I don't play golf. I mean, I've played mini-golf, and I think that Happy Gilmore is one of Adam Sandler's best movies co-starring Carl Weathers, but that doesn't make me a golf fan or a player of the game.
If Tiger Woods is supposed to be a role model, it seems founded on him being a hard working dude with a golf club, not Casey Jones like, but that's another story. Which is why he's so good and a champion and all that. And why he got all those promotional deals.
So why is he apologizing? I mean, to everybody? Yes, he obviously got his shit to take care of with his family, but what's that got to do with me?
If he had been on the 'roids, that's one thing. He didn't do what his "image" was, in other words, he wouldn't actually be a badass golfer. But, that's not what happened. Whatever he did do with all that trim, didn't affect his status as a badass golfer.
He's a cheater, but he didn't cheat at golf.
So he doesn't exactly owe the public anything for viewing him as something other than some guy that hits little white balls really well. Even the ads with his face don't exactly convey more than that.
"Every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes." - Col. Quaritch
Avatar is estimated to have pulled in about $73M domestically over the weekend. That's not bad, but considering how much it cost, anywhere from 300M to 500M, it's not exactly great. That's probably partly to do with how uninspired it seems to be. Admittedly, the CGI is pretty damn great and the 3D is incredible. I mean that in a technical sense, as its used in a more subtle fashion than the usual poke things out at you.
But, one of the main criticisms is that it ultimately tells an incredibly slight and cliched tale. Which isn't altogether untrue. It's FernGully with some Dances with Wolves mixed in. It's rather unsophisticated and everyone's playing an archetype rather than a character. So you basically have the evil human corporations and para-military killfuckers that need to mine a mineral to either earn a profit or power the human empire. In order to accomplish this they decide to killfuck the hell out of the Native American/African Na'vi (which is native with ET taken out). The Na'vi of course are alien hippies with a literal connection to nature in their USB port tipped braids. They jam it into the same in animals and trees and shit to command or communicate with them.
Side note, one of the tests of manhood/hunterhood is to claim an ikran (dragon) as a mount. To do this, you wrestle it to the ground and USB-rape it in order to get it to do what you want. Yeah, I had that reaction too. Also, Jake does this twice. He's a serial dragon USB-rapist.
Back on point, you can throw around White Guilt and shit, but it's mainly humans suck and the native alien hippies are awesome. Which, it has been argued, is simplistic and bad because it's such a weak conflict. Here's the thing though, there's not an insignificant amount of people that can't figure out why the humans didn't just bomb the fuck out of the aliens and steal their shit and stuff. So that's why I think for how simplistic the story was, it pretty much had to. The audience is composed of a large percentage of sociopathic morons. If they can't even understand that it's bad to killfuck a population in order to steal their land, then fuck, no wonder movies are so unsophisticated.
Despite what I said previously, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra was actually pretty good. It was pretty damn moronic, but still delivered on hard PG-13 action and assorted shenanigans. I'm not the biggest GI Joe fanboy, though I do remember the television show fondly. Which makes it sort of odd that there were those complaining about the movie needing to be grimdark. This is a show, after all, that had a crossdressing ninja breakdancer.
Anyway, since the movie did pretty well, and I'm sure that a sequel is already being talked about, so let's talk about what's necessary for the sequel: > Five Things the next GI Joe movie needs to have
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1. More Joes - Seeing Jinx in the background was pretty cool. And Brendan Fraser getting some lines as pseudo-new Sgt. Stone was decent, but I want some more. Especially considering that there was an undersea battle and yet, Shipwreck was nowhere to be found. If there's a forest fire in the movie, will they not have Barbecue?
Thus, I am requiring that there be at least two Joes appear that would fit in with the Village People, the Pit is sort of like the YMCA. For example:
Yes, I'm aware that the Village People only dressed up as sailors for "In the Navy." Work with me people.
2. Radioactive Ninja Fighting a Polar Bear - This isn't that farfetched. There's already a polar bear in the movie, and since ninjas are proven to be badasses, Snake Eyes should fight a polar bear. It's not like it hasn't been done before.
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Half of this is already in the first movie. The second movie should be about topping what was done in the first. Thus, glowing ninjas kicking the shit out of an uppity bear.
3. More of the Mummy cast - We already have Brendan Fraser, Arnold Vosloo, and Kevin J. O'Connor, and probably some of the camels. Might I suggest Rachel Weisz as Lady Jaye? And Oded Fehr as Flint?
4. Breakdancing Ninja - Ninjas are badass, but they're also coordinated as hell, despite their tendancy to flip out and kill things. Since we should develop the Snake Eyes character beyond a gimp with ninja skills, he should get some screen time not being the ultimate pervy badass. Especially since he doesn't get to make time with Scarlett. Damn that Ripcord.
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5. More of the Asian - In the background of a scene at the Pit you see someone that is probably Jinx. But, considering that there are two black people with the Joes, I think that there should be at least two of the Asian. Which means, yes, Quick Kick. > The John Wayne talking motherfucka, himself. >
You can't see it, but he's not wearing any shoes. Because Quick Kick doesn't need shoes. > His introduction in the cartoon was to walk around the Arctic shirtless and barefoot and then kick Storm Shadow's ass.
GI Joe had something like 200 members to combat COBRA, they didn't need any of them. All they needed was to hire this guy. He would have kicked all of their asses, and then slept with the Baronness. Right after cracking walnuts in his butt cheeks and slapping a lion in the face. > That's how badass he is.
The thing about racism, especially now, is that it tends to be about extremes. The extreme KKK style racism is pretty much an outcast, and the people that follow, even though there are still far too many, are not exactly looked highly upon by society as a whole. On the other side, it's subtle and forced to be in the metaphorical shadows since it wouldn't exactly be looked highly upon by society as a whole. Partly because of ignorance, and partly because you can't exactly show it.
Which means it's kinda hilarious (bad I know) when it shows up in such an obvious manner. Take this recent case:
Admittedly, the article's mostly one-sided in terms of a bunch of black kids getting turned away from a private swim club where they had membership. Still, this quote from the club's president just takes the cake.
"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club" - John Duesler
I mean seriously? Can you be anymore obvious? I'd think that if you're racist, especially in a situation where it's going to get press, that you'd at least try to hide it. Or if you're not, you wouldn't want to make a stupid mistake and look it.
I have to say that it does tickle me a little how badly it was handled.
Back in the '80s and early '90s we used to have awesome neighborhood video rental places. You'd find all sorts of crap to view, much of the time based on how awesomely bad or badly awesome the cover was. These were the sorts of places where I discovered Robot Jox and Deepstar Six. It's also where I got stuff like Rambo, and Die Hard, though I saw Die Hard 2 on laserdisc. Ah laserdisc, those were the days.
Anyway, back in the day we did have guys like Schwarzenegger and Jet Li, but we also had Stallone and Bruce Willis. We had Seagal and Chuck "The Beard" Norris. In other word, men's men. American men starring in the greatest action movies ever. Seriously, Invasion USA will put hair on your chest.
So what the fuck happened? Now all the heir apparents to the manly men of American action movies are coming from other places that aren't America. Sure, I got a lot of love for Tony "I will break your face on my knee" Jaa and Jason "Crank 2" Statham. But where's the next big American action star? Christian Bale? Not American. Sam Worthington? Not American.
Shia "Fucking" Labeouf. Seriously, he was just in what I imagine was the top grossing action movie of the year, and he's the guy that gets killed in movies so you know that the shit just got real. I mean seriously. Remember Orlando Bloom? Remember how much of a travesty it was that Eric Bana's character in Troy got killed for his ass?
What happened to real American action heroes? GI Joe doesn't count, because it looks moronically stupid. Sorry Tatum.
It's like America has developed a generation of pussies. Where kids no longer get into fist fights at school. Bullies have free reign as long as they don't get caught. The kids that should just get fed up and throw a punch now just fester until they bring guns to school. When alcoholism and beating on your kids is no longer acceptable behavior, you develop a generation of pussies instead of men. If we're supposed to be the world's cowboys, then why the hell are our leading men all a bunch of little bitches?
And that's why we have Shia "Fucking" Labeouf as the "action hero." And why the girls all dig Zack Efron.
