Interstellar: a call to arms

In the interest of updating my column at least yearly, I have decided to write some stray thoughts on Interstellar. This is less a review – because there is already an exhaustive supply – and more of a call to arms for the film and Chris Nolan in general.

The film has been polarising critics and audiences. Proponents generally praise the epic scale, practical effects, and fairly consistent adherence to actual hard science. Critics may call it bombastic, poorly scored, or ham-fisted.

While none of these appraisals are incorrect, to call Interstellar failure as film (which some are doing) is wrong. I don’t consider it a masterpiece and would probably place it at the tail end of Nolan’s top 5 (after Memento, Inception, The Dark Knight, and Insomnia, just barely edging out The Prestige). It cannot be called a failure.

The film is grandiose, a true feat of production design. The acting is less the spectacle here, but far from poor. Those people criticising the acting in this film should see The Room or Grown Ups and then try to say “Anne Hathaway, meh” with a straight face. More importantly, Interstellar grapples with lofty concepts, often metaphysical, which are at the core of good SF. I will allow that Nolan sometimes lays it on a bit thick, but do not understand how a bit of heavy-handedness turns this into a one-to-two-star film.

I’m willing to give Nolan a bit more rope than other directors because few, if any, are making films like he is. Given all the people who bemoan the cookie-cutter superhero franchise films, the bland CGI-fest pictures, the lifeless, interchangeable teen fantasy flicks, and pointless reboots, one would think that more critics would be lining up to defend Interstellar. It is a hugely ambitious film from a director who delights in challenging his audiences rather than belittling them. Although I have my

issues with Interstellar (mostly the last 20 minutes), I admire Nolan’s commitment to quality and to the film medium. Here is one of the few remaining directors who is not a hired gun, not interested in selling merchandise nor franchise rights, but in making art. He is able to pursue these ambitions because he has taken big risks and they have largely paid off. His movies make heaps of money, so studios (for now) are willing to sign blank checks for him to keep creating, innovating, and pushing boundaries.

My appeal is simple: go see this movie and his next movie and so on regardless of a few killjoy critics. I realise this is a tad hypocritical coming from me, who savaged TDKR two years ago, but chalk it up to being two years older and wiser now. We are voting on the future of film with our dollars and, recently, the drab, effects-laden blockbusters have been winning. Even if Interstellar isn’t your cup of tea, you must still recognise Chris Nolan as one of the most important directors of his generation and arguably the most vocal defender of film stock today. His efforts may not always resonate with you personally, but they are always valiant. As such, I feel a moral responsibility as a film-lover to see his work in theatres and I encourage you to do the same.

An open letter to Peter Jackson

Dear Mr. Jackson,

Please stop making those goddamn Hobbit movies.

Sincerely,
Fucking everyone

A year without texting

I decided not to text in 2013. The underlying idea to call everyone seemed good. It requires less effort to organise with a conversation rather than typing furiously all-thumbs and punctuating on a tiny screen, and as an added bonus I expected it to bring me closer to my friends. How often do we choose to speak to one another rather than use an amalgam of redacted, Internet lingo and smiley faces?

There are situations where I would allow myself to text, most aptly described as junctures where not texting would have made me an asshole. If I called and a friend would reply-text they were tied up at work, for instance. I would text friends who were abroad or had foreign SIMs, because fuck roaming charges. Sending information and so on. I reckon, on average, I would send 20-50 texts per month, which is minute compared to most peoples’ averages.

Here’s what I found:

1)  I didn’t miss it.

My life was in no way affected. I was still able to make plans and kept in touch with close friends regularly. Functionally, everything was the same.

2) Hardly anyone answers their phone anymore.

This is not altogether surprising, since placing calls is no longer one of the chief uses of mobile phones (the top 3 activities, for smartphone users, are Internet browsing, social media, and music, in that order). What is surprising: when I would call some people and leave voicemail, they would reply with a text message, even if they were in a situation where they were able to call.

3) No one checks voicemail.

Or at least those who do are a minority. I have, on several occasions, not heard from friends in weeks because “I don’t get voicemail notifications on my phone.” First of all, it strains credibility that this problem affects as many people as are claiming it does, and secondly: wouldn’t you want to get that fixed? I mean, if your friends are leaving you important messages that you’re missing, wouldn’t you make a concerted effort to resolve the issues?

Conversely, if these same people lost the ability to send or receive texts, I guarantee they would be calling their operator frustratedly the very moment they discovered this.

4) I unshackled myself from the phone.

Every time I go to dinner or a bar, I see several tables of people with their noses buried in their phones, despite being in the company of friends. Twitter and Facebook apps are part to blame for this, but I realised how a constant stream of text messages can consume your time.

Whenever I was in a social situation and needed to get in touch with someone, I would have to consider the propriety of leaving the table, going outside, and making a 3-5 minute phone call. Often, civility would hold me back and I would wait until later, which was invariably fine. As such, I found myself able to go out and forget about the netherworld of electronic communications. Now, I use my phone only out of necessity, as opposed to frivolity.

5) Dating has become a text-based experience.

Perhaps the most disconcerting of all. I remember the days when you would get a girl’s number and CALL HER UP. It was expected. These days, that type of approach is seen as brazen or forward. It catches people off guard; some even view it as “full-on.” Today, you are expected to score a mobile number, wait a reasonable interval, and then send a casual text message. That is dating in 2013: Cupid ferrying 160-character messages across cyberspace.

The reason I feel this is worrying is that being able to conduct yourself on the phone and working up the nerve to call a girl/guy who puts butterflies in your stomach is part and parcel of being a GROWN ASS MAN. This is something that young people are shying away from. Text messages, increasingly, are evolving into carefully curated nuggets, less about self and more about ‘game.’

I think this is bullshit. You know what game is? Game is having fucking rocks between your legs. If you ever hear someone describe the end of an escapade as: “Well, (s)he never texted me back so, you know, whatever” you need to slap them across the face. Or fully palm their crotch and reply: “There used to be balls here! What HAPPENED??”

Overall, being free of texts was, well, freeing. I remembered the unexpected pleasure of having impromptu discussions over the phone, of hearing my friend’s voices when they were energised or sick or having a bad day. It adds an emotional quality to your communications that gets lost in SMS, and rather than sending truncated thoughts on-the-fly, you speak with people when you have time to speak with them properly.

I would encourage everyone to try it for a month. Your weary thumbs will thank you for it.

It took twenty years

But Kevin Costner is a badass again.

Still uncertain on whether this is a good or a bad thing. Thoughts anyone?

YES! YES! YES! EAT IT!!!!

Woke up this morning and what did I find online...?

This fine article about how 3D movies are sucking camel dick in pretty much every direction.

YES YES YES LET'S GET DRUNK AND WATCH FLAT MOVIES AGAIN

Thor: The Neverending Story

Directed by Alan “couldn’t afford Branagh again” Taylor

Starring No one you care about, except Jaimie Alexander, who is smoking and in my Top 20 for life

No poster this time; you're getting Jaimie

I realise I have been neglecting this column recently. In my defence, I have a job at which I must be present every day at 9 am, something that is hard to stick to if you’ve had a 8/10 damage night leading into it. Naturally, some of my more zealous friends will say ‘C’mon bro, that’s not how winners roll. Rule 71: No excuses! Play like a champion!’ The truth is, though, even Tucker Max retired. This shit gets played out after a while.

You know what else gets played out? All these fucking Marvel movies. These people have given up, you know. They don’t even shoot locations anymore, just green screen, and the backdrops they superimpose with their CGI voodoo isn’t even convincing.

Also this movie is two hours long and I struggle to think of something that happens in it other than ‘moderate destruction,’ or characters that I know more about at the end. I saw a great demonstration recently of why, specifically, the first three Star Wars episodes smoke pole. An interviewer talks to a few of his friends, asking them to describe characters from episodes 4-6 in single words. For instance, Han Solo gets qualified as ‘renegade’ or ‘lothario’ or ‘antihero,’ all of which are spot on. However, these people drew complete blanks when asked to describe Qui Gon or Amidala. It’s because they’re ciphers; they’re not real people. 

Solo, on the other hand, is about as real as it gets

 

In fairness, I can describe Thor in single words, but they are words like ‘dutiful’ and ‘humourles,’ which is not the kind of guy I want to hang out with for two hours when I’m drinking. Lemme give you a hand with this one, Marvel:

Dudes that dudes want to hang out with when they’re drinking

Vince Vaughn
Jean-Claude Van Damme
The Rock
Louis CK
Snoop Dogg
Stephen Hawking (you will raise an eyebrow at first but imagine the Hawking voice in your head and paste in the following :

‘Dudes, I’m so ripped I can barely stand. Oh, wait, hahahahahahaha.’

‘I would offer to be the designated driver… but my wife has the car tonight. Haha, gotcha again motherfuckers.’

‘Pass the pretzels please, I gotta get my snack on. ABS, boys. Always Be Snacking.’

‘Keep the refills coming bro, I’m drinking myself into a black hole tonight. OOHHHHH!’

Ahhh, classic boozy Hawking

Marvel is getting complacent and so are we. These movies are such predictable financial successes that the studio can afford to procrastinate. Do you realise Thor and Amidala haven’t banged yet? I bullshit you not; it has been two movies spread over two years and these cats still haven’t gotten jiggy with it. Marvel’s all like ‘Meh, we have movie release dates through 2020 – we’ll just throw it in there somewhere’ and it’s a giant fuck you to anyone with a brain. See, the thing about Natalie Portman is that I want to see her boobs. As of right now, the only person we know for sure who has seen them is her French ballerina husband, which is like God hitting you in the face with a brick. We need, like, six The Dudes to abide that shit.

It’s like in Avengers, when Captain Bromerica comes aboard the Hovering Fury and the camera lingers on Cobie eye-fucking him for a solid minute and you’re like ‘They’re totally gonna bang’ and then THEY DON’T. Fuck that noise. I call Chekhov’s Gun on that shit. If you’re gonna put it in there, use it. Problem with Marvel execs is they’re like ‘Oh, we’ll use it… three movies from now!’ and then laugh maniacally before retiring to the nearest janitor’s closet to snort lines of cocaine off each others’ dicks.

The villain in this Thor is equally bad. His motivations for, like, plunging the universe in darkness (which, dudes, what does that even mean??) are, uh, he’s evil? I know, I know, you could say the same about Joker in The Dark Knight but Joker is a fully realised character and one of this generation’s best performances, full stop. In this one, Christopher Eccleston just puts on a bunch of makeup, leers menacingly, and says stuff like ‘At last we willl destroy the Jedi’ in Dark Elvish, a language they must have decided to use at the last minute because it isn’t even internally consistent in the scope of this movie.

The problem with Marvel: brawn always beats brain

You know what would be better? Seeing Thor fight Eccleston as Dr. Who, that’s what. And why not super-size and have the rest of the cast speaking Old Norse. Fuck it. It’s not like what they’re saying matters anyway. The dialogue in this movie is so goddamn stilted it sounds like Thor and Hannibal Lecter learned English phonetically for this movie. So whatever.

Damage: 3/10

Boozy rating: 2/10. Fuck you right back, movie.

Next week: Bad Grandpa (Surely Knoxville can cure this movie)

Pain & Gain

Are you ready to get PUMPED UP??!!

You had better be you limp-dicked troglodytes, and all you haters had better put that Hatorade away because Michael Bay is coming to town and he knows who has been naughty and who has been nice.

Welcome to 1995 Miami where the only currency is how PUMPED UP your muscles are. If you are not using your time judiciously to get Rock Hard then you need to wake up and smell the bacon and think seriously about where your life is going and how you got to be such a droopy-eyed, listless jabroni.

EXPLOSIONS ARE FOR WINNERS

 

Kidnapping is for real people with real muscles. So is money and biznatches and C-C-C-C-COCAINE BABY so you need to stack all of those up and sit atop the mound so you can look Arnold dead in the eye when he’s riding atop his BEASTFUCK MEGAHUMMER.

 

This is a movie so jacked up that its biceps have biceps and it’s Marky Marks have Marky Marks. YES YES YES this sumbitch will straight up strong-arm you into forgetting that The Happening ever happened, which sounds counterintuitive because language confusion but this movie is about using muscles, not words, so keep on rocking in the free world.

This movie has so much steroid use in it it’ll make your pecs hard and your dick soft. That’s called osmosis, whereby the movie screen is the motherfucking membrane.

ANALOGIES GALORE!!!

Pain & Gain wastes no time so neither do we. We use the screening as an exercise in getting pumped up by buying a Rock-sized bag of protein and showcasing it like the suave minstrels of jackedness that we are. Showcasing it like a pimp superfly jetski on the Price is Right. $7,995!!!1!!

MY PROTEIN!!!

Then we look at the milk/protein combination like all those bears must have looked at goldilocks all those years ago before they shredded her to pieces and put leftovers in the fridge for the next day.

 

Instead of resorting to those beginner tactics we up our game by making a protein mix drink that St. Mike himself would call the breakfast of motherfucking champions. We have in common that we both play to win, and as we all know winners go home and fuck the prom queen.

 

As you can see, I have put on my winning face

 

We make & watch movies about bodybuilding, explosions, guns, strippers, and the CIA because reading the newspaper is for fags. The only good scenes in The Room was when those guys were throwing the football around! FRISCO!

During the screening peeps next to me was all up in my business, asking me if I’d ever heard ‘Silence is golden,’ whereupon I asked this Jabberwocky-looking mofo if HE’D ever done hard time. Then I flashed my neck tattoo and took a dump on the hood of his car. You can’t spell CREATINE without CREATE fuckfaces.

Oil rules and Greenpeace does other stuff that is NOT RULING because we said so, so go have a protein shake and forget about all the seals. Paul McCartney and everybody else would forget about them if they looked like cockroaches, you can believe that one.

KUMITE!!

Our heroes/avatars fight everything in this movie, ranging from drugs to the police, to addiction, to inmates and everything in between except maybe tigers. But fuck it Van Damme has that one covered and he LIFTS BATHTUBS for a living.

No I can’t stop shouting, cause that’s how I talk!!!

I know it will worry you that there’s a lot of gay paraphenaglia (spelling catastoptrophe but I don’t core I do alright for someone who never finished high scholl) in this movie but DON’T WORRY it’s all part of the plan. Just like the Joker said it was.

I'm an agent of chaos, BRRAPP BRAP

I have to quiet all these voices in my head for the making to make sense again. Micheal bay, yeah?! Fuck man. You did it again. There are so many plum-colored cars in this movie fuckin Rod Corddry doesn’t know which one to ride in!

If your girlfriend asks you to pleasure her this month just take her to GODDAMN PAIN & GAIN so she can see what a WINNER        looks like.

Go big or go home. And that’s not a dick joke like you think it is. There are enough dick jokes in this movie already that we can’t touch it with a ten foot dildo. Pluus if we ever had a ten-footer we’d have bigger fish to fry, am I right mike?

BOOM

YEAH. Trucks, no aliens, no zombies. Wait, maybe no trucks either but this movie has a turck for a soul so git some git some git some. fUCk it; le’ts throw the camel in there too!!!

It’s PRO-tein, not CON-tein and that’s an important distinction for an important person. Nothing you can say about this movie other than “Go see it”

I swear this movie had better win all the Oscars this year: actor, director, sound, actor, and all the supporting ones they give to the hot chick or the fat chick because this movie has both of those hanging out like a big muscular pair of balls.

FUCK. YES. MUSCLES. CARS. GO JUICE JUICE JUICE ACTIVATE GO GOGOGO.

Revenge of the Selected VRROOOOOM