Boardwalk Empire

This'll just be a short post because I have a world history test to study for...

I feel like anyone who watched the Sopranos or James Bond movies will love this tv series. I also just finished season three and it was AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME. AND, Martin Scorsce directed it.

So yeah, yeah, I'll tell you what it's about. The story centers around Enoch "nucky" Thompson, a fictious Atlantic City 1920's bootlegger. He, along with characters like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Arnold Rothstein do business selling booze all while dodging the cops(who are totally in on it and let the whole matter go anyways).

It's a very slick looking show with hyper authentic fashions that go beyond well, this:

Because, debate this with me all day long, but that look only came into being in the later half of the decade for essentially actresses and wealthy socialites. It really wasn't practical for the average person.

This is more realistic, just saying.

The show tackles a lot of issues like war veterans, the women's vote, racism, the issues in Ireland etc. of the time but manages to make them current and somehow relevant. But what I really love is how it gets to the core of the human race's vices and shows them is black and white, right and wrong. But it also shows how we'll never be truly free of those vices, like the want of a glass of wine at dinner, even if society deems it BAD.

And a word of warning for those uninitiated, theres a ton of gore, blood, bodies and F******. In the third season, one of the characters turns her dead husband's mansion into a brothel where EVERY kind of kinkiness and habits are allowed.

don't say I didn't warn ya.

Just imagine there's an OF COURSE!!! gif here.

Until next time: American Horror Story Season 2

Cool World Vs Who framed/censored Roger Rabbit

I've had this post kicking around for a while, so I kind of just wanted to get it done already. And, I haven't seen AHS season 2 yet, so that will be for a later post. Sorry guys.

Roger Rabbit: 1

Cool World: 0

I really do love live action/animation films but Cool World? Brad Pitt needs to go back to the f****** hole he crawled. So basically, I will raise up RR and send CW down to the depths of Hades. But I should make something very clear...I couldn't even finish Cool World, it really is that stupid. I normally have this weird habit of always finishing films I watch, but this one was beyond bad for ME.

Both movies are super similar in the sense that they are a)40's period pieces from the 80's b)half animation half live action flicks and c)use the cops and robbers storyline. Oh yeah and d)they have slutty DD female love interests.

Roger Rabbit (1988): I <3 you robert zemeckis!!!!! You did it first, you did it best. And there was disney/Warner bros toons.

But none the less, Cool World(1992):

I feel my brain cells die when I watch this movie, it is that bad. So, the idea is that this cartoonist who created cool world just got out of jail, and one way or another, gets sucked into the universe. Coolworld is the movie equivalent of a bad LSD trip that induces terrifying nightmares that make no fucking sense, in comparison to the fun, relaxing experience that is Roger Rabbit. Brad Pitt plays a guy who was also sucked into the universe, which makes no sense since the WHOLE THING WAS CREATED IN THE 90'S BY A CARTOONIST IN JAIL!!!!!!IT CAN'T EXIST IN THE FORTIES!!! And well,

the Angelina Jolie/ Jennifer Aniston jokes just keep coming.

What do you want? I'm on short supply of wit today.  And for those of you who have seen it, the CARDBOARD CUTOUTS. They couldn't even try to integrate the toons well, because that would require EFFORT!!!

So if you haven't, the cars and buildings that toons enter and exit are cleverly designed CARDBOARD CUTOUTS. At least in Roger Rabbit they used a toon car so it kind of made sense for the thing to work.

Now, the premise of the film is the question of what happens when noids (humans) have SEX with toons. I know most guys fantasize about Jessica Rabbit, but really? They had to go there? I mean, the result is just that the said toon becomes human, but why? The original concept about a guy and his half toon, half human daughter is really dark, but a lot more compelling that the crap they produced...



A Clockwork Orange

13/10/2013

So, I was going to do a post about...aww hell I can't even remember now, this is awkward.

But, A Clockwork Orange.



I might just have to buy that hat, just saying...



 I would post more pictures, but I want to keep this blog work friendly, and since my friend's hipster blog is blocked by our highschool, I cannot show you the "very important work of art" (read: dick and ass sculpture that spoiler spoiler spoiler, spoiler spoiler spoiler)

Did I really just reference Will Wheaton's podcast, Radio Free Burrito? I guess I did.  

Alex, played by Malcolm McDowell seems to be a total sex/violence maniac in the movie (hey all you film buffs, insert caligula drunk face references here...) and gets "cured" = becomes sick from sex and violence. But, as he becomes a social outcast, his life becomes miserable. He throws himself off the roof of a house, and somehow, becomes cured of the "cure". And then the movie ends.

I just watched this flick the other day, and while I love the costumes in this movie, I was a little more enthralled by the ethics of the "Cure". I could also get into the parallels that this movie has with Swing Kids, and the Nazi implications of the prison sentence that Alex has to serve. But that will come next week.

So, ethics: (I'm just gonna list these because, because I can. That's why.)

1. Because the cure turns him off from sex, can he ever truely love another person? Can he ever be in a relationship?

2. When he gets out of prison, he is a social outcast, even his own parents can't stand him being in their home...what does that say about people getting out of prison in our society?

3. Is it really fair to put a teenage boy in prison with murderers and pedophiles? Just saying, Sleepers this is not.

4. The only one that is really attacked in the film, so to speak. The films Alex is forced to watch are often accompanied by Beethoven, and therefore his brain associates them with violence. Should he really be turned off of one of the few, harmless things he loves? (While I don't agree with rape and murder on any level, what is wrong with classical music)
-just food for thought, watch the Brad Jones review of "rock, it's your decision". Same idea.

5.Couldn't the "treatments" be considered torture, because Alex is locked in a straight jacket with eyelid locks? When he tries to get out of prison with the treatments, he doesn't know what he's getting into, and can't get out of it once he starts them. What does this say about how we treat/treated criminals and people forcefully locked up in mental institutions? Ask me about Changeling some time.

Alright folks, until next time.

Disney's Hercules and everything wrong with it....

QI HATE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everything is wrong about it, there is nothing good to say about about the film as a whole. 

Okay, okay I'll calm down.

I hate it I hate it I hate it!!!!!!

I just, it flies in the face of everything I've come to know and love about mythology and classical civilizations and there are no is maybe one redeeming quality about this film, maybe. We'll get to that in a second.

But first, the bad stuff.




Story:

The plot in this movie is flimsier than a sheet of tissue paper (actually, for those in the know, pattern paper.) It is literally contingent on the planets aligning in such a way that a hole will be opened in the earth, and all the titans will be let out. I don't even know where to begin.

Historical/Mythological Accuracy:

First things first, the Titans were for the most part, gods with human-like features. Second, they were shoved back into the earth by Ouranos very early on in mythology, if we think of the earth as Gaia/Ge and she gave birth to them (yuck). They later fought against the Olympians(Hera, Zeus, Athena etc.) in a ten year war, but not the battle/loss of control we see in the film. Hercules wasn't even a thing when those events happened. Third, Hera was not Hercules' biological mother, and he was never raised on Mount Olympus. As the story goes, Zeus screwed with a mortal woman while in human form, and Hercules was raised as a mortal alongside his twin brother. So the party at the beginning of the movie is completely irrelevant, and the whole thing about Panic and Pain(Hades' sidekicks, who are just Disney manifestations to create what I call sidekick synrome)trying to kill Hercules and making him mortal, doesn't even fit. Yes, in both versions, he strangled snakes in his crib, but in the myth Hera was trying to get rid of him.

We could get into all twelve labours in the myths, but they're really only referenced in the film. The most notable example being the Nemean Lion which translates to Hercules posing for a photo with Scar's skin on his head. But we could get into the reasons for the labours. In the original story, he kills his best friend and does them as a pseudo-christian penitance. He just wants to prove himself as a MAN in the movie. That doesn't count.

The one good thing about this flick:

The art style in that scene on Mount Olympus. You remember that scene where all the gods are hanging out and Hades comes stomping in? Yeah, I give credit to the artists who came up with the caricatures of people like Dionysis and Hades.

Hades is pretty awesome too.

Carnivale!!!!!!!

05/10/2013

Let me just start by saying that I love this show. It's by no means an, easy show to watch because there are some uncomfortable scenes that I really couldn't show you but....

Lets just move on. And I will try to keep this spoiler free. I will try. But I should get one thing out of the way, and that is that this show only lasted for two seasons. Out of the six that were supposed to air around, 2006. So, all I will say is that the ending is less than satisfactory. It works as a cliffhanger for the end of a season, but not the end of a series. I'm looking at you breaking bad.

So, the story starts in the early 1930's dust bowl. Ben Hawkins is an escaped convict trying to protect his failing farm. When that fails, he joins the circus but not everything is as it seems. We never see "management", a tarot card reader relies on her comatose, telepathic mother, and there's a certain pastor named Brother Justin who's out to get Ben. 

Wow. That storyline never does get old. There's a lot of Christian symbolism that could be read into this, like how Ben is Good and therefore Heaven and Brother Justin is Evil and therefore Hell. 

I just realized, there's something else I should explain. There's a bit of mythology in this show, that needs explaining. There are avatars, that look relatively human, but have the power to harm or to heal, depending on whether they are evil or good. But, there's a catch. Healing someone takes away a life/lives. There's alot of moral grey in the show in that respect. While Ben can make reset a broken arm or allow a child to walk again, he also kills, and honestly doesn't understand this at first.

He is well meaning, but for the better part of the first season, stumbles around like a lost little puppy trying to understand how everything works, especially since everyone in the circus is aware that he's made of something special.

Brother Justin on the other hand, is a religious figure and therefore seen as good, but can cause people to keel over dead with the snap of his fingers. Oh yeah, and his eyes turn black sometimes. There's also this subplot about whether there even is a management since we never really see him, but all is revealed in the end.

So what's tragic about the show? That it didn't continue because of budget cuts. Why does it always come down to money? Why Why Why?!! I feel like the whole mythology/tone of the show would have been way better if we knew more about it, since even the writers weren't entirely sure about how the show's direction would go for the first season. And by the time everything is set in order in the second season, the show's pretty much over. I could draw alot of parallels to Game of Thrones :D in regard to how non readers pretty much had no idea about what was going on for the better part of the first season, but that's another story for another post.

And of course, the costume design element of this blog. And the costumes are amazing. I mean, they're not like Downton Abbey where everything is pristine and beautiful and wonderful. No, folks, everything is dirty and dusty and ripped to shreds. I have a feeling that Nick Stahl only had two shirts for the entire show. And his character only changes clothes when absolutely necessary. Even the blind mystic Lodz, who is probably the most refined character in the show, has worn out shoes. I feel like the clothing has a story, a life of its own in this show. Which sounds weird, I know. But everything starts out new, wears out, gets thrown away, gets picked up by a new owner, and the cycle begins anew. But now I'm just getting weirdly philosophical now. Anyways...

As alot of you know, I am a major historical fiction addict, so the show certainly isn't for everyone. But, I want to hear what you think. Are you into HF? Maybe you think history's boring, and that's fine. We can talk about something else. Comments people, comments!

Next week: The Borgias/The Tudors, and why they are so damn awesome.