IF I DID IT

The book IF I DID IT is the controversial book by O.J. Simpson where he writes in the perspective of if he actually did commit the crimes he was charged with over a decade ago, this is how it would go down. After the outrage of this entirely hilarious and terrible premise leaked, the book was presumably pulled to never see the light of day. I was able to secure a copy via internets though and I have yet to read it.

Now I hear If I Did It will be coming out anyways. That kind of sucks. I liked being special, having a copy of a book that never was released. In any event, this is really terrible. I feel bad for "The Juice's" children. On the other hand, O.J. is clearly in Michael Jackson level celebrity territory...being that you never know what they'll do next. I'll be reading this before classes start again. Expect a full report.

Things I've Never Understood

A Few Things I've Never Understood:

-Madea's ______ ________. Obviously Tyler Perry is some sort of magician because he manages to keep getting work. Seriously, its terrible. I had the honor of watching many a preview for Madea's Family Reunion while working at Blockbuster. It was not a pleasant time.

-Why The Simpsons stays on the air?! I love this show to death, but please put it down now. Of course this has been said Ad-naseum in the nerd-o-sphere but its true. The fact that many people think Family Guy is better than The Simpsons is enough to make me vomit.

-Dane Cook has clearly outworn his welcome in most peoples minds. What I'm more concerned about is the fact that the last picture I saw of him for promotion of his new movie makes it look like his face has aged 15 years. WHY?

-Zach Braff. Fuck off. I wanted to like you. Scrubs is funny. The other day I'm watching HBO and on comes that movie that isn't Garden State but might as well be. The plot was such, "I am being sad, and this attractive college girl wants to have sex with me. I'm sad. " Then the movie ended with him laying out on a porch while it rains and he does that sad face. Then someone lets him come in the house. FIN. What did I just watch?

-When did Donald Trump become sort of relevant but only as a late night punchline? I actually want more Donald Trump exposure. So he becomes really fucking annoying. I want to hate him a lot more than I do now. So please, NBC bring back Trump in every way you can. Let him guest host The Today Show, SNL, and The Tonight Show.

The Triumphant Return of Ja Rule

This post has nothing to do with Ja Rule, simply that I think I should make sure that everyone remembers him and how awesome he is.


What this post is actually about is Part 2 of the Critical Film Analysis series. This week I'll be critically analyzing the great Jean Claude Van Damme movie Hard Target. I'm not going to bother in describing the plot like I did with Surviving the Game because I'm too lazy to right now. What I will tell you is some of the great portions of the film. For one, you have a intense mullet from Van Damme. I'm pretty sure he could be on the first line of some hockey team with this hair. Secondly, you have Wilford Brimley. Yes, the Quaker Oats guy and the "Diabeetus" guy is in this movie as "Uncle Douvee" a moon shining old bastard who happens to be a marksman with a bow and arrow.

It gets better though. The main bad guy is Lance Henriksen and he has a host of henchman including the mummy from The Mummy and it also has Sven-Ole Thorsen who is basically the journeyman of movie henchman and random badguys. He happened to be in another classic, The Running Man. The action ranges from pretty good to pretty damn insane. Sequences include lots of slow-mo, an SUV exploding from a couple pistol shots, and really stupid slow motion jumps. You may have noticed I mentioned slow motion twice...well there is a lot of it.

My favorite scene though is when after Brimley has been shot...or maybe it was stabbed, and Van Damme is raging, he lets out one of his signature kicks and during this really long kick he has 'flashbacks/visions' of all the transgressions made against him throughout the movie. The bizarre part is there are things that he had no way of seeing that he is evidently 'remembering.' Of course there is the ending which is really funny in a stupid way. I'll let youtube show you what I mean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVxzDI0w4gE

In the end, this is probably the best movie ever.

Hulk Hogan's Son in Car Crash/The Day Everything Changed

Before I start, I just want to say that I want you all to go about your daily schedules. Go see Superbad, go to the mall, go buy overpriced weird things at the Sharper Image. We must stand strong in these dark days. Like the mythical Phoenix, we as a collective shall also rise from the ashes to start anew.

Oh, yeah and some "Alberto Gonzales" guy resigned or something. Who cares, Nick Hogan could have got hurt.

Walk the Dinosaur or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Walk the Dinosaur

So I'm on my way home from work and the radio is precariously tuned to JackFM. Its a five minute drive, but thank god I got in the car just as a new song was coming on. What song you ask? Why its none other than the smash hit "Walk the Dinosaur" from Was Not Was.

If you're not aware of this hit, then I suggest you google it. I'll post the main hook though.

Open the door
get on the floor
everybody walk the dinosaur.
Open the door
get on the floor
everybody walk the dinosaur.

This song made it to #7 on the US Billboard Charts. Thank you 1980's, the best decade ever.

People I Hate: Volume 1

I fucking hate people who "don't watch TV." And I'm not talking about the Amish, or people who can't afford cable...I'm talking about the people who make that snide remark with the exasperated tone like they don't have the time of day to waste on the "idiot box." FUCK YOU. For one, there is a lot of good things on television...even things that would probably make you're pretentious ass smile. Secondly, get over it...or go join the Amish.

Sean Astin's Finest

This is not going to be a movie review, rather like any good citizen I was on Facebook while at work. I was browsing random college network stats and found out that at Notre Dame, the most popular movie is Rudy. Thats cute...I guess.

At the University of Minnesota our top movie according to Facebook Stats is Wedding Crashers, which is pretty fucking lame for most popular movie. Actually after browsing a lot of random college networks it becomes painfully clear that the college body population loves the shit out of Wedding Crashers, Harry Potter, and Jack Johnson (musician) who I must admit, I've never even heard of. Even Ivy League schools love Jack Johnson and Harry Potter. After going through a lot of random friends facebook schools I finally struck gold. Sarah Lawrence finally bucks the trend of Wedding Crashers/Boondock Saints wankfest. The student body at large has selected Amelie as their top film. I am simultaneously applauding picking a different movie whilst I gag myself on the pretentiousness of the East Coast Bias world. They also list Eternal Sunshine, Donnie Darko, and Pulp Fiction. Thankfully they avoid the Jack Johnson love fest as he is no where to be found in the top 10!!! And in a shocking number 1 spot, they award "WRITING" as their favorite interest.

A quick google search and wikipedia skim lead me to believe Jack Johnson is probably some hippy freak jam band guy, which would explain why MIT does not have him listed either...you know, no hippies or girls for distraction. MIT gets props for having Queen in their top 10 though. Jumping to Brown, they get the distinction of being super huge hippies. Their number 1 interest is Ultimate Frisbee....there is a joke there somewhere.

I want to revisit the New York area just once more. NYU lists Love Actually as their second most popular movie. Now either the film majors out in NYU are in really small numbers, the rest of the NYU student body loves crappy movies, or this is some sick joke. I do like Juilliard's answers though. Top interests are Dancin around, Curling up on the couch with a nice red wine and a good movie, and oddly enough Buffalo Sabres.

What can we draw from all this? I waste a lot of time.

Back and to the Left

I shot JFK and the Governor in one shot. I am better than Oswald.

Chocolate Milk and Its Many Impersonators

So I'd qualify myself by saying I'm partially lactose intolerant, meaning I can have dairy but if I have a bit too much I'll feel like shit. Last year during a boring history lecture I was really craving chocolate milk so I bought two bottles of it at the store in the "skyway" between Blegen and Wiley. Needless to say I powered it down but in about 15 minutes I felt like death. So I pretty much exclusively drink soy chocolate milk now...and its really good.

This brings me to my next point. Some cereals will market themselves as doing two things, being a good start to the morning but also turning your white milk into chocolate milk. The problem I've always had with this is that you get really sugary chocolate milk and the whole charade of it becoming chocolate milk, thus being somehow more desirable always struck me as false. In particular, the whole osmosis of the chocolate 'juices' seems wrong. Its like the cocoa puffs or whatever chocolate cereal is just secreting its chocolate waste for you to drink. NOT COOL.

Also thanks to wikipedia: In music, becoming mainstream with rapper Nelly's song "Country Grammar", the term "Cocoa Puffs" refers to lightly sprinkling Cocaine over Marijuana, which is typically smoked through a pipe. "Cocoa" refers to Cocaine; "Puffs" refers to the act of smoking the mix.

Shine on You Crazy Diamond

First, I must give a shout out to my 3 readers. You know who you are!

I have a lot of time to waste at my night job, which I'm at right now. First and foremost I have to say that I've learned a lot about myself and the world at large. For example, tonight I'm downloading a "game" that came out several years ago. The name of this game is 'JFK RELOADED'. Sounds fun right? The object is to recreate the JFK assassination. I'm downloading it right now and will have a full blown review.

And for those who didn't know, my otherwise uneventful nights are punctuated by the daily paper delivery. Around 4am or so the Star Tribune is delivered to my place of work. What you might not know or expect, is that a cross dressing white male delivers the papers. I'd say he's in his late 40's, overweight, and wears to much blush. He seems to like his blond wig and wears red lipstick. Its a very awkward and forced hello everytime I let him in the building. I had a fit of morbid curiosity wash over me and decided to sift through Craigslist casual encounters trying to find him. While I was greeted with multiple pictures of overweight men wearing nylons and the occasional cock shot, I never saw the paper delivery guy. I guess I'm glad...maybe?

Lastly, the nation has been rocked by a series of tragedies. The latest is obviously the miners trapped in Utah. I was on CNN and saw this:


Granted you're in shock and scared for their lives...but is that the best sign you can muster up? I've seen high school girls make better ones for the hockey team and their lives were not on the line. Also there are multiple miners...so either this person ran out of space or only cared about one person. So they're either stupid or selfish. WAY TO GO UTAH!!

Remembering Heaven's Face

Remembering Heaven's Face: A Story of Rescue in Wartime Vietnam is a harrowing tale of a conscientious objector who volunteered to go to Vietnam. I am not brave or noble, nor am I foolish enough to believe in hero's.

On the other hand, we have people who created this commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz4u8XXUgxA

Life, she is a cruel mistress.

Critical Film Analysis: Surviving the Game

I'm going to offer a weekly installment from now on, critically analyzing important films from the past century. Today's offering will be that of Surviving the Game starring, and I use the word "starring" in a way that only a man of Ice-T's stature could be capable of being THE star...especially considering other actors involved such as Gary Busey, Rutger Hauer, and Charles S. Dutton aka the token black inspirational guy in Rudy.

I will admit, this is a personal favorite movie of mine and has been for many years. Whenever I'm feeling down and I'm home alone late at night (which is 99 percent of the time) I turn on TNT or TBS and of course they'll be showing Suriviving the Game! The premise of the film is simple. Ice-T plays Jack Mason, a homeless man just trying to survive on the streets of Seattle. His only friends are a dog and another older homeless guy who I speculate is a Navy Veteran based on the battleship hat he wears. Ice-T (From now on I will refer to him as Jack) decides to hop a fence late at night to steal a huge leg/shank/chunk of meat to feed himself and his homeless compadre. Unfortunately they run into a evil police officer/security guard who brutalizes the old man. Well, they fight off the security guard and return to a homeless habitat and the poor people feast!! Oh the next morning the homeless guy is dead, probably from massive internal bleeding...but who cares, he was homeless!

Lets cut to the chase, at one point Jack (okay fuck this, I'm calling him Ice-T) Ice T tries to commit suicide but is saved by Charles S. Dutton. Dutton's character promises him a job and refers him to some other guy played by Hauer. Ice T does some physical tests and is hired as a outdoor survival consultant and they all fly to the pacific northwest. Little does Ice T know that they are all going to hunt HIM!....as we know man is the most dangerous animal of them all! Well I don't want to ruin the rest of the film for the uninitiated but let me say, what occurs from then on is quite gripping. You learn slowly that Ice T is a tortured soul who at one time had a family and a child. You also learn that Gary Busey is a psycho fucker who I doubt was really acting for the most part and was probably being himself. Below I will provide an excerpt of brilliant screen writing:

Taxi Driver: [a taxi had just ran over Mason's dog]
[Taxi driver pointing at blood painted over the front-end of the cab]
Taxi Driver: What about my taxi!
Ice T: Yo', man, fuck yo' taxi!

Truly chilling writing there!! But what artisan of the spoken word could have made such an exchange possible? From brain to paper to the silver screen, the man behind this is none other than Eric Bernt! Writer of such hit films as Romeo Must Die and Virtuosity (Which I really fucking like as well!). This is probably one of the most under appreciated pieces of art from the last century. I feel that there is a certain subtext that I must admit, frightens me to the very core. I'm not sure if you have heard of Robert Hansen before but I have. He was a serial killer. DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID? Wikipedia will tell you!

He began killing prostitutes around 1980; he would pay them for sex and kidnap and rape them once they were in his power. He would then fly them out to his cabin in the Knik River Valley in his private plane, and stalk and kill them with a hunting knife and a .223 caliber Ruger Mini-14 rifle.

So as you can see, truth is stranger than fiction...except for the part where Ice T gains revenge and is not a prostitute but in fact a former landlord. Next week I will be looking at a yet undecided film. Possible candidates include Commando, Over The Top, Cobra, Varsity Blues, but probably Hard Target. For a teaser, Hard Target is a movie that stars Jean Claude Van Damme...who has a big mullet and Wilford Brimley as "UNCLE DOUVEE" a moon shiner who is also a bow and arrow expert. I swear I'm not making any of this up.

Its Getting Hot In Here!

What better way to start posting on my blog than to reference a 5 year old song by America's Sweetheart, Nelly?! Yeah, I couldn't think of a better way either. So, planning a roadtrip to Alaska is a fucking pain in the ass. More updates to follow!