Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Why You Shouldn't Give a Shit if the World's Ending



You survived the most dreaded time of the year: the holidays.

Whether it was Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanza or whatever-the-fuck-you-all-are-celebrating-these-days, you survived. And now, there’s one more day to survive folks…

New Year’s.

New Year’s is always a rough time, usually because the actual New Year’s Day should be officially renamed “National Hangover Day”, but this upcoming one could be especially rough because, well…it could be the last New Year’s Eve ever.

Yes folks, 2012 is coming, and if you believe in that Mayan calendar bullshit, the end of the world is coming and we’ve already begun our last year on Earth. Will the oceans rise? Will the cities fall? Will the sky be set ablaze? Will Cuba Gooding Jr. ever go back to feature films instead of direct-to-DVD shit-fests? These are the questions that will be answered within the next year as that pesky Mayan calendar comes to a close.

So what should you do during your last year on Earth you ask? Anything you fucking want to, that’s what! Quit your job, go on a week-long bender, bareback a cheap transsexual hooker, stick your finger in a urinal and put it in your mouth, bet your life savings that the Blue Jackets will win the Stanley Cup, masturbate with sandpaper, watch Cannibal Holocaust and eat a pizza, touch penises with your neighbor; go fucking apeshit! And why not? You’ll be dead in about a year so make like Peaches and fuck the pain away!

Or…you could listen to reason and come to the realization that the world is more than likely not coming to an end within the next year. Events depicted in Roland Emmerich’s “2012” is probably not going to happen, including John Cusack saving you in a limo as the city around him is crumbling to the ground. Just like this past May (and October) when it was predicted the world would come to a violent end…it didn’t (for those of us that weren’t Macho Man Randy Savage anyway), nothing is going to drastically change in the world by the end of next year…except for the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and some other ass hole getting elected or re-elected into the White House to continue to put the dick to those of us that weren’t born with trust funds.

Personally, I do kind of hope the world does come to an end. I personally have accomplished just about everything I’ve wanted to do in life (minus playing the asses of multiple girls at once in a row like bongo drums) and have become jaded enough to not give a shit if everything goes straight to Hell. And hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the world is going to come to an end when 2012 draws to a close. If it does, I’ll see you on the shores of oblivion folks…it’s been nice knowin’ all y’all.

HAPPY NEW YEAR ASS HOLES!!!!!!!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

What the fuck is Bane saying?!



Over the past few days there’s been a shit ton of internet chatter and theories regarding “The Dark Knight Rises”. After the unveiling of the slam-bang six-minute prologue that premiered before the new “Mission: Impossible” flick, a second trailer was released that showed more footage, including the massive destruction of a football field and Batman (Christian Bale) getting his ass handed to him by Bane (Tom Hardy).

One thing that’s gotten a shit-ton of smack slapped on it is the fact that understanding any of Bane’s dialogue is ass-fuckingly hard. I’m not sure whether it’s the voice Hardy is using, or if he’s just muffled by the mask, or a combination of both. Either way, director Christopher Nolan has heard the complaints of the masses…and is probably going to do nothing about it. He’s gone so far to say that he likes Bane’s voice the way it is, and will more than likely not make any post-production alterations or re-dub Hardy either.

So basically we’ll have to wait until “The Dark Knight Rises” comes out on DVD and turn on the closed captioning option so we know what the fuck Bane is saying.

But hey, considering the fact that Bale’s Batman voice is pretty over-the-top in itself, well…what the hell. As a side note, back when I was bartending, “The Dark Knight” was on HBO on one of the TV’s with the closed captioning turned on. During the interrogation scene as Batman walks out and Gordon asks him if he’s going after Dent or Rachel, Batman growls “Rachel”, and the caption came up *inaudible*.

In other words, that was only a taste of things to come apparently.

Though I’m poking fun and pointing out early flaws, all that bullshit aside I can’t fucking wait for this movie. It looks to be every bit as epic (and possibly even more so) than “The Dark Knight” was, and appears to truly be an epic conclusion to Nolan’s Batman films. People are psyched for “The Avengers”, and rightfully so (I am too), but “The Dark Knight Rises” takes precedent over it for me personally, and I’m dying to see how it all winds up coming to an end…

…even if I can’t understand half the shit that the film’s main villain is saying.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

There's a "Starship Troopers" remake coming out...for no reason at all



Paul Verhoeven films are seemingly becoming ripe for the picking to be remade these days. We’ve got a sure to be shit-tastic remake of “Total Recall” coming out next year from the crew behind the even more shit-tastic “Underworld” franchise, plus the much talked about remake of “Robocop” is gaining steam as well. Both films are regarded as genre classics and two of the best films of Verhoeven’s career, but they aren’t the only films of his that can’t escape the clutches of greedy, unoriginal Hollywood executives…

…because they’re remaking “Starship Troopers” too.

Let that sink in…

Now I know the first thought going through your head is probably something like, “wait a minute, that didn’t come out that long ago did it?” The answer is no, not really. Released in 1997, “Starship Troopers” is adapted from the classic Robert A. Heinlein novel of the same name, and is injected with plenty of Verhoeven’s style of social satire with buckets of blood and CGI effects that were state of the art for their time. The film was a hit and spawned two direct-to-DVD sequels over the years, and while the original film was definitely flawed and nowhere near a classic sci-fi/action flick, it was nevertheless enjoyable and fun.

Now, here we are in 2011, and they’re talking about remaking it. A film that isn’t even 15 years old now stands a chance at being remade…do you think the suits out on the West Coast are just completely bankrupt in terms of coming up with their own ideas or what?

Saying this would be a needless remake is saying it lightly, because it seems like every remake (regardless of genre) to come out in nearly the past decade has been absolutely fucking needless. However, a majority of them are remakes of films that are at least 20 or so years old, so you can kind of understand why a film that old would be ripe to be chosen to be remade…but “Starship Troopers”? Really? This is just fucking stupid.

I’m saying it right now folks, this upcoming “Starship Troopers” remake will wind up in the scrap heap with the shitty, needless remakes of flicks like “The Hitcher”, “The Stepfather”, “Prom Night”, “The Fog”, “Amityville Horror”, and countless, countless others. I mention those because most of those remakes were PG-13 rated shit-fests that didn’t retain any of the balls or edginess of their predecessors, in the effort to earn a PG-13 rating to make just a little more money at the box office. Chances are this new “Starship Troopers” will probably follow the same blueprint.

To close out my ramblings here, let me just say that if they want to remake any more of Paul Verhoeven’s films, why don’t you try remaking “Showgirls”? That glorified trashy train wreck of a wank-fest would bring the audiences in like stampeding horses, whether it was rated NC-17, R, or PG-13 because a majority of American movie audiences are dumber than shit, almost as dumb seemingly as the powers that be that decide what to remake in the first fucking place, almost. If/when said remake of “Starship Troopers” happens, I’m just going to stick my head up my ass and pretend it isn’t there.

Next thing you know they’ll remake “Hollow Man” just to complete the Verhoeven filmography of remade and regurgitated bullshit.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Fuck You Frank Miller



I would like to take the time to say something that is from the depths of my heart and soul.

Fuck you Frank Miller.

In the most sincere of ways, fuck you Frank, fuck you right in the ear.

For those of you that don’t know who Frank Miller is, saying that he’s a comic book legend is saying it lightly. A writer and artist for longer than most comic book personalities have the right to work in the industry, Frank Miller is responsible for legendary and classic comic stories including a historic run on “Daredevil” that revolutionized the character and followed with other works “The Dark Knight Returns”, “Batman: Year One”, and the “Sin City” books among others. His most revered work has always been uncompromising, hard, and incredibly gritty given the source material, but these days, Frank isn’t quite Frank these days.

He recently went on a rant about the whole “Occupy” movements happening in cities across the country, going so far as to label the protestors “losers that should go home to their parent’s basements and play more World of Warcraft” (I’m paraphrasing, but that’s pretty much what he said). Anyway, Miller sees these protests as attacks on everything that “true” Americans hold dear. “True Americans”. You know, the kind of “True Americans” that believe the middle class and below should keep getting fucked in the ass by the 1%.

So in those regards, with this stance he’s taken on the subject and how he’s lampooning the protesters, there’s only one thing to say to good ‘ol Frank at this point…

…fuck you (again) Frank Miller.

Call it a hunch, but I’m pretty sure that a decent amount of these protesters have read some comic books in their times, and more than likely they read the work of Frank Miller at some point, more than likely because he was recommended to them because his work has been so revered for so damn long…but in that respect, it’s been a while since Frank has done anything worth writing home about.

After achieving Hollywood fame when adaptations of “Sin City” and “300” struck box-office gold, Frank decided to take Will Eisner’s classic character “The Spirit” and direct a movie based on it himself. The result was a catastrophically horrible piece of shit excuse of a comic book film that felt like a watered-down “Sin City”. He also decided to write numerous shitty comics that sold only because his name was on the cover, including “The Dark Knight Strikes Again”, “All-Star Batman & Robin” (which featured the immortal line of dialogue, “what are you retarded? I’m the goddamn Batman”), and the recently released “Holy Terror”, which is probably the most blatantly racist piece of conservative propaganda to ever be published in the last fifty or so years. In other words, Frank Miller went off his rocker a while ago, so his recent bout of shit-talking shouldn’t come as much of a surprise at all really.

No matter what though, seeing Miller take this stance is disheartening. I wonder if he forgets what it was like getting into a tough industry like comic books and scrapping and surviving to do so. His raw talent is what got him noticed (even as his pencil work deteriorated in quality over the years) in the beginning of his career, a career which is now on the other end of the spectrum where he’s becoming more widely recognized as an over the hill hack, and that’s exactly what I’m acknowledging him as now, and probably forever more from this point forward.

So once again Frank Miller, fuck you. Fuck you right up your quasi-fascist ass. You’re a shell of the man you used to be, and you should just hang it up now to preserve what little legacy you have left. Do that, and the comic book world, and the entertainment industry as a whole, will be all the better off for it.