Sure, I’ve only seen like six movies this year, but I’m ready to crown a champ. Avatar!
I’ll be honest, after seeing the preview, I wasn’t that excited to spend three hours with these fake looking blue giants but the movie was about 9,000 times better than the preview. Some brief context: it takes place in the future, the humans are in the process of invading a distant world, Pandora, for its precious natural resources. The indigenous peeps are 10 foot tall giants with interactive hair braids (don’t ask.) The humans have figured out a way to interact among them by inhabiting manufactured Na’vi bodies or “Avatars” after years of training. Some reasons this movie whips:
- Sam Freaking Worthington – if there’s a better actor on the planet, Sam could kill him with his bare hands
- CGI that is Effing incredible. Apparently Jimmy Cameron spent years perfecting this new art and it shows. I have never seen anything like it, especially in the third dimension with funny glasses. I guess that one time I got a swirlie in the third grade comes pretty close.
- Did I mention the special effects? I could live on Pandora, curled up in a leaf or riding an iclan, all day long
- Character development – With a nearly three hour running time, you actually get to know and care about these characters
- Sigourney Weaver!
- An entire new race and world – Na’vi are cool. And I’m kind of confused by this, but Neytirri is actually uh, kind of…hot
- Killer 3D – The only thing more realistic would be me sitting directly in front of you and poking your eyeball with my finger
- Michelle Rodriguez not playing somebody mean for once
Say what you will about James Cameron, but he’s managed to do it again. Maybe he actually IS the king of the world.
So I’m a little late to the whole SmashBurger party, but I made the mistake of going there last night. Abso-frickin’ delicious. And I know that I’m not supposed to get all excited about a chain place when I should really be seeking out that one place around the corner owned by a smiling local family that only serves up burgers made from organic corn fed beef that they slaughter themselves lovingly and with great kindness, but I don’t care! This place is grub, and I will tell anyone who will listen!
Yes. It really looks like this. A virtual Death Star of Goodness.
Their fries are lovingly soaked in rosemary and garlic and I can even opt for a fried egg on top of my burger. Pretty much the greatest thing since the automatic transmission.
In the Grand Burger Bracket in my head, my friends at Crown Burger still lay claim to Number 1, but there is a new entrant in the tie for 2nd place. Welcome to my insides, SmashBurger.
Filed under: The World of Sport
Aaah fall. The leaves turn from green to gold, there is a slight chill in the air, my exotic summer Speedo gives way to a curmudgeonly autumn v-neck sweater. The only redeeming feature of fall is football season, and even better than that…fantasy football. If there’s anything better in the world than Fantasy Football, I haven’t found it, and believe me, I’ve spent time in Bangkok and as a house guest of Jessica Alba. I’m also pretty sure the ancient Greeks played Fantasy Olympics, the Japanese have Fantasy Sumo, and the Swedish have Fantasy Sauna-ing. But here in America, Man’s Greatest Sport is clearly the control and manipulation of real human beings on fake football teams.
Here are some reasons why Fantasy Football whips:
- The Fantasy Draft – a wonderful opportunity to get with your friends for roughly 6-18 hours as you seek to own every player in the National Football League. Oh yeah, and a unique opportunity to make fun of everyone’s selections and to bring up old insecurities. Just like the high school Dungeons and Dragons Club, but soooo much nerdier.
- I can’t control a garden weasel, but in the world of fantasy football, not only can I be a coach AND a general manager, but if I can find 11 fellow nerds to play with me, I can be a commissioner too! I can control the freaking world! I am all powerful! Call me Aldor! King of the Football People!!! (Ok, maybe don’t do that, that’s weird.)
- The opportunity to become all knowing. ALL KNOWING. Want to know which kicker has the best field goal percentage in snow in the third week of December while sparrows fly over their head and when the wind blows in a southeasterly direction with a placeholder who had a carne asada burrito for lunch? Yeah, I do. And it’s Mason Crosby. Suck it.
- A built-in excuse to watch every football game, every week. No one’s going to be watching The Buffalo Bills play the Oakland Raiders, but with fantasy football, it becomes instantly watchable. I’m convinced that the only people watching these games on television are people who own the Bills third string tight end and Al Davis. Hoping that his Raiders are going to someday turn it around. Just die already, Al. That’s the only way they’re improving.
- The opportunity to wheel and deal like a contestant on the Price is Right. Not happy with your team? Trade them all! Hate Clinton Portis as much as I do? Trade the sad sack away for a wide receiver and a case of magical beans.
- It’s pretty much the only chance I’ll have to tell athletic strong human beings what to do. Unless I become field hockey captain in prison or something.
- Instead of actually thinking about “life” or contemplating “things that matter” you’re able to spend the entire week wondering if you should play Chad Ochocinco or Felix Jones in your coveted WR/RB/TE flex position.
- It has the word “fantasy” in it. Aren’t all those things good? Like riding a unicorn through a meadow filled with beef jerky. Now THERE’S a fantasy.
- The chance to REALLY test how much your wife loves you. 11 weeks in, and yes, she does. I am Aldor!!!
Yeah, he’s probably pretty good at fantasy.
I thought this was pretty original. Great song by Lenny Kravitz with spectacularly cheesy Justice remix. Nicely played.
Filed under: Movies
I went into this film a little skeptical and with very low expectations. Like, Transformers 2 low expectations. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised. I was able to figure out early on that this film was built with the 12-year old boy in mind. So when I was able to channel my own inner 12-year old boy, (we’ll call him Johnny) my eyes were opened to the sheer beauty and artistry of this work. Here’s why.
Guns! Planes! ‘Splosions! For anyone who watched these cartoons in the ’80’s, they were all about cool weaponry and even cooler vehicles and planes. This movie is chock full of guns I would like to shoot, planes I would like to fly and underwater bases that I would like to live in. James Bond officially sucks compared to this movie.
Delta-6 Accelerator Suits. In a word awesome. The scene where Duke and Ripcord adorn themselves in these accelerator suits and chase down the Baroness through the streets of Paris was clearly one of the best scenes in the entire movie. Sure, the Baroness was in a Hummer, and the Joe’s could have simply driven one of their cool cars through the streets to chase them down, but then we would have missed out on some severe awesome. And anytime anything can lay waste to the city of Paris, I would certainly like to see more of that.
Ninja on Ninja Fights. Ray Park either needs to fire his agent or get a voice transplant. Yet again, the martial arts master is in a role where he is required not to speak. Ever. It’s got to be a blow to the ol’ self-esteem when you can play somebody as hardcore as Darth Maul, yet your voice is so horrible they now require the character not to speak. That said, the dude can lay it down when it comes to the martial art-ery. Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow go toe to toe and they even throw in a nice little backstory to explain the origins. Not that anyone cares, because all you really want to see is clanking swords, spin kicks and limbs being severed.
Sienna Miller Kicking Trash. Not only is she actually better looking as a brunette, but as the Baroness, she destroys everything in her path, especially her old fiancee. I would have appreciated just a little bit of back story as to why she became so hardcore in the four years she was gone, because she was just cold as ice. Even Foreigner thinks so. But she did bring some un-Sienna Miller-like intesity to her role. Either that, or she was imagining kicking Jude Law in the face every time she engaged in a fight scene. And in the race between who has the coolest weapons, she totally wins.
Horrible Special Effects. For a $200 million dollar movie, you can tell that they spent all of the money on sewing cool costumes, getting Brendan Fraser to cameo and constructing sets, instead of on the effects or the script. Both were absolutely horrible. In fact, there was one scene where I thought I was watching a tinfoil spaceship on wires enter a desert cave made out of cardboard and macaroni noodles. It looked that bad. To their credit, SOME of the effects were cool, and there was lots of stuff that blew up, but for the love, if Shrek can look real, then you can do much better.
Yeah. They pretty much looked like this.
Dennis Quaid. For the record, ever since he peaked in ‘Innerspace’, Dennis Quaid is pretty much the kiss of death for any movie. Luckily, he doesn’t have to speak too much here and he looks surprisingly sharp in a beret. Yet still, his “acting” consists of barking his lines. It’s cute for the first two minutes or so.
A Script I Could Have Written. Some gems, (say all of these lines while yelling)
The Baroness: [Snake Eyes has left their car] He must have given up.
Storm Shadow: He never gives up.
Duke: Technically, we don’t exist. We answer to no one. And when all else fails, we don’t.
[points a gun at a woman in an elevator]
The Baroness: Get out! GET OUT!
[woman runs out, Baroness gets in, as the elevator doors close:]
The Baroness: Nice shoes.
YES! Just try NOT to get pumped up while hearing stuff like this! It kind of makes you want to jump into a RavenStryke and kick some Cobra butt, doesn’t it?
Stunts. Stunts. And More Stunts.
Nanomites. What more is there to say, then Nanomites? Seriously.
People That Actually Die. It always bothered me in the cartoon when an airplane would be shot down, or when a tank would explode, the pilot or driver would ALWAYS parachute to safety, or scramble out of the tank before it actually blew up. Come on! Let’s see some death and carnage in here! Luckily, the movie delivers on this count. Johnny is pleased.
To Sum Up: go see this film before the theaters are too crowded with movie critics and audiences alike waiting to heap praise upon it. It’s a good thing they expanded the Best Picture category to now include 10 films, as this movie is a mortal friggin’ lock.
