of your grade. Although, I don’t recommend you actually do that, because then it really WILL be like slow torture (for your brain, not for your soul). Enjoy the show!
Dominick Zola does not sparkle. He burns. He wraps himself in a fiery cocoon and brings entire cities to their knees with his occult powers. But why would he want to do any of that when he’s the highest ranking mafia boss in the city of Seattle? Does he not have enough machinegun-wielding vampire buddies to do his heavy lifting for him? The conundrum Mr. Zola faces now is whether he wants to burn Seattle to the ground or control its citizens for as long as he feels they’re useful. It’ll be a while before Dominick gets bored with his puppetry. He is a vampire, after all, meaning an average human will be nothing more than a speck of dirt by the time Mr. Zola is on a metal slab. Will they even have medical examiners that far in the future? Will the world still be whole by then?
This violent nut job was slated to be the main villain for a Vampire: the Masquerade RPG session between me and my good friend Heather. If that role-play would have materialized into something, Dominick Zola would be a hard villain to kill. Then again, powerful villains with god complexes shouldn’t be easy prey anyways. Look at the people who are trying to bring him to his knees: a pregnant rape victim (Heather’s character), a man-child vampire, a human detective, and a vampire nurse. This is clearly not a fair fight; Heather’s team needs more people. How many more people? Probably the same amount who conform to Dominick Zola’s beliefs on a regular basis, which is an entire crime syndicate.
Mr. Zola bears an uncanny resemblance to Bob Geldof’s character from Pink Floyd the Wall in terms of the way he influences people. Both are charismatic leaders in their own way: Dominick is a vampire warrior (and who wouldn’t want to follow a cool guy like a vampire warrior) while Pink is a rock star who fantasizes about turning his audience into Nazi skinheads. Both leaders use the crossed hammers symbol to get their message out there and they both like to use the phrase “Trust Us” as a slogan. Well, Pink doesn’t actually say that in the movie, but I have seen the slogan on Roger Waters T-shirts, as well as that same performer’s inflatable pig.
It may take an army to bring down Dominick Zola. It may take a mythical god. It may take the entire world population just to restrain him for a few seconds. No matter which way you slice it, you don’t stand a fucking chance against this warlord. There are two ways this campaign would have played out if it was allowed to continue. One way is for Heather’s pregnant character and her three friends to flee the state of Washington toward higher ground (I originally suggested Hawaii, but vampires tend to not do well in a state known for its constant sunshine). The other way would be to give the four characters enough fighting experience and build them up before the apocalyptic fight. The WWE does the same thing when they’re choosing wrestlers to compete in the main event: they give one wrestler a string of victories to make him look believable for when that championship opportunity arises.
Because the latter of the two scenarios is more likely to happen, I’m going to have to establish a new rule with Heather if I ever play with her again. From here on in, her characters are not allowed to get pregnant or get injured constantly. If her character ever does conceive, then she can’t be bummed out when a villain kicks or punches her in the stomach. As a GM, I demand action. There’s no action sitting on the sidelines. All of the action is on the frontlines and my players will find themselves right in the middle of it regardless of their characters’ condition. What’s that? You’ve got two broken legs and a concussion? Suck it up, buddy. If you’re looking for sympathy, look in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. Dominick Zola isn’t going to just commit suicide for your pleasure. Either strap your boots on or burn in his destruction.
***WRESTLING DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
JOURNALIST: What kind of action can we expect from you when you return?
BIG SHOW: I’m going to be picking my fucking nose, what do you think I’m going to do?
TITLE: Guardians of the Galaxy
GENRE: Superhero Space Opera
RATING: PG-13 for hard language and sci-fi violence
GRADE: Pass
Ever since stealing a valuable treasure in the form of a power orb, space outlaw Peter Quill has had everyone after his ass from assassins to bounty hunters to gigantic space monsters. When a botched attempt on his life lands him and the rest of the main characters in a faraway prison, Peter Quill forms an uneasy alliance with his assassins and other quirky characters in order to break out and give the orb to safer hands.
Among Peter’s “friends” include a muscle-bound warrior named Drax, a slick assassin named Gamora, a raccoon bounty hunter named Rocket, and Rocket’s dryad partner in crime Groot. With these five combustible elements ready to snap each other’s necks at a moment’s notice, the main villain Ronan the Accuser should have no problem picking at the bones. Then again, he’s already a nearly indestructible ass-kicker, so that doubles the difficulty.
As to be expected with a superhero movie, there is a lot of combat. What amazes me about Guardians of the Galaxy is the variety in said combat scenes. Each of the five main characters bring something different to the table. Peter Quill can shoot a laser gun at his smaller opponents and outthink his bigger ones. Seeing as how Drax the Destroyer is played by WWE superstar Batista, it’s obvious he can rip the limbs off of even the biggest enemies like they were flies. Groot is the same way seeing as how he’s a big ass tree with muscular limbs and regenerative powers. Gamora is a quintessential martial artist with the way she spin kicks, spin elbows, and slashes everything in sight. And Rocket? Well, he’s just a little smartass who can easily frustrate his opponents into making a mistake. Five different styles against opponents of all shapes, sizes, and species. If they can get along, Ronan should be a piece of cake. That’s a huge if, by the way.
The creativity and vividness of this universe is also something that deserves my respect. The variety of races, weaponry, worlds, machinery, and ways to outsmart even the slickest opponents constitute a high level of creativity to me. The only similarities in this movie can be found in the yellow prison uniforms and prison guard machines. That’s about it. Every character has individuality and everything has a reason to be noticed. Whether you’re shooting lightning, glowing with a strangely-colored aura, or dripping on the floor with your disgusting goop, finding your niche as a Guardians of the Galaxy character isn’t hard to do. Our differences will bring us together, not drive us apart.
Which brings me to the third reason why this movie gets a passing grade: the friendship that develops between the five unlikely allies. It is a slowly forming relationship. They start out hating and distrusting each other and toward the end they get used to each other. While getting used to each other isn’t the same as friendship, one can easily lead to the other, especially if lives are on the line and are saved with efficiency. It seems like a cliché trope to put in a movie, but it’s one that has a lot of truth. It’s the reason why Asheville, North Carolina is the most liberal city of the normally red state: because different races and ideas get mixed in and the citizens are forced to get along.
Guardians of the Galaxy leaves no stone unturned when it comes to combat, storylines, visuals, and relationships. It’s what I like to call a complete movie. Even the beginning of the story, where a young Peter Quill is taken away from his cancer-stricken mother by aliens, has a solution to it near the end that nobody saw coming. If you’re in the mood for a great adventure and an even greater story, see this movie. I’ve said enough about it already, so no more spoilers. Buy a movie ticket, you cheap bastards.
The similarity between the names Jessica Harley and Jessica Haggar are mind-boggling. Their back stories are similar as well. But I assure you with 100% conviction that Mike Haggar’s daughter from Final Fight was not the inspiration for Jessica Harley, so put away the fan fiction pre-writes for a moment.
Jessica Harley was from a movie script idea that never got off the ground called The Trauma Force. It was detective fiction similar to The Shield, brutality, leather jackets, sex, drugs, violence, and all. Jessica was the wife of lead character Shawn Harley and kidnapped away from him during a drug bust. Mrs. Harley wouldn’t be found until the end of the story, which smells of Final Fight logic, but trust me, it isn’t.
Jessica was the name of my online girlfriend from 2002-2005. Though we never kissed or made love, we were indeed in love with each other. Whoever said teenagers don’t know what love is never felt the magic between me and Jessica. The blood sugar sex magic started when the two of us were role-playing on a Final Fantasy-themed MSN group.
I was the bullheaded knight Sharry Seran and she was Mikoto Tribal from Final Fantasy IX. Our two characters got kidnapped by holier-than-thou paladins and we had to fight our way out together through thick and thin. An in-game marriage proposal was in the works despite the two characters not knowing each other. Fantasy and reality were extremely blurry at this time and we eventually became boyfriend and girlfriend.
The Trauma Force version of Jessica was a manifestation of my online girlfriend at the time. Both were so beautiful and so far away, the latter being for different reasons, obviously. I couldn’t distinguish the difference between losing her to kidnapping and losing her to life progression in another state. Call me needy, but when the real world Jessica didn’t reply to my letters for the longest time, I felt empty and cold. When somebody loses contact with you for a long time, you get worried. When you get worried, you get scared. When you get scared, you get angry at life.
After 2005, I officially recognized our relationship as over due to her not responding for long enough. I wasn’t going to save myself for somebody I couldn’t have. But Jessica Harley, the fictional character she’s based off of, well, I can certainly do a lot with her. Whatever I did with Mrs. Harley, I’d have to do with carefulness. I want to cherish the time we had together and not think bitter thoughts now that it’s over. I still want to use Jessica Harley in a romantic way, but I just don’t know how. Will she and Shawn still be together by the next story’s beginning? Will their story resemble Final Fight or heaven forbid Savages?
Maybe Shawn and Jessica don’t have to fight the world with their fists. Maybe they don’t need conventional weapons like guns or knives. Are there no other props that are more appropriate for a whirlwind romance? How about musical instruments? Nothing says love like a grinding guitar and Meytal Cohen-style drums. Maybe they can occupy the streets with megaphones and cardboard signs, protesting something that will earn them bullets to the chest. What if the loving couple fought the world with magic wands? Shawn could be Harry Potter and Jessica could be Ginny Weasley. Maybe their revolution will be quiet and all they’ll need is a library full of good books. Shawn could be Charlie and Jessica could be Sam. So many possibilities. No matter what I choose for these two, they won’t take being human for granted this time.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“You love me for everything you hate me for.”
-In This Moment singing “Whore”-
TITLE: UFC: Gilbert Melendez vs. Diego Sanchez
GENRE: Mixed-Martial Arts Contest
RATING: TV-14 for violence and blood
GRADE: Pass
A TV-14 rating doesn’t do this UFC fight justice. Let’s try some more creative titles for this bloody slugfest between two aggressive lightweights. How about Diet Hostel? How about Zero Carb Saw? Or if you really wanted to get disgusting, try Human Centipede Light. Tuck the kids in early, folks, because the battle between Diego Sanchez and Gilbert Melendez was so brutal it should have been fought in a Roman coliseum. Are you prepared for me to show instead of tell? Alright then, I can certainly do that.
The first round of the fight was anything but a feeling out process. Gilbert and Diego didn’t paw at each other or try to keep each other at distance. They came out swinging like they were playing Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots. The punches and kicks were so frequent in this round that the strike count must have been in the hundreds. And then when the round was almost over, the strikes became even more frequent. The closer to the ending horn they got, the more it resembled a battle from Dragon Ball Z: blurs and blood.
No disrespect to the first round, but the second round was where the bloodbath began. Gilbert Melendez smashed Diego Sanchez above his left eyebrow and opened up a gusher of a cut. That one extra hole in Diego’s head made his entire face look like a vampire’s dream come true. There was even a point in the second round where the referee Kerry Hadley had to pause the match so the ringside doctor could look at the cut. Despite the drooling blood, all that needed to happen was a liberal application of clear ointment and the match continued.
The third round was more of the same: Bravo-Oscar-Oscar-Lima-Delta. Once again Kerry Hadley paused the match due to the waterfall flowing from Diego’s head and once again the doctor put more ointment on the cut. Truth is, there isn’t enough ointment in this world to keep Gilbert Melendez from opening somebody’s face with his chainsaw fists. Gilbert and Diego kept swinging and smashing each other to where both of them were in danger of being finished. The final horn sounded and the fans were on their feet screaming their heads off. If they screamed any louder, the doctor would have more blood to clean up because of the exploding skulls all over the arena.
The judges didn’t have much of a chore to do that night. It was obvious from Dracula’s buffet table who was the clear winner of this battle. The judges scored the fight 30-27, 29-28, and 29-28, all three of those scores in favor of Gilbert Melendez. What puzzles me about all of this is why would the audience boo that decision? It’s not rocket science, it’s brain surgery, almost literally. Gilbert won the fight fair and square and the audience is going to bitch about the decision? Is Diego Sanchez that untouchable?
It should come as no shock this fight earned praise from everyone in the MMA community who wasn’t booing like a lunatic. Both Gilbert Melendez and Diego Sanchez earned Fight of the Night bonuses from Dana White. They also earned the Fight of the Year award from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, which is a prestigious pro-wrestling and MMA publication. Joe Rogan called it the best fight he’s ever seen and he sounded like he was serious this time. Mike Goldberg made a wise-ass remark to the tune of “Jones and Gustafson who?”, though he was only kidding and meant no disrespect.
All the praise in the world can’t compare to what Gilbert Melendez received for his victory: a lightweight title shot against Anthony Pettis. Congratulations, guys. The judges ruled in Gilbert’s favor, but there are no losers in this match.
When I was a kid watching TV, a commercial would come on for Taco Bell and their “crunchy supremes” or whatever the hell they were called. The tagline of those commercials was “Crunch so big, crunch so low, so everybody eat tacos!”
Around that same time, my brother James was playing Final Fantasy VI on the Super Nintendo and there was a monster in the game called Terrato, a giant snake who when summoned would cast a spell called Earth Aura and did a shit ton of damage to the enemies. Putting two and two together, I said, “Crunch it high, crunch it low, let’s all eat Terrato!” James, being the clever comedian he was, said in a mocking voice, “Let’s all eat a poisonous snake!”
If it hadn’t been for that small moment of childhood bliss, I wouldn’t have a fascination with the name Terrato and the character in question (Terrato Matrix) would have probably been named something else.
The Matrix part of his name was easy: he wore a black trench coat and sunglasses, just like Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus from The Matrix. Nearly a decade and a half after the moment of childhood bliss, I put two and two together once again and came up with the main character for a movie script I wrote called “Tower of Heaven”.
In “Tower of Heaven”, disgusting monsters called Intimidators took over the earth and the only safe sanctuary was an aura-protected tower named after the title of the movie. Terrato Matrix’s job was to find as many innocent people as he could and bring them safely to the Tower of Heaven until somebody could find the solution to this Intimidator apocalypse.
If anybody was qualified for the job, it was Terrato. He carried a machete everywhere he went, but he was more than a slasher. Most wizards carried wands, but when Terrato was slinging his machete, he was casting badass spells from fireballs to tidal waves to lightning bolts to shadow spikes to poison thorns. If “Tower of Heaven” didn’t end up sucking so badly and having a Deus Ex Machina ending, Terrato Matrix wouldn’t be unemployed right now.
Another job opportunity came for Terrato in the form of a dark fantasy novel called Zeromancer. He was a member of the story’s first act, though he didn’t get that much time in the limelight. He was embroiled in a rivalry with his brother Baraka over a marine chick named Jet McCammon. Terrato and Baraka both wanted her and the war between them got so heated that Jet was believed to be dead at one point. The two machete-wielding, trench coat-wearing brothers dueled it out until the fight ended in a draw and the main character of that act, Kento Bladecaptain, was left with fewer allies to fight the real threat to the world, a dragon barbarian named Atlas Venom. Way to get off track, Terrato.
That’s okay, because Zeromancer didn’t stand much of a chance either. It was written in 2011, a time where I thought it was acceptable to abuse hyperbolic comparisons and to write paragraphs a full 8.5 x 11 page long. To say Zeromancer was beyond repair would be putting it mildly. To say it was a fucking mess would be vulgar, but more accurate.
To show you how much Terrato meant to me during both 2008 (Tower of Heaven) and 2011 (Zeromancer), listen to this. He wasn’t just another character I could throw away willy-nilly. He was slated to be the next Deus Shadowheart when it came to popularity.
When I first introduced Deus in 2002, everybody at the Final Fantasy-themed MSN community he was a part of was excited to see him (except for a few douche bags who thought I was stealing from Starcraft, but that’s beside the point). Deus is still fresh in the minds of guys like James Howell, Kenny Flynn, Robert Hatfield, and many others who were old enough to remember. While Terrato didn’t reach that level of popularity, I was at least hoping he would. Don’t worry, Terrato: your turn for fame will eventually come. I hope.
***MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“We’ve had our eye on you for quite sometime, Mr. Anderson. It appears you’re living two lives. In one of these lives, you’re Thomas Anderson. You’re a program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number. You pay taxes. You even take out your landlady’s garbage. In the other life, you’re alias hacker Neo. You’re guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future. The other does not.”
-Agent Smith from “The Matrix”-
MOVIE TITLE: Savages
GENRE: Crime Thriller
RATING: R for graphic violence, gore, language, and sexual content (including rape)
GRADE: Pass
In the beautiful sunset strip of California, life is equally beautiful for Ophelia and her two lovers, a marine named Chon and a pacifist named Ben. The three of them grow marijuana out of their own greenhouse, peddle it, and smoke it while having the most mind-blowing sex imaginable. If life was really this heavenly 24/7, then Savages would have been a soft snooze fest.
It so happens a Mexican cartel run by the ruthless Elena Sanchez wants a cut of Chon, Ben, and Ophelia’s profits. When the cartel doesn’t get what they want, they kidnap Ophelia and bend the wills of Chon and Ben by threatening to kill and torture her. The two marijuana dealers have to pull every favor they’ve banked to both do business with and fight back against the cartel.
If you know anything about how brutal Mexican cartels can be, then you can appreciate the difficulty level of what Chon and Ben are trying to achieve. These gangsters will slash, rape, shoot, and immolate their way to a higher profit and they don’t care whose blood they spread across the desert sands. The title Savages could be a reference to the violence and hatred Elena Sanchez’s cartel brings to every battle.
Or the title Savages could refer to what Chon and Ben must become in order to do combat with these mafia thugs and live to tell about it. If the latter is the case, then they can’t just be an ex-marine and a lover-boy respectively; they have to be homicidal lunatics with their business and combat tactics. All of this gore and all of these guts over a beautiful woman who doesn’t deserve the draconian living conditions she’s placed under.
There are many reasons why somebody would like this movie. If you have a fetish for gore, that’s one reason. If you like to be frightened, the cartel gangsters can hook you up (maybe that’s not the best figure of speech). If you like a good story where the lead characters have to go through hell in order to earn their happy ending, then goddamn it, Savages has all of that for you. If you want to see some hardcore sex scenes, then Savages could be an iffy deal for you since the consensual scenes are brief and the rape scenes are disgusting. If you take a huge interest in gang culture, then this movie will give you paranoid thoughts about moving to either California or Mexico.
There’s something in this movie for everybody provided they’re at least 18 years old and are not genetically predisposed to psychological trauma. The chain whippings, blood splatters, fiery explosions, eyeball pops, limb slashes, body burnings, forced sex, and even Elena Sanchez’s slap across Ophelia’s face can all attest to how important movie ratings are.
Let’s try a little English language exercise today before we get started. Take any kind of dangerous word and put it in front of “Mafia”. We get things like Fireball Mafia, Cutthroat Mafia, Rhino Skull Mafia, and the subject of today’s character analysis: The Copperhead Mafia. There, wasn’t that fun? It’s probably a lot more fun than getting your ass kicked by the Copperhead Mafia, especially when that beat down involves the leader of the group: Vooga.
Vooga is a stereotypical Cult of Personality villain in the sense he has his minions do all of his dirty work and he wants to control everything around him. He has so many minions they could technically all overthrow him and he wouldn’t matter. That would be ideal if it wasn’t for one small detail. The movie script Vooga was a part of was a dark fantasy western called Texas Technique and in this canon necromancy is popular among villains. Since Vooga is a necromancer himself with a snake motif, he could throw a poisonous bone spear through the ribs of anybody who opposed him. Or if his opponent was an undead creature, Vooga could manipulate that being into torturous positions until boredom hit like a punch to the face. Given his reputation for sadism, it could take entire lifetimes before he got bored of torturing his undead victims, or even his live ones.
Pissing off this ophidian necromancer can lead to apocalyptic results, especially when the sin in question is stealing a magical red sphere of blood that can transform into any weapon the user wants. Ronan Duran, an undead cowboy who stole the weapon in the first place, is at the top of Vooga’s shit list. Remember what I said about necromancers being able to torture and twist undead creatures whenever they want? Well, since Ronan happens to be one of them and also happens to be the main hero of Texas Technique, he’s definitely going to go through hell if he wants to earn his ending. Ronan could be set on fire, electrocuted, poisoned, or Vooga could crumple him up like a piece of paper and throw him like a fetch toy for one of his giant wolf minions.
Vooga can have endless hours of fun at the expense of whoever he wants. There’s just one thing standing in his way: he actually has to go out and find these people, because his minions keep getting their asses kicked. It’s almost as if Vooga is the M. Bison of the dark fantasy wild west. He’s all powerful and all knowing, but he’s too lazy to do his own heavy lifting. When you get lazy, you get complacent. The longer you stay complacent, the easier it is for your opponent to kill you. Because Vooga is the head villain of Texas Technique and the good guys always win, he is eventually overcome with holy magic and shrivels up into a pile of dust and snake skin.
Every dark fantasy story can put a Cult of Personality to good use, especially if that Cult of Personality wants to conquer everything around him. But I think that if I use Vooga again, he’ll do all his own heavy lifting from now on. After all, if you want something done right, do it yourself. Yes, it’s nice to have a maid to rub your aching scales and a butler to cook your undead flesh like a rare steak. However, with lazy villains, they can just as easily go back to having nothing in the blink of an eye. If UFC fighter and fan villain Michael Bisping got somebody else to get in the cage for him, he wouldn’t have the journeyman record and legendary status he has today. Vooga can learn something from the hard work and evil ways of Mr. Bisping.
***DOMESTIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Nobody wants to see the Flintstones get brutally murdered.”
-Susan Wilson-
SERIES TITLE: The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror
GENRE: Animated Horror Comedy
RATING: TV-PG for strong violence, mild language, black humor, and disturbing moments
GRADE: Pass
Anytime I browse the internet looking for a conversation about The Simpsons, it seems as though there’s always a raucous debate going on about whether or not the animated series is funny. People say it was funny in the 90’s but not after that. Others say it stood the test of time. Something definitely happened to the series when time transitioned from the 1990’s to the 2000’s and 2010’s. The style of humor is different, that’s for sure. But the one thing about The Simpsons that will remain a constant is the yearly Halloween episodes aptly called The Treehouse of Horror series.
In a regular Simpsons episode, you can expect zaniness and quirkiness throughout all 30 minutes. In a Treehouse of Horror episode, you’d better be wearing dark pants with a diaper underneath. Every episode is 30 minutes of something TV Tropes calls Nightmare Fuel. May God send a lightning bolt through my body if I’m lying. My skin isn’t crispy and my hair isn’t black, so I must be telling the truth.
The Nightmare Fuel begins with the music. During the opening sequence, the regular Simpsons theme is done in a slow and creepy whistle with dramatic symphonic music in the background. During the closing credits, the music is faster and closer to the real Simpsons theme, but it’s done with the creepy whistle yet again and this time either a church organ or harpsichord, depending on the episode. While you’re listening to this music, you somehow get the feeling there are monsters in your house waiting to chomp you like spaghetti and meatballs. It’s a haunted feeling and you will be disturbed by it.
After the end credits are over, we go to the Gracie Films logo. The variation differs from episode to episode, but it’s generally always been the same. Instead of a gentle shushing noise, it’s a woman giving off a high-pitched, blood-curdling death scream. Instead of a soothing electric piano, the Gracie Films theme is played on a church organ and in a minor key. Every year when I watch the end credits, my heart races and my blood goes cold in anticipation for this Gracie Films spoof. It’s that creepy.
The couch gags from the first ten Treehouse of Horror episodes are nothing to be comfortable around either. They started using couch gags in the third annual episode, which showed The Simpson family as skeletons. The episode after that showed them as bloodthirsty zombies. The sixth Treehouse of Horror might be the scariest as it shows the Simpsons being lynched with their necks snapped and their eyes crossed. When the next shot after the couch gag shows opening credits on the TV, it puts the point of view directly in front of the monstrous versions of the Simpson family. Which means they’re right behind you. If you don’t have your head on a swivel, you’re going to be zombie chow. Watch your back before Bart plants a dagger in it or Homer takes a bite out of your shoulder.
These aspects of the show are scary enough on their own. But let’s not forget the bulk of every episode is the three stories within them. These episodes are so bloody and gory that you’ll need a rowboat to navigate the sets. The monsters are so ugly and hideous that you might die of vomiting yourself dry before they get a chance to eat you. That zany and ridiculous humor you were counting on in the regular episodes? We’re getting a little darker with that, so dark that Anthony Jeselnik, George Carlin (RIP), and Daniel Tosh would all need Xanax to combat their nightmares. Good thing dark comedians have a high salary, because it’s all going to therapy.
Commonsense would dictate that anybody who wants to have a functioning heart or a hair color other than white would stay away from these episodes of The Simpsons. Every year, these episodes disturb the shit out of me, more so than any legitimate horror movie like Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, or Poltergeist. If you can take a whacky comedy series and turn it into a Nightmare Fuel station, you’ve got some serious skills. Despite being horrified by these episodes, I look forward to them every year and I sit down to watch them. I will say this, though: despite receiving a passing grade tonight, the Treehouse of Horror franchise went from being horrifying to darkly funny over the past two plus decades. There is some legitimacy in that argument. But you know what? I always keep my black athletic pants in my closet for such an occasion.
It seems as though every time I write a blog entry about one of my favorite songs, there are several recurring themes: regret, loss of friendship, trauma, loneliness, depression, anger, madness, god knows what else. It would appear this entry about “So Long” by Saliva is more of the same. I listened to this song a lot in college because it was there to comfort me when I was lonely. Nobody to come visit me in my dorm, no family to be around, no animals to take care of, just me and the soothing vocals of Josey Scott, who’s normally known for being a badass redneck on the microphone. He and Saliva write this one song together and the waterworks are almost there once again.
You’ve been reading my blog for a long time and I appreciate that. But I sense you’re getting tired of the constant themes of sadness and anger. It feels monotonous. If it ever does feel that way to you, it’s because my life is monotonous. I wake up, put my time in on the computer, go shopping, and go back to bed. Rinse, lather, repeat. Rinse, lather, repeat. Nothing changes. I could make some changes myself if I wanted to. I could stop being afraid of the consequences of stress. I could take driving lessons and not be dependent on others. I could get a part time job doing something I actually enjoy. While there are forces in place that keep me from changing my life, most if it is because I’m afraid of being stressed out to where I can’t take it anymore.
“Pushing forward in reverse, it gets better then it gets worse, I’m tied for last place when you taught me to be first.” You know what that phrase means to me and my monotonous life? It means I have all of these creative skills and yet I don’t use them in a way that moves my life forward. Yeah, I can self-publish all the e-books I want. I can write as many blog entries as I want. I can draw all the cartoonish pictures I want. If nobody notices, I’m merely kidding myself when it comes to the American Dream coming true. My career is at a crossroads right now. I have both the fear of being noticed and not being noticed. One of these roads leads to boredom. The other could lead to humiliation and vilification.
“So long. When will I see you again? It’s been so long I don’t know where to begin.” That’s the question I pose to all of you right now. When will I see you again? What do I have to do to see you again? What could I possibly do for you that will grab your attention and never let go? Do you want to be showered in compliments? I can be sweet if you want me to. In fact, being sweet has gotten me to great heights in my life. The fact still remains it’s not enough to be a good person. Then again, if being a villain is what it takes to move my life forward, then I don’t want that either.
If you’re looking for a song to be there for you when you’re down, try “So Long” by Saliva. It won’t judge you. It may hurt for a little while, but then again, you’re already fucked up in the head anyways. You’ve probably gone insane from doing the same thing every day and expecting different results. That’s okay, I have too. Then again, I don’t know what about my game needs to change for things to happen. Should I be more open with the people I meet? Should I talk to people and hope at least one of those people has the keys to the kingdom? If I ever get those keys, what door do I have to unlock? If this ever feels like your own thought process, go to iTunes and get this song.
***MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“If I’m curt with you, it’s because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast, and you guys had better act fast if you want to get yourselves out of this. So pretty please with sugar on top, clean the fucking car.”
-Winston Wolf from “Pulp Fiction”-
