New Movies Playing!

Trust

What's It About?

A teenage girl meets a "boy" online who turns out to be a sexual predator.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810198560/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks really good--- the subject matter is an uncomfortable, scary one--- how it's played out with the girl's father seeking revenge is rightful--- and hopefully executed."

*

Super

What's It About?

A loser decides to transform himself into a superhero after his wife dumps him for another man.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810167552/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks super hilarious! Prone to dorky and save-the-day roles Seth Rogen would have been perfect in the lead."

*

The Last Godfather

What's It About?

An Italian mafia's godfather's illegitimate accident prone Asian son is chosen to run the mafia.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810128270/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks very funny and charming with a lot of great physical comedy a la Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton (who the Asian gangster-in-training resembles)."

*

Cat Run

What's It About?

An escort involved in a cover up is pursued relentlessly by bad guys all while being protected by two incompetent detectives.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810198188/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks like a lot of fun plain and simple!"

*

Rubber

What's It About?

A killer tire named Robert.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810159050/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks like literally mindless fun--- a killer tire?!"

*

Insidious

What's It About?

A young boy in a coma is haunted by demonic spirits.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810177205/trailer

PREDICTION:
"It looks like most haunting themed movies that all over the place recently--- so-so. The only thing that looks scary is the cool looking red creature."

*

Hop

What's It About?

The Easter's Bunny's son who doesn't want to take his father's throne but become a famous drummer.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810158040/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks cute of course but the addition of CGI+humans ruin it. An animated only pic would have been cuter."

*

In A Better World

What's It About?

A doctor's bullied-in-school son is involved in an act of revenge by his new-to-school friend.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810195621/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks good--- interesting and serious."

*

Source Code

What's It About?

A man finds out he's part of a top-secret government experiment "Source Code" that allows him to take over another man's identity within the person's last 8 minutes of life.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810150340/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks okay. Cool plot alright but Jake Gyllenhaal seems very wrongly cast in the lead. A huge action star name a la Tom Cruise could have made this a must-see."

***

E N J O Y
*the*
M O V I E S

***

Best New Movie Poster of the Week

(Official Poster for upcoming movie Trust.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The film's title very fitting text style.
*The menacing hand with dead looking roses thrust into the girl's calm face. 

(Alternate poster for the upcoming movie Trust.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The young girl "sleeping with one eye open."

*The absence of a tagline.



***

Happy birthday Jenna Presley!

Wow. It must suck having your birthday on April Fool's day. Imagine all the practical jokes you'd have to endure...

If porn star Jenna Presley was cursed with a bad birthday, though, it was made up for with looks.

No April Fool's jokes here: happy birthday!

House Stark

Here is another A Game of Thrones preview.  Actually this is more of a behind the scenes kind of thing.  It gives a nice look at some of the Starks and the actors portraying them.  Also, we can see some scenes that have not been in any of the previews yet.

House Stark Feature

Can you tell that I am excited?

POOJA GUPTA

 

POOJA GUPTA MAKING HER DEBUT IN FALTU

More Crazy Religious People

I had an amusing encounter with a crazy religious person yesterday.  Sadly it was at work and I could not answer him truthfully without getting into trouble.  Also, he was about 80 years old and had a bit of a slobbering problem.  Here is our conversation:

Me:  How was everything today?
Nutjob:  Good, now can I ask you a question?
Me:  Sure.
Nutjob:  Where will you go when you die?
Me:  Umm, most likely in the ground.  (At this point, I know where this is going.)
Nutjob:  The choices are heaven and hell.
Me:  Hmm, well I don't know sir.
Nutjob:  Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior?
Me:  Uhhh, I don't know.  I'll do my best to try.
Nutjob:  Your best is not good enough and you cannot try.  Jesus died for yours and my sins.  Only when we repent completely can we enter the kingdom of heaven.
Me:  Well that sounds nice.  Ummmmm, well have a nice day sir.

Honestly, the whole thing was quite awkward.  I really wanted to tell him I was an atheist, but I thought it might cause him to have a heart attack.  Also, I could picture him calling our corporate headquarters and complaining about them having an evil atheist manager working for them.  My luck I would get fired over it.  At least he was not nearly as bad as the guy from two years ago...

Why is it that Christians (and other religions) can get away with saying things like this?  I hope that when Zombie Jesus returns, he eats these assholes first.

Fantasy Baseball Draft Results: Pitchers

Unlike the hitters, this one is not really as fair.  Some teams drafted more hitters, so I had to take the average team's number of pitchers.  It worked out to nine pitchers for each team.  Those that only had eight were at a slight disadvantage.  Also, none of the project sites had holds, so I just took the last year numbers.  I do not plan on showing you every team, but I will show mine.

The Projected Stats

Wow, Shelly is rocking the pitching.  Same with Imler (maybe they had similar strategies...)  I am shocked with how low Offord and Ryan rank through the projections.  I think the pitchers were projected very low.  Offord has a very good pitching staff, so his could be the one to shock us all.

My Pitchers

I like my team.  I really thought they would have ended up being ranked much higher.  Apparently I was wrong.  Brandon Webb kills my projections.  Three wins?  If he goes on the DL, I will pick up wins from someone else.  Also, I already dropped a few guys and picked up Carl Pavano and Bronson Arroyo.  Not the greatest pitchers, but at least can get me some wins.

Anyways, I added up the totals (you could do the same thing as well if you want to look at the other post and add the scores together)...and here are the results.

I will be money that neither James nor Shelly win the league this year.  James will probably stop paying attention in about two weeks.  Shelly is a girl, what does she know about baseball...(yes, I am just being a jerk since she is the feminist that criticized my comments about boobs).

My initial response after the draft was that Ryan had the best team.  Odd that in the end we have the same numbers. 

The draft is only phase one of a successful season.  Now the season starts and most of us will make idiotic decisions (or great decisions).  Someone will drop a guy like Mark Texeira who starts out hitting .185 and decides to pick up Lyle Overbay because he hit two homers in three games...

Plus there are injuries all season to deal with.  There are rookies who come into the league and give everyone a hard-on and then hit .227 for the rest of the year (I am looking at you Jay Bruce...)

Good luck to every team!  Let us have a fun and competitive season!

Myspace Blogposts Part Six

I am about to delete my myspace account, but I figured I would share with you some of blog posts I wrote on there.  Do not judge me.

Problem of Immortality

One of the hardest things about being immortal:  the constant planning.  You always have to be on your toes, especially nowadays.  Scientists would love to get ahold of an individual like me and figure out why I cannot die.

I create fake identities all over the world, in case I am discovered, I can just disappear for a few years.  If that fails, I have built an underground tomb which I can seal myself in with a timed lock for one hundred years.

That idea came to me from back in the 1500s.  A village discovered that I could not die and instead of doing the normal thing, like burn me as a witch (which takes forever to heal from), they instead bricked me inside an old tomb.  I was trapped in there for like ninety years.  Luckily some grave robbers happened to come by and well let me say they got quite the surprise.  The only negative to that situation was that my mental state was somewhat deteriorated, and I spent the next few years wondering around Europe.

Anyways, I hope this helps any of you.  If not, you are probably not immortal.  This definitely does not apply to vampires, you may not age, but you can most certainly be killed.  Plus, you cannot enjoy the sunlight, which life is not worth living without seeing a great sunrise every once in awhile.  Remember vampires, leave me alone, and I will not go back to my early 18th century ways of being a renowned vampire hunter...

I Am Not Dead

I know you were all quite worried about why there was no GOTW on Friday.  Well allow me to explain what happened.  It is a pretty long story...my boss got sick and asked me to work Friday.  I worked until 11 p.m. on Thursday and then got a call at 5:40 a.m.  I made it to work around 7:00.  I was pretty much running on two hours of sleep.  Needless to say, I did not do much Friday night except for sleep.  The rest of the weekend was spent working 6:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  I hate waking up early.  So what else has been going on?

P90X
Yes, I decided to start P90X.  It is pretty damn hardcore.  The first day I did the chest/back disc and I made it the whole way through.  Granted, I toned it down and set low goals.  I have a small chest, I figured I would not be able to do the same thing as my buddy Tony Horton.  Also, I do not have a pull-up bar, so I had to improvise with weights...

The next day was plyometrics.  Lindsey did it with me and she was able to go a little more hardcore than me.  I had to stop about 3/4 of the way through because I thought I might have a heart attack.  I will keep at it though.  I did shoulders and arms by myself, and it was actually the easiest one for me.  I should probably buy a heavier set of weights though (I used Lindsey's 8 lb. weights, but did more reps). 

After that was yoga.  For the love of god that shit was hard.  We made it about 30 minutes into it.  I think I need to buy a yoga mat and maybe do that one upstairs from now one.  I made it through the next one which was legs/back.  Again, without a pull-up bar it was a little difficult.  The leg workouts were killer though, I could barely walk after.

Morris' Tavern
Lindsey and I went to this place to eat on Saturday.  They had decent food, but that was not the main attraction.  The entire place is decked out with stuffed animals.  Apparently the owner is a huge hunter.  I want to go back and check out the upstairs, it apparently has animals he shot in Africa.  Pretty cool.

NCAA Tournament
Wow, what a great tournament.  What a terrible bracket for me though...Congratulations to Ryan.  And no, you do not win a yard gnome.  In fact, you win the right to be known as a true basketball fan...way to go.  Anyways, I am pulling for Butler to win it.  I will be watching the game at a bar the night before a seminar.

Conclusion
Sorry, but I am tired and going to bed.  I will try to write up the pitching results for our fantasy league.  I will also leave you with a late, half-ass GOTW.

 
She is missing a leg...get it?  Half-assed...whatever, I need to hire a new joke writer.

Fantasy roundup: A Song of Ice and Fire

Yes, the George R.R. Martin epic. I was ill in January and read it. I'm trying to not include any real spoilers.

Verdict: undecided but highly pessimistic.

George R. R. Martin's massive epic is a fantasy re-working of the Wars of the Roses, coming soon to a TV near you as an HBO miniseries. The written work itself is gigantic, taking up six brick-sized volumes. Inside is a very well-written story that follows the families of Lancaster and York in their epic struggle for the kingdom of England. While they fight each other, beyond Hadrian's Wall the Scots and undead Picts are gathering, and Prince Edward is gathering an army on the Continent to regain his kingdom. Shit, I forgot to swap in the fantasy names. Sorry. Also, there's, um, an evil Zoroastrian woman. That's my blurb. Deal with it.

The quality of writing is very good, there are memorable characters and moments, and the story does grip you badly enough that even when the flaws of the books had become glaringly obvious, I still finished it. When I say finished, I mean I read the volumes that have been published so far. The next one's coming out in 2005, and even thoguh there are still times when I get confused as to what year it is, I rarely get that confused. It's now six years late, and if I had to lay money on it, I'd bet it's never coming out.

Why? Because the book is out of control. The narration skips between several characters, which is good at first, but gets somewhat confusing before long. The main problem is that the characters change, and not always for the better. Most of the last book was spent following around characters I just don't care about, while everyone actually engaged in something important was conspicuously absent. So much, in fact, that the author added a postscript where he promised to catch up with them in his next volume, coming up six years ago! Oops.

From the originally simple story of Lancaster-versus-York, the story has expanded to the point where we've been all over the Mediterranean with Prince Edward, visited the King of Scotland's court and spent a good deal of time in the succession dispute of the Isle of Man. While some of our characters are doing that, one particularly important one has just escaped the Tower of London, another character is maxing and relaxing with the lunatic Zoroastrians on what, geographically speaking, can only be Sealand, while the queen has a half-hearted lesbian fling and goes all Civ II on us by considering switching to Fundamentalism for all the free Fanatics. Meanwhile, one character is in Venice, sweeping floors at a temple and masquerading as a fishmonger, one is being held captive in Norwich and the rest of them are just plain missing.

In short, there are so many characters doing so many things that it's genuinely difficult to keep up with the story. I could live with that, if I only cared about it. The worst thing about the books is that the central theme of this huge story of intrigue, pseudo-history and slightly disturbing sexual content is anticlimax. Nothing ever works out the way it should, everyone is always disappointed, everyone gets betrayed and everything just generally goes to hell. Now, I'm all for portraying a war, especially a civil war, as pointless. It's just that you run into trouble when you hammer us over the head with how horrible and depressing and anticlimactic everything is and still expect us to be interested in the story.

As for the story itself, quite frankly, I don't even know what the main plot of the book is any more. The story has moved on from the first book, so far, in fact, that I really don't know what the main plotline is any more, which means I don't know what's significant and what isn't. The characters I cared about have been punched in the guts with anticlimax after disappointment after actual punch so often that I've just stopped caring any more.

This, incidentally, is another reason why I'd bet money the series won't be finished. How do you bring a massively complicated story to a satisfactory ending when the overriding theme of your work is disappointment? The only real options I see are either that the story will end in a massive anticlimax, or a truly disappoiting cop-out happy ending. My money's on the character whose viewpoint we started with waking up and realizing it was all a dream.

In the end, a verdict. I don't want to say "don't read it". This is a very well-written, initially captivating work. Besides, maybe the publicity of the HBO thing will induce the author to actually finish it. But as it stands, even if the next part comes out, I'm not ready to recommend this to anyone either. Around halfway, the captivating story with its memorable characters turns into an endless, dreary slog through a horribly depressing fantasy re-enactment of the Wars of the Roses. All I can do is give my warning, and admonish the prospective reader to beware of the anticlimaxes, the disappointment and the sheer boredom.

In all honesty, even if the next part does come out, I'm not even sure I can be bothered to read it. I think I lost all interest in the story in the last part. If I'd known it only keeps getting worse, maybe I'd have stopped reading much earlier.

Come to think of it, I guess that ended up being a more definitive verdict than I thought I'd give.

Happy birthday Keira Knightley!

Happy birthday to the beautiful Keira Knightley!

We even watched that silly Pirates sequel because of you.

New Movies Playing!

Sucker Punch

What's It About?

A girl's powerful imagination provides escape out of a mental institution for herself and her friends.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810133258/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks a lot of fun, visually especially--- resembling a videogame. Girls playing with guns, swords and rockets is always a lot of fun to see! The plot is really cool but the cast isn't so impressive and there may be too much going on visually to take in all at once."

*

Peep World

What's It About?

A family's family secrets are exposed when a family member publishes a tell all book.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810080170/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks hilarious! Dysfunctional family movies are always a lot of fun."

*

Diary of a Wimpy Kid:

Roderick Rules

What's It About?

The second installment in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810182028/trailer

PREDICTION:
"It looks surprisingly really funny. Sorta reminds me of Malcolm in the Middle on the big screen."

*

The 5th Quarter

What's It About?

When a young man's brother dies suddenly, he leads his football team into victory to honor his brother as he wears his jersey number.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810197642/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks sappy but touching. The plot is nothing new but sports movies always have a feel-good aura about them."

*

Potiche

What's It About?

A French trophy wife becomes head of her husband's factory.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810122862/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks pretty charming."

*

Miral

What's It About?

The story of a young Palestinian girl in Jerusalem during the 1948 partition of Palestine and the establishment of the state of Israel.

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810080186/video

PREDICTION:
"It looks too slow-moving yet thrilling when it picks up and thought-provoking all together."

*

 White Irish Drinkers

What's It About?

Two Irish brothers turn to a life of crime.

 

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810193210/video

PREDICTION:
"It doesn't look like it would hold my attention at all."

***

E N J O Y
*the*
M O V I E S

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Best New Movie Poster of the Week

(Official Poster for upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*All the characters are armed and look ready for battle.

*The four word hype stirring tagline talking directly to the poster viewer.

(Character Poster for upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The action pose of the character battling a monster.

(Alternate retro-styled character poster for the upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The vintage look of the poster.

*The playful tagline.

(Character Poster for upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The action pose of the character battling a monster.

(Alternate retro-styled character poster for the upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The vintage look of the poster.

*The badass tagline.

(Character Poster for upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The action pose of the character battling monsters.

(Alternate retro-styled character poster for the upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The vintage look of the poster.

*The sexy tagline.

(Character Poster for upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The action pose of the character battling monsters.

(Alternate retro-styled character poster for the upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The vintage look of the poster.

*The badass tagline.

(Character Poster for upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The action pose of the character.

(Alternate retro-styled character poster for the upcoming movie Sucker Punch.)

WHY THIS POSTER IS GREAT!:

*The vintage look of the poster.

*The double entendre tagline.

***