July 24, 2012

The Dark Knight Rises

Every year that a Batman movie graces my life is a good year.  In 2005, I was learning to become an adult.  In 2008, I was in the midst of college and having great adventures at my first year in Sequoia (one of which was driving 2 hours to see Dark Knight in a midnight showing with seven fellow employees).  This year I married my soul mate.  All good things.

It was great movie.  I left fully satisfied and excited.  It was no Dark Knight though.  I couldn't believe that this movie would surpass that level of cinematic awesomeness... and it didn't. You just can't beat the deranged anarchy of the Joker.  I'm actually really glad they didn't try.  This was different than the Dark Knight.  It had its own feel.  I hate when sequels just try to copy paste the successful part of a movie and change the details.  For instance, I heard they tried to replicate Willem Dafoe's character in Boondock Saints 2 but with a female and it just didn't work.  I'll never see it because everyone I know says its awful and I don't want to tarnish my memory of the first one. 

I also hate it when they make the same jokes in sequels.  Take Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrows obsession with rum was only vaguely funny by the end of the first movie.  When he mentioned rum in the second one, I cringed.  Sure maybe I watched the first one too many times but so did everyone else and that joke was dead.  Now I can't even find rum funny anymore cause it just makes me think of Jerry Bruckheimer beating a dead horse. 

My point is this: yes the Dark Knight Rises was a bit slow, but I appreciated that it was its own movie and that it didn't try to bank on Heath Ledgers awesomeness.  One of the unexpected highlights of the movie for me was Cillian Murphy.  His scene made me laugh. 

On a related note, my parents came by for lunch the other day and gave us the Batman comic that just so happened to be the one the movies are based on.  I guess they found it in my brothers things while cleaning the garage and just knew where it should belong.  I've started reading it and its pretty good.  The only other comic I've ever read is the graphic novel Watchmen.  The style of internal dialogue in Batman reminds of Rorschach's journal.  I don't know if this is a regular comic book thing or not. 

On an unrelated note, Olive is at the vets office getting fixed right now.  This means I will be entertained later on by a drunk acting kitty.  Good. Times.

Olive giving me 'I'm too cute for surgery' eyes

July 16, 2012

My Generation

To be honest, all this generation talk is kind of annoying.  I hate it when people point to something that current 12-year-olds like and say "our world is doomed".  They're fucking 12.  Their little brains aren't fully developed yet.  They'll get over it.  I don't even want to remember all the fucked up shit I thought was awesome at 12 years old.  I thought my life would be complete if I married a guy twice my age in a shitty boy band.  You can't expect a half developed mind to know good music... or talent.  Teenage girls just want a cute boy to ogle.  That's probably the reason people don't seem to notice how horrible Kristen Stewart's acting is.  My bet is that the majority of 13 year old girls don't even notice she's in the movie.  They're too busy wetting their pants over douche-bag Pattinson. 

The thing that's really weird about the whole Twilight thing is the 30-something year old housewives who are in love with Edward.  I really feel like they should be old enough to know better.  Its also disconcerting to think about what these stories are teaching teenage girls about love.  If you fall in love in high school, its forever.  If he stalks you, it means he loves you.  If he leaves you, you'll NEVER get over it.  Basically, the main character has no personality without Edward.  Shit, she has no personality WITH Edward, she's just not crying over him.  So, the moral is you're nothing without a man, you might as well die.  And don't say "its different, he's a vampire" cause that's bullshit.  MAYBE its a little different for him but Bella's human and she is setting a shitty example for other human girls.

So while Kris was complaining about today's literature, we decided we're gonna write our book.  It's gonna blow all the other books out of the water with its awesomeness. 

July 15, 2012

A Word on Literature...and Masochism

I have been reading terrible books lately.  Really awful books.  The worst part is that these are books that are popular right now.  This genuinely concerned me at first, because I usually have better taste as far as literature goes, but then I sensed an opportunity.  I already have an adventure log going, but since summer courses have started, the end of my adventuring began (I've just been too busy to do much other than homework).  Instead, I think I'm going to put the travel log on hiatus and try instead to write up reviews of the so called "popular" books that I've been reading lately.

Unfortunately, this means I'm also intent on finishing the Hunger Games series for no other reason than to torture myself in an attempt at giving the author a fair shot to see if anything improves.  Since I don't really have a lot of time, what with school and all, I will limit my reviews to what I have already started to read for now.  Maybe later, I'll begin taking requests.  If nothing else, hopefully this will inspire some creative rants.  I'll try to be more entertaining than my last evaluation of the Hunger Games.

July 14, 2012

The Hunger Games...for real

So I apparently picked a terrible topic a few weeks ago and it has completely stalled updates to the site.  I take all the blame.  Because Angela is wonderful and she didn't want to disappoint me by not posting, but she didn't post because the topic I picked was terrible (there Angela, you are absolved of all blame for being lazy :p).

I originally wanted to talk about the generation gap because I've been taking classes in middle level education and have been having some interesting experiences.  One of which being that I had to read a book that most middle schoolers are reading and then discuss it.  So I chose "The Hunger Games" because everyone is raving about it and even my niece is enjoying reading it.  To be honest, I have no idea why everyone likes this book.

I went into reading it expecting something really good.  Don't get me wrong, the writing is very engaging.  But somewhere around chapter three, I just couldn't stomach the book any further.  The idea of adults laughing and joking about children being made to murder each other for their entertainment is apparently far too disturbing a concept for me to get over (even though there wasn't a lot of gorey detail in the book).  I also don't understand the message that kids are supposed to take away from this.  The world is so cruel and unfair that clearly the upper class is entertained by the suffering of the lower class?  That adults are so far removed from the lives of their children that it's up to them to raise themselves?  That love is nothing more than a tool for some people to use at their convenience?  There was little about the book I liked and I especially hated the ending which clearly railroaded the reader into reading the second book just so that you got a sense of completion to the story.

I wonder if I simply don't understand the concept of the book because it wasn't meant for me and for my generation, but I thought the author was a product of my generation.  Perhaps I'm wrong about this, I'll have to look more closely into it for my review of the book.  Whatever the case, I clearly missed the point and I clearly don't understand why this is having such an influence on my niece and nephew's generation.  I wonder if I really am more out of touch than I originally thought.  I'm starting to feel like the "uncool adult" I've always wanted to avoid becoming.