Tag Archives: lifestyle

Worst Movies Ever?

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I watched the infamous “Birdemic” over the weekend. Yes, I did this on purpose. No, I’m not a glutton for punishment.

The movie was probably one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, even though I’ve seen “Gor” and “Battlefield Earth.” So let’s take a look at some bad movies.

Birdemic

“Birdemic” is pretty much Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” but with all the interesting parts, good writing, excellent acting, suspense and characterization removed.

Instead, the movie features animated clip art birds flapping mechanically in a sad attempt to be menacing, and some dialogue from actors approaching the woodenness of Kristen Stewart in “Snow White & the Huntsman.” It’s not quite as wooden, I admit, but it’s very close. Fortunately, none of the actors attempt to express emotion through twitching like Stewart does. They don’t attempt to express emotion at all.

And like most truly horrible movies, “Birdemic” contains both a cringeworthy dance scene and a heavy-handed moral slammed over the audience’s head at every possible opportunity.

Then there are all the driving scenes. Driving, driving, driving. Not car chases, just ordinary driving. Seriously, Days of Thunder had fewer driving scenes.

Gor and Outlaw of Gor

There were things to like about “Gor” and its equally dreadful sequel, “Outlaw of Gor.”

There weren’t a lot of them, I admit, but there were some: one, Jack Palance was clearly hammered out of his mind when he agreed to do this movie, and also while he was filming this movie. Two, rather than putting on a serious face, the movie amps up its owncampiness. Three, while it is hideously exploitative of women, and features more butt-or-boob shots than any movie I’ve ever seen before, the men Yet Another Butt from Gorwear equally stupid outfits and there are nearly as many butt shots of them. They are cringeworthy, but at least the Gor flicks made an effort, right? There are no women in chainmail bikinis and men in full suits of armor. Everybody gets loincloths and armor diapers, no exceptions!

And there are black people in Gor–some slaves, some slavers, some just wandering around wondering how the heck they got into this wretched movie, just like everybody else.

I could also mention the hilariously plastic, fake-looking props as a plus, because they are funny, and if you made a drinking game and took a shot every time you saw a silly hat while watching these films you would probably die of alcohol poisoning in five minutes.

Battlefield Purple Filter, I Mean Earth

Battlefield Dutch Angle, I Mean Earth

Battlefield Dutch Angle, Er, Earth

I think Battlefield Earth has a worse reputation than it deserves, possibly due to its connection with Scientology.

Mind you, it is a terrible movie. I just don’t think it’s much worse than most other crummy scifi flicks intended to be action blockbusters.

The writing is mediocre. The acting is so-so (which is ten steps above Birdemic). The plot is ludicrous and requires so much suspension of disbelief that your belief will probably need a vacation afterward, possibly somewhere that offers massages and mud baths.

But the movie suffers the most from directorial and filming choices, I think. One: there are weird color palettes used throughout the flick, so much so that the friend I was watching it with got queasy. It didn’t bother me, but only because I was preoccupied with… Two: Dutch angles! All Dutch angles, all the time! Has there been some terrible catastrophe causing Earth to tilt at a weird angle? No, it’s just bad directing.

Another major problem with the movie is that none of the human characters are the least bit interesting or sympathetic. They act like apes a lot of the time, maybe because you were supposed to be seeing things from the evil aliens’ point of view. Protip: We don’t need to see things from the evil aliens’ point of view.

The only part of the movie that was in the least bit watchable was John Travolta’s evil alien character. This is despite the fact that the character totally fails to be menacing in any way whatsoever. He is not the stuff of Darth Vader. He’s more like Darth Vader’s secretary’s receptionist who wants to be Darth Vader but isn’t smart or competent enough to pull it off.

Instead of having a real villain to hate and fear, the audience is treated to the antics of an Less Evil, More Corrupt Cubicle-Antincompetent, controlling, abusive middle-manager fixated on profits and his own pathetic ambitions. The fact that he’s wearing dreadlocks and platform shoes doesn’t really signify–everyone has met people like this and many people have had the misfortune to have a boss like this. But the movie presents Travolta’s character as doomed to failure, so it’s kind of fun to watch him dig his own grave, hoist himself up on his own petard and spit into the wind, so to speak.

If you have less than an iron stomach this movie is not for you. The constant color filters and the apparently-randomly-tilting camera will probably make you sick, if the “plot” and the dialogue don’t. And I haven’t even mentioned the excessive use of slow-motion yet, or the blanket assumption in the movie that all females exist only to serve or in relation to males, alien or human. Yikes.

In Short

In terms of watchability, Gor and Outlaw of Gor provide the most fun bad-movie experience. Battlefield Earth is probably second to the Gor flicks, followed by Birdemic, which has far too many sections in which nothing happens at all. It’s hard to make fun of nothing, and that makes a bad movie merely bad, rather than entertainingly bad.

The Weirdness That Is Gangnam Style

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If you haven’t heard of Gangnam Style by now, it’s a silly Korean pop song that went spectacularly viral online and has since become tremendously popular.

Its music video on YouTube has more than a billion views. Yes, that’s “billion” with a B.

It’s also spawned a number of versions and parodies, some of which are worth watching and others of which definitely are not.

  • Glee did a show choir version. There are also a couple of marching band versions, but I wasn’t able to find one I liked enough to link. Sorry.
  • Here’s an Inuit version. This is absolutely great, and incorporates a bit of actual Inuit culture into a silly fun pop song.
  • Someone set their Christmas lights to it.
  • And finally, there’s a mashup with M.C. Hammer. It works better than I would have expected, which is to say it works to any extent at all.

Any versions you like out there?

Edit:

  • Farmer Style is an awesome one! Well-filmed, tuneful and awesome! (via commenter thrivingmom. Thanks!)

Seven Benefits of Roleplaying Games

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A student at the University of Minnesota Duluth has written a column for the Duluth News Tribune implying that video games, or perhaps roleplaying games, or perhaps first-person shooters, or perhaps tabletop games, or people who dress up in costumes to portray characters, are bad.

I’m honestly not sure which of these elements Jo Cooley objects to, because she (or he) seems to conflate them all together.

Overall, I believe the point of her column is that Duluth does not need a gaming convention. She cites one study purporting to link video games and violence, but seems to believe that video games are the focus of Indiana’s Gen Con. They are not. Gen Con focuses on other types of games–tabletop games such as Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering and maybe even Risk and Settlers of Cataan.

Gaming (and I don’t mean gambling) is a huge umbrella term that covers a wide, wide variety of hobbies, from the strategy-wargaming to the roleplaying dice games to LARPing to the many types of videogaming.

Each gaming community is different. It’s just like football fans, who have their own communities dedicated to glorifying the Packers or the Vikings. Just like baseball fans, people get involved at different levels, some just watching a game now and then and others memorizing reams of stats and participating in a fantasy league (which is a form of roleplaying, by the way).

Videogames cover a wide range of topics and the larger, ongoing games have their own individualized communities. Star Wars: Knights of the Republic attracts a different type of gamer than EVE Online does.

Painting every gamer with the same brush is just like making a comment about “the media.” Almost nothing can be said about “the media,” which includes the head honchos of Disney and the small-town reporter who covers high school football games, as well as people who make TV shows, movies and books. The term is so wide it’s useless.

The same is true of “gamers.” I’m a gamer. I do not often play first-person shooters. I do not like strategy games or games with extreme gore. I don’t even usually play more than one video game at a time–I dedicate myself to just one, until I leave that behind for another one.

Currently I’m playing Guild Wars 2, and by the way, the plotline involves saving the world from evil, not being evil. In fact, most videogames I’ve played have been like that. There are a few out there in which you’re the bad guy, and a few more in which you’re allowed to make moral choices yourself, yes, but generally people seem to prefer being the good guy.

This brings me to the benefits of roleplaying–pretending to be a character in a story, either in a video game or in a tabletop game–and yes, I do believe there are some.

  • Roleplayers learn about how story works in an interactive way. I’ve learned arguably more about storytelling from participating in Dungeons & Dragons and games like it than I ever learned in school. You learn the nuts and bolts of character and plot, but you also learn about pacing and theme. All of it’s hands-on, where you’re helping make it, so you get a much better grasp than you would by simply reading the definition of “plot.”
  • Roleplaying gives you a safe place to explore moral decision-making without hurting anyone. Characters I play tend to be theologically-inclined and concerned about ethics, but like people in the real world sometimes they have to make difficult choices. Do you allow a princess to be sacrificed to save her kingdom? Do you allow her to sacrifice herself to do it? Do you save her regardless of consequences, or do you offer to change places with her? In a good game you will be faced with difficult situations and difficult choices over and over again, and it will prepare you to think about ethical choices in the real world, where there will be real consequences.
  • Roleplaying gives you a chance to be in somebody else’s shoes for a little while. If done well, this should lead you to think about what other people’s lives are truly like, and should lead you to empathize with other people’s problems. You can try roleplaying as the opposite gender, or as someone from a totally different race or economic class from your own. What are the consequences of living in a different type of society? What would it mean to live in a society of machines, or people who do not die for hundreds of years?
  • Roleplaying often spurs learning. I once roleplayed as a pirate character, and while our pirates were much nicer people than the real thing (real pirates were generally horrible), I did a lot of research on the Age of Sail and pre-anaesthesia medical practices. Roleplaying has also led to research on early stringed instruments and folk music, the law, folklore, floriography and religion. I have learned all sorts of things from roleplaying.
  • Roleplaying forces you to work together as a group. In most cases, your character will not last long if he or she goes around stabbing random passersby. He or she certainly won’t do well if he or she stabs other party members. It’s like being a member of a rock band–you have to get along with these people, and that’s both in-character and out-of-character. It’s a social hobby, and you can’t do it alone, so you better leave at least part of your ego at the door.
  • Roleplaying can be about forming good values. I’ve been involved in a lot of games over the years, and the most prominent themes have been good conquering evil, family, love, justice and what it means to be human.
  • Roleplaying spurs your imagination. In a movie, you know what the protagonist looks like and sounds like and acts like and wears. When you’re playing a tabletop game, you’re not going to know any of that and you’re just going to have to imagine that red dragon bearing down on you, too. Even if you’re roleplaying through a videogame, most games don’t allow a lot of nuance in body shape or voices, so you’re still going to need to adjust the picture in your head according to what’s said.

Bad Guy, Bad Hair

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Bad guys have bad hair.

I never really thought about this until BoingBoing linked this great article from The Awl, which features a ton of pictures from various movies, all of whom have bad guys with bad hair. There’s even a neat characterization guide to which bad guys wear which kind of bad hair.

I thought, immediately, of this:

That’s the oily sidekick in the terrible Snow White and the Huntsman movie, the brother of the Evil Queen who’s the real villain.

He hits the Eerily Unnatural Dye Job and the Dorky Lackey.

Of course, in real life it’s not always so easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys, or the good hair from the bad hair.

Things I Learned from the Family Reunion

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I learned all kinds of crazy things about my family from my family reunion. Somebody made a disc of pictures from my great-grandmother, and that was pretty instructive too.

1. My ancestors on my mother’s side came from Norway, where they probably farmed rocks. Or maybe they herded rocks. Every single picture taken in Norway features rocks. Sometimes there are also people, but they are always outnumbered by rocks. (By the way, Norway is famous for having many beautiful fjords, a term which means “big rocks.”)

2. My mother is a clone. Seriously! As anyone can see from the family pictures, she looks exactly like her aunt Christine, a magnificent lady who taught me how to crochet. I wasn’t very good at it, though, and so all I ever managed was a string of single loops. My mom, on the other hand, may have been the one to teach me how to tie my shoes. Coincidence? I think not.

3. Three of my grandfather’s sisters died young.

Esther Marie

Esther Marie

All three of the girls who died were beautiful, of course, but Esther Marie (left), was most often shown in pictures with a big mischievous grin, mouth wide open as if she were just about to say something hilarious. I really wish I’d gotten to hear what she was going to say.

4. The boys (and some of the girls) in my family generally spend part of their lives as stringbeans. Seriously, you could thread a needle with these kids between the time they can walk and the time they go to college, and sometimes even after that.

5. I don’t look much like anybody from that side of the family. I have never been a stringbean. My brother, however, shares a nose with several people and freckles with a lot of other people, and seems to be spending a prolonged period in the stringbean stage. We’re a very thrifty family–we recycle faces over the generations. Nothing goes to waste! (Waist, maybe, but not waste.)

6. A lot of us don’t hear too well anymore. Quite a few of my conversations consisted of “What?” “What?!” “Pardon?” “Hmm?” “What?” Do they have group rates for hearing aids? What if you buy them 30 or 40 at a time?

7. Some old people are young, and some young people are old.

Temperatures at the reunion climbed way up into the mid-90s and it was hotter than heck out there, or maybe even the other place that starts with H. I pretty much sat still and tried to think cold thoughts, wilting as my brain melted into mush. My dad gave up, too, and retreated into the hotel and its air-conditioning.

Meanwhile, my great-aunt Clara, who has reached the exalted age of 97, was tromping around and talking to everyone as if there were no such thing as heat advisories.

I don’t wish that I will have that much energy when I am 97. I wish I had that much energy now.

Fever: Variations on a Theme

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So, in all the Peggy Lee-related hubbub around her hometown of Jamestown, N.D., I learned that she actually wrote two verses of “Fever,” which she never received any royalties from.

I love that song, and it’s really stood the test of time, too–everybody who’s anybody seems to have done a cover version of it at one point or another. Here’s a bit of a sampler, for all you fellow Fever-lovers.

Keep in mind: I haven’t seen any of these videos, I just listened to part of each one.

1. Peggy Lee. Not the original version, just the definitive one! A classic for a good reason.

2. Elvis Presley. He’s the King for a reason. It doesn’t take a lot of liberties with the material, but if you didn’t think a man could be sultry, you were wrong.

3. Madonna. A disco version of Fever, featuring Madonna wearing weirdly hypnotic pants.

4. Beyonce. A pretty faithful version, with some additions, including some harmonies and some more lyrics. Hey, Lee added lyrics too, nothin’ wrong with that!

5. Link Wray. A punk cover of Fever. It’s a very different, but fun, take on the song, done by one of the guitar greats. (A cuss-word is shown in the video.)

6. La Lupe. A bouncy salsa beat and an incredibly thick Cuban(?) accent, with some lyrics in Spanish. It works, surprisingly, although it takes a turn for the weird partway through.

7. Michael Buble. Smooth! Another one in the grand tradition of men being sultry.

8. Superpitcher. With an electronic flavor, this version by a German producer still retains the sultry feel of the Peggy Lee “Fever.” It reminds me a little bit of “Tainted Love.”

9. Ella Fitzgerald. Sorry, boys, the girls can outsultry you.

10. Little Willie John. The original “Fever,” which doesn’t have Peggy Lee’s verses, but does include the snapping and harmonizing.

11. The Doors. Yes, really! This isn’t just “Fever,” though, it’s a mashup of “Fever” and “Summertime,” so it’s pretty hot. (Ahahah. Sorry.)

And a few more Fevers for the road!

The Hunger for Death

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Would you pay to watch 24 children kill each other?

I did, this weekend, when I bought a ticket to “The Hunger Games,” which is playing at our local theater in Jamestown. Now obviously no children were actually killed to make the movie, but the movie, and the book it was based on, ask some very serious questions about audienceship.

What does it mean to be a spectator? What ethical obligations does a member of an audience have?

“Hunger Games” is about a society in which 24 children are selected to do battle to the death while a nationwide audience watches, placing bets on the victors and arguing about who will win over the watercooler at work, one presumes.

There may be some spoilers for both the books and the movies below, so if you don’t want to have things spoiled for you, please do not read the rest of this post.

The “Hunger Games” book is in some ways simpler and doesn’t ask the questions about the audience as directly, because it’s written in the first-person, from the viewpoint of Katniss Everdeen. The movie, however, isn’t a first-person piece. There’s no narration from Katniss, nothing to tell us what she thinks or feels directly. So when she’s kissing Peeta near the end of the movie there’s no indication of the fact that in the book, at least, she is doing this because she knows it will be viewed favorably by the audience. Not because she likes the boy.

By not including any narration, the movie makes the real-life audience into the fictional audience, manipulating us into believing Katniss really loves Peeta.

And this is borne out by the rest of the film, as well. While the movie generally follows Katniss, we also get glimpses into things that Katniss has no awareness of–conversations between people Katniss isn’t present for. Behind-the-scenes looks at the filming of the Hunger Games within the fictional universe.

The movie co-opts the audience outside the film into becoming the audience within the film.

And suddenly we realize that we too are eagerly rooting for Katniss. We too are watching 24 teenagers fight to the death. And although the deaths in our reality are not real–they are actors and actresses, and the blood is fake, and they will get up at the end of the shot–we still paid to watch children die.

What does that mean?  What is the difference between the audience inside the film and the audience outside the film, us?

And before you say, “Yes, but no one really dies in a movie,” I would encourage you to recall The Crow. I haven’t seen it, and I don’t know if it was a good movie, but I have very little doubt that much of its fame was due to the death of its star, Brandon Lee, Hollywood royalty who was killed in a stunt accident during filming. Lee’s death was much-publicized, and one couldn’t help but notice the gothic overtones of the film and link the two together.

Then there was xXx. A stuntman was killed while the movie was being filmed, and the director used the footage, though he did not use the moment of the unfortunate man’s death.

Then there’s reality television, which capitalizes on people’s distress in every episode, with people being voted off the island, shouted at, or humiliated in front of others.

What is an audience’s place in all this? Are we tacitly accepting these behaviors? Are we blatantly approving of them by watching?

Reading Children’s Books Is Totally Bad and Wrong and Embarassing

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Some guy (Joel Stein, a columnist for the Times) claims that adults should read only adult literature, and really, it just looks silly for an adult to be reading a Harry Potter book.

Does it? I think I grew out of caring what other people thought about what I was reading when I was about 12.

At age 13 I was carrying around my father’s college Shakespeare textbook and my classmates thought I was nuts. I explained to them several times that it was a collection of plays, not a multiple-thousands-of-pages novel, but that didn’t make much of an impression, especially not if I showed them the actual text.

At that point I was pretty much determined to be a very definite nerd. Guess what? Tough cookies. Why would I care what anybody thought of what I was reading? Iago gave me the wiggins and I thought Beatrice and Benedick were the most adorable couple ever.

What about classical children’s literature, Mr. Stein? Do I get a pass for reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” or is that verboten now too? Or is that okay? Is it okay because on one level it’s a kids’ book and on another level it’s a parable about racism and growing up? The first time I read it as a kid I missed some of the nuances; was that my only chance or am I allowed to read it again to see if I missed anything now that I’m 31?

And if that’s okay, what about “The Giver?” Am I allowed to read that one? It’s a kids’ book about freedom, utopia and memory, do I get a pass on that? Is “Lord of the Flies” okay? What about the Leatherstocking tales of James Fenimore Cooper?

What about little-little kid books, like “Animalia?” That came out in 1993, but it still amuses and I still like hunting for the hidden in the ornate, complex pictures. There were quite a few that as a 13-year-old I never found, and my little brother, then 6ish, never did either. Was that our last bite at the apple, Mr. Stein, or can I go back and look again now that I’m 31? Is it offensive if I do?

Really. My response to you is the same response I would have made to people who thought I was weird for reading Paradise Lost in high school:

If the sight of me reading a book written for children offends you, close your eyes.

Or don’t. I don’t care. I’m reading.

Plant Imperilled

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B.G. doesn’t know it, but he is in mortal peril right now.

My aloe plant, B.G., is sitting there in his gorgeous blue-and-violet pot, surrounded by his three beautiful children (the youngest is probably just a few months old, as I didn’t notice her until today), having just been watered, thinking everything is totally fine.

He has no idea that tomorrow, he’s going to be moving to a brand-new home, a red, square-shaped pot with a built-in draining dish.

And he’ll be moving there alone.

Yes, I am breaking up the family, leaving B.G.’s children in his lovely pot until they get big enough to strike out on their own as individuals.

Frankly, I just hope he survives the trip. I have a brown thumb and I would really like B.G. to survive the experience of moving, with as few aches, pains and confusion over where-the-heck-is-my-stuff as possible.

We’ll see how it goes. If all goes well, I will post a photo of B.G. in his brand-new home, perhaps with a snapshot of the kids.

Norwegian Enough for Lefse, but Not Lutefisk

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I got to hang out with the Sons of Norway on Saturday as 15 members of the group made lefse, and it was a lot of fun. I think there were only two or three pure-blood Norwegians in the group, and the rest of them were like me, with two or more ethnic groups in the background.

I admitted I was also part-German. Mom likes to say I’m part German, part Norwegian and all stubborn.

In response to this another woman grinned and said “You can tell a German. But you can’t tell him much.”

An important thing happened at the Saturday gathering, though. I learned some people put jam on their lefse and that this is totally okay.

I may try that next time I’m at my family’s holiday celebrations, but I’m a little bit worried that might be viewed as heretical. They’re strictly butter-and-white-sugar lefse eaters, except that some of the men mash lutefisk up with potatoes and use the lefse as a tortilla.

Do you think I’ll get kicked out of the family for putting jam on lefse? They must have jam in Norway.

I’m Norwegian enough to like lefse, but I’m definitely not Norwegian enough to like lutefisk. I’m also German enough to like kuchen, but not enough to like sauerkraut (except on pizza).

I’m also, apparently, a tiny bit Croatian, but I don’t really have any strong opinion on neckties, never having worn one.