'You Cannot Be Serious!' ~John McEnroe

Excuse me but I’m going to go on a bit of a rant here… but I don’t want a bunch of comments saying how biased I am so I’m going to clear a few things up first.
1. I always drive with my vehicle’s lights on.
2. I believe in Global Warmin… sorry, Global Climate Change (is that what we’re calling it now?)
3. I don’t think it’s half as big of a threat that people make it out to be.
4. In 2004 I voted for George W. Bush.
5. In 2008 I voted for Barack Obama.
6. I am registered to vote as a Moderate.
Ok, I hope that shows that I really show no defining bias… except against idiots, and with that I will get to my rant. I recently made a trip up to UWL (or The U as it’s more commonly known) to move a recliner. Putzing around leaving the city I pulled into a Kwik Trip to pick up a few things, and I parked, forgot turn off my lights and got out of my truck and started walking down the sidewalk. A fairly attractive (and for all intensive purposes normal looking) female walked up to me – being the normal upstanding citizen I am, I smiled and said hello. At this point she made a smarmy face and said to me (and this is the conversation roughly verbatim)…
Chick – ‘You should really turn your lights off…’
Me – ‘Oh, I’m not too worried about the battery.’
Chick – ‘Well I’m worried about the environment and don’t like when people waste energy.’
Me – ‘You cannot be serious.’
Chick – ‘I’m very serious when it comes to the planet.’
Me - *laugh in here face, walk about three steps then turn around, look at her – then keep walking while laughing out loud*
(… and Scene)
Listen, I understand that you probably watch An Inconvenient Truth in your Environmental Studies class and probably quote it all the time thinking you’re being a better person – but you’re just making yourself look like an idiot. IT’S NOT EVEN HOW CARS WORK! There’s an alternator that recharges the battery… it doesn’t run on natural gas, or gasoline, or unicorn tears… or whatever resources the earth is running out of. There’s a reason that we’re trying make cars that run off this technology.
Now I know that the reason you think you’re so progressive is to impress the dreamy liberal that’s the head of the College Democrats… but let’s be honest, the only reason he took that position is because he knows most the chicks there are wildly Pro-Choice. In the same turn that I know College Republicans that joined knowing that most the chicks are conservative Jesus freaks that are hard up for it… but I digress.
I have no problem with people expressing their opinion, or trying to better the world. But when you say things that are so absurd it just makes me assume you rode the short bus to school. Now we all know there have to be alternative energies and more efficient ways to make a vehicle run… unfortunately the re-usable foot technology hasn’t been used since the time of The Flintstones. Now before you go around and keep making an ass of yourself I hope someone goes Jim Calhoun on you and demands, ‘you get the facts, and come back to me!’

I Just Came a Little

We all know that with the coming of Summer we're assured several things - Brewers Season, Sweaty Blackouts, and Summer Event Movies. Well hold on to your hats folks, because I have the trailer for the ultimate Summer Blockbuster... that's straight to DVD. It's Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, and it looks pretty much just like it sounds.

Movie Critic - Let the Right One In

I’m a sucker for good horror films… although I really haven’t had much to be a sucker for lately. Really other than 2005’s The Descent every other horror movie to come down the pike is some hack writer or director’s ‘re-imagining’ or just right out stealing ideas from 20 years ago. Now we have Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, a story about a young bullied 12-year old named Oskar who meets a strange new girl named Eli. Now I’m not telling you anything outside of school here when I say that Eli has a bit of a secret – she’s a vampire.
Many times with foreign horror movies a lot is lost in translation – especially seeing as there were possible problems with dubbing on the Blu-Ray version of this film (luckily I prefer subtitles). This is not the case with this Swedish gem. Every scene is eerie and unsettling, even if it’s just two children talking in a courtyard. This suspense and horror is really based around the same idea as the Vampire classic 1922’s Nosferatu, using suspense and atmosphere so at the end of the day you’ll never really jump out of your seat… but when you turn out the lights you might check your closet and under your bed. There’s also added suspense because the child actors are just so good and so God damned creepy. Many times when child actors are involved there are a few really dramatic scenes that they screw up because they don’t have the chops, and make you sit back and go, ‘Ugh… remember the good old days when these kids would’ve been working in the mines for 3 years already?’ But that’s not the case with Let the Right One In, in fact Kare Hedebrant (Oskar) and Lina Leeandersson (Eli) shine in their roles.
Let the Right One In stares at Twilight fans and says, ‘I see your abstinence message ridden tweeny horse shit, and raise you a 12-year old girl tearing through grown men like a hungry wolf… oh and we have people on fire’. For everyone who’s not an idiot and wants a legitimate love story that happens to involve vampires, please don’t support Twilight and use your Netflix or Blockbuster to see this great film. The atmosphere, the acting, the suspense, everything about this film is top notch. If it wasn’t for a few scenes (particularly one near the end) this would be an almost perfect horror movie.
Let the Right One In is rated R for some bloody violence including disturbing images, brief nudity and language, and gets a 4 out of 5 Stars.

Movie Critic - Star Trek

I’ll say it – I’m a Star Wars guy. Even though I’ve seen eight of the previous ten Star Trek movies I could just never get into it like many people have… i.e. Trekkies. None of those eight really compared to the three original Star Wars movies (plus let’s be honest, does anyone really consider the prequels real Star Wars movies?). I have to be honest, I was surprised when I heard they were making this film, Star Trek really has exhausted much of the possibilities it could’ve – with several television series and ten movies, I mean, what could be new? I guess I was wrong. This prequel shows how the Starship Enterprise came to be as we know it from the original Star Trek.
I’m going to start with the thing that first jumped out at me in this movie – the special effects. They are top notch, with many movies like this there will be at least a few times where I think to myself, ‘Oh, come on… ‘. I can honestly say I bought every minute of this film. Whether it was just simple shots of inside the ship or three men parachuting through space, I really can’t say enough about how great this film looks. Most of this is probably due to J.J. Abrams hitting another one out of the park.
Abrams (who might be Mark Attanasio’s doppelganger) has a pretty legit track record – Alias, LOST, and Mission: Impossible III. Now sure, M:I III is a lot like that hot chick you let cheat off you in high school (looks great, but nothing really on the inside) but it’s still a nice resume, and Star Trek just ads to it. He gives the feeling that you actually are in these different worlds whether it’s Vulcan, or Iowa in the future, or on the Starship Enterprise. This also helps when you have a believable cast.
There is not a poor performance in this movie… which is impressive seeing as Tyler Perry is in it. I have to admit, for a cast of mostly unknowns they really do a great job here. One of the better performances is from Chris Pines as James T. Kirk. It would’ve been easy for Pines to just slip into a cartoon of such an iconic and outlandish character, but he takes it and makes it his own. There’s also great work in here from Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho and Bruce Greenwood, as well as the always great Simon Pegg. Also a nice (and not cheap) cameo by Leonard Nimoy, who still looks great for 78.
This movie is really being advertised slightly wrong. Even though it is an effects driven ‘Summer Event’ movie, this is really more of a character driven film. One of the most important things this movie does is appeal to almost every type of movie goers. It makes references to the classic movies (the random guy in Red always dying, Bones saying, ‘damnit Jim I’m a doctor not a physicist’, and Scotty’s classic, ‘I’m giving it all she’s got Captain) pleasing the nerds who will dress up in their Enterprise gear. It will also please casual fans as well (and maybe most importantly) a person who has never seen a Star Trek movie. It’s easy to look past some of the minor shortfalls of this movie, when everything else seems to work… and is so damn entertaining. I'll say it, I loved this movie, move over Wrath of Kahn, there’s a new leader in the Star Trek clubhouse.
Star Trek is rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, and brief sexual content, and gets 4 out of 5 Stars.