What a ballsack Tarantino has. He's taken a lot of criticism over the years for the content of his films, and hasn't even bent a muscle. Not apologizing for nothing. He stands by his films like a tattoo would on your left butt cheek. From what I can remember (my memory sucks) this criticism stems from an overabundance of gratitutious violence. Django certainly doesn't make any exceptions. But there's a aspect of this film (also relates to Inglorious Bastards) that just made Tarantin's balls grow even bigger (I envy those balls). It's what makes this film so friggin good.

The subject of History, in any nation, is such a revered subject. And the further back you go the more revered it seems to get, even though the data becomes more and more dubious. This is why I think you can call Lincoln (or any president that came before him) gay and get away with it, because who knows really? Sure, on the other hand, a lot of stuff doesn't have much room for dispute: The pyramids were built, the Roman Empire was a beast, urinals were invented.

But there's even this sense that history must be passed on in such a revered way, and while the facts maybe a bit dubious, there still must be an attempt to pass them on as accurate as possible. So suggesting that Lincoln was gay will come off highly offensive to many people, even if there's no proof to suggest either way.

Django (likeInglorious Bastards) is a clear infraction of the history books: Wait...A black man, mid 19th Century, a bounty hunter? That's preposterous. No way in a million years that could ever happen...However, this reversal of roles (especially in the circle of Westerns which have all been dominated by white heroes) is so rarely done in film (or pretty much anywhere).

But Django is just a movie. It's not like our history teachers are all of a sudden explaining to the next generation of kids that black freedom was the result of hundreds of blacks overpowering the south with a massive revolt, instead of the events of the Civil War. But even if they did, would it be so awful? Would the foundations of America break down?

What I fear is quite the opposite. The indefinate glorification of our history. A history that is so afraid of being altered. A history so afraid to be forgotten. So instead we keep all the dead moments stored away carbonite and every so often refreshing them with new documenteries, new history texts or big friggin (pointess) blockbuster hits likeLincoln.

It wasn't too long ago when Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were movie Gods (...Dogma) for a second. Soon Matt began being regarded as the better actor of the two, and Ben went swimming in a bucket of shrimp. But while Matt's hit record just kept playing the same boring action tune over and over, Ben eventually found his way out of the scum. After a few butt wipes to clean himself of that prodominently cheeseball past, he's now regarded as having the bigger shlong.

But I must say I kind of liked that crestatious life Ben was living. Playing different types of retards in every film. If his quirkiness didn't get me to touch myself then it was his god-awful acting (I think the dude owns the most Golden Rasberry Worst Actor Awards). Ben probably got sick of it all. Probably wanted better babes. Why just be a stupid actor with a few babes when you can be a stupid director and a stupid actor with tons of babes? So let's not just think cheeseballs and shrimp but initiate the plan "Cheeseballs, shrimp and all-seriousness" in three phases: Phase one:Gone Baby Gone. Phase two:The Town.Phase three:Argo.

Sometimes movies (history movies) make you feel like you need a notebook (to smack yourself over the head) and pen so you can jot down notes, not to help follow the plot but just to record general facts to help you win at Trivial Pursuit the next time you play (or impress some sexy intellectual chick). At least documanteries, by their genre alone, give you a heads up. Argobegins with a montage of political stuff and some woman talking. Then after the narrator gets done talking about the ring and Middle-Earth, some stuff happens at a U.S. embassy in Iran (in the movie). Apparantly a lot of Iranians were upset at Americans. Good thing that issue has been taken care of...

So for the first thirteen minutes of the film Ben uses a lot of cuts, loud noises and farts to indicate a high-stress situation is a high-stresss situation. He then reduces Iran's high-blood pressure by showing himself having a snooze in his comfortable D.C. apartment. Shortly after he is asked to participate in the regularly scheduled "let's put a camera in front of politicians walking quicky down the Pentagon's corridors while talking about god-knows-what" government party (AKA the West Wing Style Op op op op Gangnam Style).

Then the movie continues, I think.

So this crap appeared on my computer screen last night, I think it was calledThe Best Exotic (sex you've ever had) Marigold Hotelor something like that. Rich old people dealing with oldness was the premise, I think. It was late and I needed something to put me to beddy bye. Tom Wilkinson was in it. Actually, I think I recognized all the old farts starring in this movie. All of which are kings of their industry. Acting for hundreds and hundreds of years. Big studs theyd be called if they were on the farm. Big studs.

Take Chris Bale. One second hes a pyscho, the next minute hes Batman, then tomorrow hes a magician, then next week hes Batman again, then next month hes some priest banging Chinese prostitutes, then when youre a year older hes (your mom) Batman again. Is he Batman or isnt he, stop playing games with my heart tuba. Then theres Sam L. Jacks. We all know the variety of roles this guy has played (loud black dude and seriously solemn Jedi) But every time I watch him (and imagine him with no pants on) I only see a Hollywood lemming thats jumped off the cliff 50 times already, not the character hes supposed to be embodying. This goes for any veteran Hollywood rug-burn. Its all the same.

I guess this is one reason why I like watching foreign films. Im not familiar with the dang actors (probably superstars in their respective countries for all I know) so its easier to trick myself into thinking theyactuallyare the characters they're depicting on camera. In general, this also works with the first time ya' laid eyes on a a particular actor. For instance the first film I saw Daniel Day Lewis in wasIn the Name of the Fatherand I remember enjoying that film somewhat. I was at an age where I still (used magazines to wank)wasnt familiar with many actors so it was as easy soaking up the performances as it is sucking milk from (your moms chest) a coconut. But now the English yuppy is Lincoln for Christs sake.

Movie awards come around once and awhile. What a wonderful moment that is to reflect on all the hard work superstars put into their roles we (want to toss in a trash compactor and forget about forever) cherish so deeply. At some point theyre probably down on the red-carpet shooting the breeze to each other (talking about where their third house is gonna be located), "Remember that time I played that dude in that movie last year?" or "Remember that time I played that dude in that movie while I was also playing another dude in like 3 other movies at the same time?"

Keep in mind Im not suggesting that actors make one movie then be done with movies altogether. I mean, I loved Humphrey Bogart (as Philip Marlowe). And even in other movies when he wasnt supposed to be Philip Marlowe he was still sort of Philip Marlowe. He played that role because thats who Humphry Bogart was--A hard-boiled badass who got chicks and smoked mad cigs. He would never have taken a role to play friggin Lincoln (like his contemporary Henry Fonda did) because Humphy Bogart wasnt friggin Abraham Lincoln, and neither is Daniel Sieze the Day Lewis.

So here's some babes shopping. I bet they're talking about what that heck we see in reviews. Magical shape formations that give us gas? Nah ladies. We just read em' to know if we want to experience something for ourselves or not. But sometimes we don't need them reviews. Just look at sex (when you can get it up), it's better than sliced bread (without fluff of course, cause fluff is da' sh*t).

I don't have answers. But I am 90% certain that I watched 60% of Ann Hui'sThe Way We Are last night. When I woke up this morning (with crusty undies and a broken phone) I thought about where my life was going and what I thought about the film. While the former question has a simple two word response, "Dead End," the latter question requires three, "I liked it."

For the most part it feels real (not realer than you third leg in your palm). The actors are not big cheeses, so they don't struggle to behave on camera how they would in life. The film's music is light enough to spread on a salad and not feel bad about it. And there's barely any contrived plot, which is deadly important to any great drama (besides showing some boobies).

I've only seen two Ann Hui's movies, both of which could have been great but both managed to pass out before they got to the finish line (actually, I think they fell over some hurdles and slipped on a couple banana peels along the way too). Probably an issue of living in Hong Kong, a city that's seen more Western influence over the years than Britney Spear's chest. Most HK dramas hang out with their wangs out and scream, "Look (at how small I am) at me everybody! I can play the art game too!' But luckily Hui is only half that (plus she doesn't have a wang), for her better-half makes dramas like many mainland Chinese directors do: Don't give a donkey's mom about what the rest of the world thinks.

I'll just touch on one detail (myself) now and save the rest for future reviews (Noooooo, don't tell me you're writing more Rotondi! Stop now while you still have a boner!): Too much director. Let's be honest, if we're talking dramas then the meat and bones of the film is the emotion of the characters. I don't care what nifty tricks you can do with your (legs) camera. Save it for Cannes or some other movie festival gang bang, cause it only hurts the film'ssubstance. Not to say that Hui is the worst culprit of this, in fact she's not even close.

Totally a drama worth checking out (and much better than Hui's most recent film, A Simple Life), especially if you're trying to score with an intellectual or something.

I liked history as a kid. Lot of stuff to debate. Even some of my favorite teachers taught history (mostly because they showed movies [crappy documentaries] in class). I remember this one time one of my classmates pierced his ears using a thumbtack in the middle of class. Then he showed our history teacher (also the coach of the soccer team and looked liked the Ghost Rider) the bloody mess. I also remember during lunch one time this same kid whipped his shlong out, wrapped it around his wrist and went around asking people, "You like my watch?"

When I first heard ShpeelBug was making a movie about Abraham Lincoln I thought (here comes some more oscar nominated junk) about how 6 hours on the John with a bad case of diaria and theFear Agentanthology would be a better way to spend your time. Not that I'm an Abraham Lincoln (Spielberg) hater or something, but I just really dont know much about the chap other than what our beautiful nation told me to know about the guy. But thats a topic for a different drunk-filled afternoon

So then I thought about who would play the lanky goofball (Not like I cared). Yao Ming? The Rock? The Wee-Man from Jackass? Nope. All wrong. Friggen Daniel "Seize the" Day-Lewis. Hold the phone. An English dude? To play.Whatever I guess its not a bad choice since anyone who was on the fence aboutLincolnprobably caved in (like their underwear) and donated all their savings to the "Get Spielberg Richer" charity fund as soon as they heard Daniel "Double D" Lewis was playing "Mr. Tall Beard"

This may sound more stupid than some of the other peanut butter fluff stuff I say, but only recently did it dawn on me just how bloody patrioticSaving Private Ryanis. Go. Go. Home Team! But I don't regret watching it because it made me realize just how much betterThe Thin Red Lineis. But Regardless of the whole "glorifying war and countries instead of depicting the endless horrors and impacts of war" dichotomy thing, Spielbust showed just how he thinks history ought to be presented (especially in the story-telling aspect). Every scene ofSPRis just so over-dramatic and over-the-top that an apple pie and a bottle of ketchup should be given to those who make it through the entire film in one sitting (even though they probably just ate that for a snack while watching).

And by no means is Shfeelburger finished because here comesLincolnbehind the wheel of a Ford pick-up truck transporting extra shipments of drama ballsacks in the back. Now all the U.S. History teachers in the country can sleep tight knowing they have some awe-inspiring bullhonkey to show their students the next three classes. Lets feel proud about how far we've come since slavery. Lets feel good because the economy is going to automatically fix itself because this movie was made.

Anyways, to end on a more serious note, I feel good because I just farted.

I love movies that have a central character that absolutley nobody can relate to. Its like, why not just make an animated movie where the protagonist is a obstinate turd that no matter how many times you try to flush it down the toilet, stays afloat?

Where were we? Oh ya. Ruby Sparks. Ruby Sparks is a flavor of Sparks energy booze that makes the junk in ya budunka-dunk jiggle. No. wait. Thats not right. It's Bubba Sparkss kid. Wait. That aint right either. It's a movie. Yea, thats bitter better. Ruby Sparksis a movie about a shlep who wrote a best time selling novel in high school then, after hitting puberty and a couple short story collections later, is now suffering from what literay people call writers constipation (block). All during a time when his better-looking friends (and the public) are awaiting his next book. So. Ya. Its one of those good old who gives a flying monkey's uncle plots. We could relate more with drug-addicted Dumbo.

From a viewers perspective, having any sort of emotion for a chump who has a bad case of writers cramp some years after making millions off his first book is like feeling bad for Alex Rodriguez for batting .200 in a season. There are just certain types of people in this world that, by virtue of their occupation, are just so removed from the rest of reality that you can make a case their existence isnt much more real than the character Woody (from my pants) fromToy Story.

The kid who stars in this movie is Paul (Franklin the Turtle) Dano. Hes gotten a lot of fame since blooming in films likeLittle Miss Sunshine andThere Will Be Blood. His acting is like sperm flying in your face or finding Big League Chew stuck to your butt hair in the morning; it hurts to watch. If there was a race for overacting (It wouldn't be a race it would be a marathon) Paul Dano would be at the front of the pack.

Then Ruby Sparks farts out the idea that Paul Dano is just so into writing his new romance novel that the story itself (the female character) begins to come to life, forcing us to watch imagination transgress the boundries of reality. Wow.

Unless a movie absolutley treats this device as a complete farce (like the suprisingly hilarious movie Ted), then it becomes what I call "artist" masturbation You'll probably want to tell meFight Club did this and it worked out just fine, but inFight Club's case the viewer had no idea this device (the blend of imagination and reality) was even going on. Until the very end we never even doubted that Pitt and Norton were different characters. If you did guess that they were, or simply wondered the entire movie (or maybe you read the book), the movie would become crap. This is also why subsequent viewings are less and less pleasurable.

Then there's times when people tell me that Jim Carry (or any actor/actress really) is just so into his roles that he actually becomes the character in real life. Maybe other people get off on hearing this (probably also living in a world where their favorite artists tear the flesh off a live pig next to Zeus and Apollo), but for me its this kind of pretentiousness that makes me gag.

So Ruby Sparkssucks. Dont waste your time with it.

Didn't realize you could upload images onto posts (because I'm a nutsack), but now I do. So here's the back of some dooger's shaved head; a hairstyle which doesn't even make a cameo in the film. That doesn't matter because hundreds of burly men do. Love it. Also, maybe you weren't aware (I certainly wasn't) but "celda" is Spanish for "Zelda," the wonderful action-RPG from your boy Nintendo. Wait. This just in. Apparently "celda" does not mean "Zelda" but actually means "cell." Ohhhhh hot-dog, so that's why the whole movie takes place in a prison. Where were my balls on that one?

Cell 211 is a movie about some stuff and things that pile up on each other until it becomes one big gang bang. There's so much testosterone flying around this movie I don't don't where to begin. You have your standard "I'm a good dude who gets mixed in with bad dudes then comes to realize that the good dudes are sort of bad and the bad dudes weren't as bad as I originally thought" plot. You have your standard "cops treat prisoners like smelly dogfarts" thing going on. And you have your classic revenge tail, where prisoners take hostages and demand cocaine and shrimp (white wine and shrimp, more like it) in hopes that someday their dirty underwear can be a little less dirty. Did I mention there were a lot of dudes in this movie?

While two prison employees are letting a new employee in on the 411 about his new job, the noobie gets clonked on the head with a hard turd that falls from heaven or something (maybe a brick from the ceiling). When the dude comes to he realizes he has awoken in the middle of a monkey cage (because according to this movie all prisoners act like horny monkeys), where he is a banana and all the other monkeys are starving. As the only banana, he is taken to the monkey king. Kings eat before peasants, obviously. However this banana has some incredible lying skills and convinces everyone that he is in fact not a banana, but actually just some monkey that looks less hairy, more yellow and tastier than the rest of the ape family. So from then on a banana becomes the monkey king's right hand fruit.

I just thought of a saying two seconds ago when I was trying to figure out what to write here: Movies that are only serious and nothing else can't be taken seriously. Actor's facial expressions often resemble the face you make moments before your butt touches base with the can. Most of the dialogue was probably first written by the Denver Broncos then translated into Spanish. And finally did I or did I not mention there were a lot of dudes in this movie?

Life has a clear beginning and end, but I don't see why almost every movie plot needs to follow that same format. Not saying that all movie plots literally begin with the birth of something and end with its death, but instead I'm suggesting they commonly begin with the so-called "Hollywood Beginning" and end with its short-bus brother the "Hollywood Ending." The "Hollywood Beginning" being any plot that starts by using devices that force milk down our throats until we burst or finally understand what's going on, while its counterpart "Hollywood Ending" ensures you that the plot is over (along with the entire fake reality your brain has just been processing for the last 2 hours) and not talking about you behind your back after you leave the theater.

What I like about Looper is the beginning. No instruction manual, just drops you into the middle of the main characters situation (Just watch the trailer and you'll find out what that is exactly) like a sumo wrestler would on your newborn baby brother. This is obviously a more dangerous move in far-fetched plots since it could turn out like pushing a computer with a linux OS in front of your grandma and asking her to get it on the local network, but Looper is paced well enough and acted well enough to have us naturally get on board with what's going on and yes, even start to feel for the main character and the people around him. Brilliant.

What I don't like about Looper is the latter half and the god awful ending. It takes everything that was semi-unique and compelling about the first 30 minutes and tosses it out the window with a lit molotov cocktail in its mouth, the only remaining shred being "It's me (and my future self) against a brigade of unfair big shlongs" plot, or in other words, the "Minority Report" plot. This time it worked out to the same effect of sticking your mom in the ring with Mike Tyson, we have to watch our cool main character sit side by side with his future brainless, professional death machine self, who wields uzzies like he's on the set of the next Die Hard installment. Other plot stuff comes up later that I don't want to talk about, makes me sicks just thinking about it. Plus it's a spoiler warning thing-a-ma-bob.

The daily life of a looper interests me, including that detail about possibly killing your future self. But a movie based around this detail alone is doomed to follow a path that leads to a big pile of already been used toilet paper. Looper already had a dark story of drug addiction, daily executions, the disposal of such victimes, coping with co-workers who shot their future self, or didn't shoot their future self and were on the run. This is plenty of entertainment to fill a two-hour time slot, not 20 minutes then wash away like last nights puke.

Over the years I've gotten fatter. Can't hit a baseball like I used to (something I was never that good at to begin with). And my tastes, along with opinions, have changed. Dramatically. What I used to find good and entertaining is really bland and crappy nowadays. Sort of makes me look back on my younger days and wonder," What the hell was I smoking?"

Even how I play games has changed. The whole experience has gone through the meatgrinder a hundred times without even me realizing it. At one time in my life I could have gamed for 48 hours straight if my parents hadn't been around to prevent that catastrophy from happening. Today, if it's somehting that's really licking my nipples, I'll top out around 2 hours.

It's not that I don't like the games of 2012, it's just that my forehead is starting to show more wrinkles than I care to admit.

Happy Hunting!

Writing about games is still new to me, so forgive me for what I've been calling " game reviews." Actually I feel a bit hesitant to call them reviews since they barely scratch the surface of what you'd expect from a professional review. Look at them more as proof to how I passed the time.