A Wretched Hive: Why I Hate Facebook

Here at the Nursery I generally like to keep things positive. I tend to like to write about things that I actually enjoy, you know? Today's different. I'm in serious journalist mode today. I'm in the mood to write about everything that's wrong with the world and what we can do about it. Well, that and I kind of just wanted to rant about "kids these days" and why they suck.

So with that out of the way I'd like to say a few words about Facebook.com (my nemesis). Now before I continue I need to make it clear that I don't think Facebook in and of itself is a bad thing. Facebook is just like the oxygen destroyer in Godzilla. It's just a tool that has the potential to be devastating when in the wrong hands. Of course there are some big differences between Facebook and the oxygen destroyer. For starters, Dr. Serizawa is, like, a gazillion times cooler than Mr. Zuckerberg. That's just a fact of life, and it will continue to be so until Mark drops the fleeces and flip-flops and starts sporting a badass eyepatch. More importantly, though, is that Dr. Serizawa never released his deadly invention to the public, whereas Facebook has infected the modern world like plague.

Facebook started off catering to college kids, which I get. I mean, no offense to that segment of the population, but they're not exactly the most discerning bunch of people. To a bunch of bored, lonely, tech-savvy 18 year-olds, I can totally see where something like Facebook would look like a great way to waste your time. At least to a point. I don't get the staying power of Facebook. I don't get why people stay on it for years. I don't get so-called "addictions" to Facebook, and I'm baffled by full-grown adults who use the site.

Let me back up for a second and talk about my (brief) Facebook experience. I had an account a few years back. It was mildly entertaining at the outset. As should be no surprise to anybody who reads this blog, I initially got into making sure my list of favorite films was just right (Star Wars and The Matrix got top billing, if I remember correctly). I cluttered my page with different apps, all of which were utterly pointless yet entertaining in a mindless sort of way. I posted reviews for different books I had read. Whether anybody actually cared about what I had to say about the Battle Royale manga or Gloria Stuart's autobiography was beside the point. My Facebook page was simply a shrine to my nerdy teenage self. Nothing more, nothing less. It was fun for a year and then I grew up.

So that's what I don't get in regards to Facebook. It's beyond me how people can stay devoted to the site for any significant length of time. And now with adults getting in on the Facebook action my mind is blown even further. Facebook makes sense if your a wayward teen looking for friends, independence, and an identity, but don't the mature among us have better things to do than stare at a webpage with a cheesy picture of themselves at the top?

Believe me, I wanna be open minded about this. As I've said in other posts, I'm a fan of the Internet. I want to be on board with what's big on the web, but every time I hear about the pics you posted on Facebook I just die a little bit inside. The narcissism of it is what gets to me. That and the utter lack of creativity that goes into using Facebook. Don't get me wrong, stalking random people on Facebook can provide hours of voyeuristic entertainment. I equate it to a sort of digital Rear Window scenario (presumably minus the murder). But the kind of fun provided by Facebook is an empty calorie sort of entertainment. It keeps you from gnawing your limbs off in boredom, but it's not intellectually or emotionally stimulating in the slightest. I feel as if we'd all be a little more interesting if we just stepped away from the Internet more often, but especially if we stepped away from Facebook.

Three Classic Pokemon That Did Their Own Thing

Back when I was a wee child playing/watching Pokemon I tended to gravitate toward the critters I found "cool". This means that I was all about Pokemon like Charizard, Gyarados, and Mewtwo. You know, the Kanto region's resident badasses. But, whilst rewatching some old episodes of Pokemon: Adventures in the Orange Islands, I began to acquire an appreciation for a different kind of creature. You see, while I still have a love for the cool kids, as an adult I've really begun to appreciate the weirdos of the Pokemon kingdom. I'm talking about the "one of these things is not like the other" types of Pokemon, the monsters that make you wonder what the good folks at Nintendo were smoking. In the tradition of my other "top three" lists on Zombie Baby Nursery I have decided to countdown my three favorite lovable Pokemon oddballs. What they lack in cuteness and coolness they make up for in sheer eccentricity. NOTE: I have only included Pokemon from the original 151, since that group is both the one I am most familiar with, as well as the one I have the most fondness for.

1. Lickitung. Okay, here we've got a short pink creature whose enormous tongue is twice the size of its body. With one lick it can "can paralyze foes and leave a tingling sensation". Absolutely terrifying. The fact that this creature ever got past the concept design sessions and into the TV show (and video games) is a bit of a shocker. A creature with a six foot tongue not only lends itself to some rather obvious sex jokes, it also looks pretty damn weird. That said, there's something kind of endearing about Lickitung. It's round body and stubby limbs make it rather cute. There's also something appealing about the soft, bubblegum pink color of Lickitung. It's disturbing and cute all in one Poke-package. Also, is it just me or does Lickitung bear a striking resemblance to Quina from Final Fantasy IX?

2. Jynx/Mr. Mime. The concept of Pokemon works because the creatures that you capture, raise, and force to fight are just that, creatures. Jynx and Mr. Mime are terrifying because they blur the line between human and Pokemon. They are definitely not people in the way that Ash, Misty, and Brock are (this is made clear by the fact that they can only say their names, in typical Pokemon fashion). And yet, they look human. So what's their deal? If only I knew.

3. Drowzee. Drowzee weirds me out partly for the same reasons that Jynx and Mr. Mime do: it just looks a little too humanoid for comfort. What's really freaky about Drowzee, though, is that while it is a bit like a human (in its body posture and its biped nature), it has distinctly animal qualities. Of course, one of its most animalistic characteristics is its small trunk. The weird mix of animal and human qualities make Drowzee a Pokemon that is too eccentric, and thus awesome, for words.

The Science of Snorlax Cute

This afternoon I was lounging in front of the TV revisiting old episodes of the Pokemon cartoon. I was burning through episodes of the Orange Islands season, in which Ash takes on the island dwelling "Orange Crew" gym leaders with the help of his spunky gal pal Misty, the lovable dork Tracy Sketchit, and a handful of pocket monsters.

In the episode entitled "Snack Attack" Ash and crew stumble upon an island famous for its abundance of grapefruit trees. While here they have a chat with the locals (par for the course in a Pokemon episode!) and discover that their grapefruit trees are being ravaged by a mysterious thief. To make a long story short, the thief in question turns out to be none other than the lovable ball of lard known as Snorlax. What follows is a comedy of errors in which Ash and his friends, along with the inept career criminals Jesse and James, try to put an end to Snorlax's wild feeding frenzy. Eventually Ash is able to send Snorlax off to dreamland and capture him in a pokeball, but this happens only after many failed attempts and cheesy puns (a swimming Snorlax is said to be swimming the "blubberfly" as opposed to the butterfly).

Overall I've got no complaints about this episode, it was almost 20 solid minutes of Snorlax gold. It just got me wondering, why is Snorlax so cute? Why am I at the mercy of his adorable fatness?

I did some quick research online about the science and psychology behind cuteness. An article from the New York Times entitled "The Cute Factor" delves into the science behind cuteness and helps explain why Snorlax's extra poundage and waddle are so painfully adorable. Turns out we human beings are hardwired to find our offspring ascetically pleasing. This is nature's way of getting us to actually take care of our kids. Apparently mother nature feels that the human race is comprised almost entirely of shallow bastards who'd cut a kid off for being too ugly. Sadly this isn't entirely off the mark. As another article points out, "Women developed an appreciation of cuteness and, choosing to lavish more care on the cuter babies, gave them the best chance of survival." Turns out that shallow is etched into our DNA!

What does this have to do with our bud Snorlax, who is neither human nor a baby? Human beings attributing baby characteristics as cute doesn't have to stop at the babies. As the New York Times article clarifies, "The human cuteness detector is set at such a low bar, researchers said, that it sweeps in and deems cute practically anything remotely resembling a human baby or a part thereof..." Therefore Snorlax, with his toddler-like crawl, stubby limbs, and pudgy body ignite our parental instincts just by vague association.

Finally the New York Times article goes on to discuss the different cultural meanings and use of cuteness. While "cute" is a standard "look" across human cultures, different cultures react to cuteness differently. Of course cuteness is much more prevalent in Japanese culture than it is in American culture. The article explains the Japanese fascination with cute as follows, "Behind the kawaii phenomenon, according to Brian J. McVeigh, a scholar of East Asian studies at the University of Arizona, is the strongly hierarchical nature of Japanese culture. 'Cuteness is used to soften up the vertical society,' he said, 'to soften power relations and present authority without being threatening.' While this may explain the appeal of Snorlax and fellow Pokemon in their native land, it leaves out why these creatures have found so much cross appeal in the United States. Personally, I attribute the American cute appeal of Snorlax partly to its foreign quality. Since novelty is part of cuteness, and since Snorlax, Pikachu, and the like look so different from Walt Disney's creations, I think it is safe to say that many Americans are attracted to Snorlax for its refreshing take on "awwww".

Book Review: No Borders, No Limits

I found out about Mark Schilling's No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema through some late night browsing on Amazon.com. I did a bit of research on this title and found that I had never seen most of the movies it covered. What pushed me to buy it, however, was that the small handful of movies it covered that I had seen were ones that I loved and wanted to know more about (namely Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter and Tokyo Drifter). Utilizing some basic logical thinking I figured that if I loved those titles then surely I'd enjoy learning more about the genre they belonged to. And you know what? I was right.

The first thing that struck me about this book when I finally got it in my grimy little mitts was the physicality of it. The book is compact in size, with sturdy glossy pages packed with full page, full color reprints of retro Japanese movie posters and publicity photos. Even if the text had been a bust the book would still be an A+ in the design department. It's the perfect size to either carry around with you or to squeeze into that last coveted space on your bookshelf.

OK it's pretty, but does it have anything to say? While the scope of the book is limited by its slim page count (154 pages, many of which are packed with pics), it still works well as an introduction to the action films produced by Nikkatsu (Japan's oldest major film studio) from around the mid-1950's to the early 1970's. What made these pics unique, as Schilling explains in the book, is their mixture of Eastern and Western influences combined with a high dosage of cool. The book is split into four sections (not including the introduction and brief history lesson at the beginning), with each section further subdivided into specific actors, actresses, or directors. This layout makes it easy for the reader to jump to topics that interest them instead of reading from cover to cover. It also makes this a pretty solid and easy to use reference book to have on your shelf.

While it never gets super in-depth on any of the movies it covers, No Borders, No Limits is a great intro to a style of film that many Americans are probably unaware of. It's also an engaging and quick read that one could breeze through in a day or two. Its brevity leaves the reader with plenty of time to peruse the Internet for more information. Veteran viewers of Nikkatsu product who already know the history of the studio might not get a ton of new information from it, but they should still gain enjoyment from Schilling's interviews with actor Joe Shishido and director Toshio Masuda.

Recommended.

Super 8: Giant Aliens and Other Rites of Passage

I didn't really have a ton of drive to go out and see Super 8. It wasn't like I was boycotting the movie or anything, but it didn't really hold much interest to me. So what turned me around? A simple lack of anything better to do.

Let's do a quick rundown of what this pic's about. Our hero is the adolescent Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney). The movie opens with the death of his mother in a factory accident. At the funeral that we are introduced to the major players in the movie, the most important whom are Joe's father (Kyle Chandler) and Joe's ragtag group of best buds. Cut to four months later and the boys are in the midst of filming a zombie movie on a Super 8 camera. In need of an actress to play the female lead they recruit the help of Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning). The crew then hikes out to remote railway station to film a scene for their zombie flick. Whilst filming, Alice and the boys are witness to a massive train crash which sends a alien loose on their small Ohio town. Wackiness ensues.

That's really the main stuff you need to know about the plot. Despite what the initial trailers may have led you to believe, Super 8 is not some thriller with a killer last minute twist. It's actually a pretty straightforward coming of age tale/children's adventure story mixed with a monster movie (though to be fair that mix significantly favors the coming of age tale of the monster story).

To me the movie shined brightest when it focused on the kids. Now normally child actors get a bad rap. And it's true, a lot of them tend to come across as obnoxious, overly precocious creeps. But the kids in Super 8 aren't like that, instead they generally act like real live kids. Elle Fanning, not surprisingly, stands out among the kids. Her innocent romance with the protagonist is incredibly sweet and believable. If I had any major complaints it would actually be that they didn't focus on the kids enough. When the movie shifts to focus on the military or the adults it slowed the film down for me considerably. I would have liked for these scenes to have been replaced with further characterization of the boys. In particular the chubby loud-mouthed friend and the kid with the fireworks fetish were really entertaining, and were ripe for more screen time.

I feel obligated to say a few words about the alien even though I don't have all that much to say about him. The alien looks good and is both menacing and sympathetic when he needs to be. He gets the job done, but he's look isn't going to be seared into my brain or anything. As the alien is really only a secondary aspect to the movie, however, this didn't bother me all too much.

I have a feeling that kids will eat this story up. Adults will get a kick out of it too. Super 8 doesn't really cover any new ground, but it's a solid reworking of a classic adventure story that was pretty solid to begin with. As long as you're inner child isn't completely dead and buried I recommend you check this out. Oh, and be sure to stick around through the credits to see the kids' zombie movie, "The Case" in its entirety. I'm not going to lie, a part of me feels that The Case was the best part of the movie. Initially expecting a cheap gag, I was surprised at its legitimate comic and entertainment value.

Meatball Machine Reject of Death: A Brilliant Exercise in Weirdness

Meatball Machine: Reject of Death is ten minutes of your life you'll never get back. Thankfully Reject of Death is such a glorious, transcendent experience that you're not going to want to hand those minutes back. If anything you'll be coming back for seconds or thirds of meatball-y goodness.

Reject of Death is a 2007 short film which, according to IMDB is directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura, the special effects artist who worked on The Machine Girl. Outside the Internet it can be found as an extra on the DVD for Meatball Machine, a feature length film that tells a blood soaked tale of a budding romance interrupted by parasitic aliens. Presumably Reject of Death is supposed to in some way connect to Meatball Machine, but the only similarities I could find between the two movies are stylistic and not narrative ones. So it's entirely possible to enjoy Reject outside of the context of Meatball Machine and vice versa. Still, if you're the type of person to likes this sort of stuff (gore cranked to the highest level mixed with Japanese flavored eccentricities), then you're going to want to indulge in both films eventually.

Alright, so what's Reject of Death about? Good question. I haven't a clue. The most appealing thing about Reject of Death is that it follows a sort of music video logic. There is a loose plot, but mostly it seems to exist to showcase a series of striking and hilariously offensive images. The film begins with a forlorn schoolgirl slicing her wrist up with a box cutter. Cutting seems to be a reoccurring theme is these bizarre Japanese gore movies particularly those directed by Nishimura. Take, for example, the wrist cutting commercial in Tokyo Gore Police or the wrist cutting competition in Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (in which the loser accidentally hacks her own arm off!) A schoolgirl with a box cutter isn't the only aspect part of Reject that would later be incorporated into Tokyo Gore Police or Vampire Girl. There's the whole schoolgirl with a giant blade for an arm that reminded me of both the engineers in Tokyo Gore Police and the title character of The Machine Girl. The squirm-inducing yet hilarious make-up used in Reject to create the black tourist was then later used to create a satirical clique of Obama worshiping ganguro girls in Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl.

So perhaps there really are no original ideas left in this world. Who cares? I dare you to walk away from Reject of Death without an emotional reaction, whether that reaction be pure delight or complete and utter confusion. Now a video that gets reactions like this? That's entertainment, my friends.

Infuriating and Lovable Youtube Cliches

Over the last five years of my life I've spent way too much time on the Internet. Much of this time, in particular, was wasted watching videos and/or listening to music on Youtube. Hell, even as I write this I am listening to The Machine Girl soundtrack via Youtube and after that video ends I'll probably click on something else (and wash, rinse, repeat 'til I step away from my laptop). What attracted me to the site initially was the wide range of videos available at my finger tips. When that appeal wore off the site became both a symptom and cause of boredom and frustration. Don't get me wrong I still love the site, but a lot of times nowadays I visit it more for a quick distraction rather than out of genuine interest. I will often get stuck on certain videos too (the Precious trailer was a big favorite of mine a few years back...don't ask me why) and watch these over and over with a single-minded zombie-esque intensity.

Let's be honest, there's a vast amount of crap on that there website. And I mean vast. Like, enough fecal matter to fill the Grand Canyon three times over type of vast. Many of these crappy vids in question feature such loathsome cliches as lip syncing, "cute" cats, "witty" pop song parodies, and/or screaming as a form of humor. This post's not going to be about what I hate on Youtube, though that topic could indeed account for a encyclopedia's worth of blog posts. But no. Instead I wanted to compose a little list of Youtube video cliches that, while I may not actively like them, are endearing in their cheesy Internet-ness (for lack of a better word). What amuses me about the following types of videos is that they have absolutely no meaning or purpose outside of the context of Internet fan culture. And that is exactly what makes them both so infuriating and hilarious. So without further ado here's my three picks for the best (and I mean worst...kinda) Youtube fan video cliches:

1. The tribute video
Tribute videos are the ever-present yet incredibly strange style of Youtube video in which a fangirl (or boy) posts what is usually a slideshow of pictures of their favorite celebrity. What makes them so strange is that they are often simply a static slideshow of pictures ripped from Google images set to a cheesy pop or country song, yet they still manage to get views and comments. I suppose a lot of their popularity can be chalked up to hormonal teenagers lusting over celebs they've got crushes on. Still that doesn't make them any less of an interesting phenomenon, as you have to admire the sincerity of the tribute video creator. Check out this Wikihow article entitled "How to Make a Tribute Video" My favorite bit in the article is when the author stresses the importance of music in the tribute genre, " A silent tribute is the worst you could do, because then it's just like staring at still pictures which lacks emotion." While I will never make a tribute vid in my life, I've got to admire the pure love and total lack of irony that people put into them.

2. The lyrics video
The lyrics video is an extremely straight forward creature. These videos generally consist of a song playing as the song's lyrics are simultaneously flashed across the video screen. They seem to exist solely to turn Youtube into a music player. Which I haven't got a problem with. What I do find funny, is many lyric video maker's apparent delusion that they are in anyway responsible for the views their video gets. Look, people are clicking on your video just because they wanted to listen to Justin Bieber, or Miley Cyrus, or whatever else that tasteless assholes listen to nowadays (just kidding, "See You Again" is a stirring composition). And yet, just as I admire the tribute vid creators in some ways, I admire the way that lyrics video creators obliviously take responsibility and pride in a video whose major components don't belong to them. And confidence is sexy...right?

3. The longest note video
This is a much rarer species of vid than the first two that I discussed, but it's still got Internet fandom written all over it. Longest note videos simply consist of a clip of famous singer belting out a note and holding it for as long as possible. These clips are often taken from concert footage. A cousin of the longest note genre, in my opinion, would be the movie quote video. The movie quote video consists simply of a fan favorite moment from a film. I want to say something sarcastic and snarky about these types of videos, but in reality I actually think they're making a pretty good use of the medium. Fans can point, click, and watch without having to invest a significant amount of time into doing so. Are these types of videos obsessive and geeky? Yeah, but that's why they're fun.

We Are Wizards: An Endearing Mess

After I wrote my last post I did a bit of Internet searching. You know I wasn't a big fan of Nerdcore Rising so I really just wanted to see how the movie was received by the world at large (or, at least, the two other people who actually saw it). So, okay, I just wanted some validation, but don't we all? Anyway, the point of this story is that in the process of reading up on Nerdcore Rising, I read about this other movie called We Are Wizards. Wizards is a documentary from the same year that, like Nerdcore, deals with topics such as fandom and fan art. Whereas Nerdcore focused on a small group of guys chasing their geeky dreams, Wizards is much more broad in scope.

That's kind of being nice. Honestly, Wizards is so broad in scope that it ends up being a bit of a pointless mess. To be fair, it's a rather entertaining mess, but it's still a mess nonetheless. Basically We Are Wizards is a broad 77-minute (or so) examination of the wild world of Harry Potter fandom. Anybody who knows anything about those crazy HP kids knows that this is a rich subject for examination. Like Star Wars, Harry Potter's a cultural phenomenon that appeals to everybody from the most devout freakshow diehards to the casual admirers. This fan diversity ultimately hurts the film though, as it follows a lot of people and says a lot of things without ever making any kind of worthwhile statement.

An example of the film's schizophrenic personality: the movie opens with a voiceover by a Christian "documentary filmmaker" (I put this in quotes because, let's be honest, this woman doesn't exactly ooze credibility) explaining the dangers of Harry Potter. She goes into the standard bit about YA lit secretly being occultist propaganda and all that bullshit that publicity hungry Christians peddle. My problem with her inclusion in the movie is that, right after her intro, the movie drops her like a hot potato and doesn't come back to her or address her contrary point of view 'til a good fifty-minutes later. Why? If you're willing to say something new or interesting about the religious controversy surrounding the Potter franchise, then by all means dive in, but don't waste my time if you have new ground to cover or aren't willing to spend enough time on the matter to develop interesting questions.

I'm picking on the Christian lady just because the whole religious people who oppose Harry Potter thing has been so talked about to death that it's barely even any fun to mock them anymore. But just 'cause I'm picking on Sister Christian doesn't mean that there aren't other parts of the movie's structure that I had major problems with. As evidenced by the whole religious thing, We Are Wizards tends to ask interesting questions and then proceed to to ignore them. One sizable chunk of the movie deals with a group of fans boycotting Harry Potter film merchandise after a few teenage Harry Potter website owners received cease and desist letters from Warner Bros. This could have opened up an interesting discussion of copyright laws in the Internet age, but instead the movie moves away from this issue to focus cute, but uber-fluffy footage of elementary school age children singing "wizard rock" songs onstage.

To be fair the film's not all disappointment and wasted potential. I genuinely liked most of the fans that were interviewed. There's a diverse cast of characters here, but most of them seemed very human and sincere. Some of my favorites were the artsy parents whose young boys (and I do indeed mean young, as in one is four-years old) are in a band that sings Harry Potter rock songs on stage in front of sizable crowds of fans. These parents were endearing in their hippie-ish take on childcare. They bought cheap guitars and laid them around the house in an attempt to get their kids to pick up and play and to live creative lives. It's an eccentric parenting style, but an endearing and well-intentioned one as well. And even I gotta admit that their kids were pretty darn kawaii.

We Are Wizards admittedly does manage to capture a bit of that pure blast of joy that comes from being young and infatuated with a particular fandom. However it never sustains this feeling, or really any other concrete feeling, throughout the entirety of its 77 minute runtime. Wizards is the kind of movie that would work better as a series of interviews on Youtube than as a feature length documentary.

Nerdcore Rising: Cool to be Uncool

Is it just me, or does it seem like recently everybody's been scrambling to label themselves as nerds or geeks? This trend is especially visible (and ridiculous) in interviews with high profile actresses and models, yet I also meet kids everyday who proudly declare themselves as nerds, geeks, dorks, or other variations thereof. I have to say that I'm not quite on board with this fad. I'm from the school of thought that if you have to convince me that you're X, then you're probably actually Y. Know what I'm saying? It goes back to the whole "show don't tell" thing.

So with that said I acknowledge that perhaps I'm not in the intended audience for Nerdcore Rising, a 2008 documentary chronicling the concert tour of one Damian "MC Frontalot" Hess. So why did I watch it? Because it was available, looked passably entertaining in an oddball sort of way, and I needed to fill some time. Yes perhaps I don't always have the highest standards, but there you go.

I'll let you know right now that I didn't really like this movie. I didn't actively dislike it, I just walked away feeling a bit "whatever" about the whole thing. This isn't to say that I didn't want to like it a lot. Damian, aka Frontalot was a genuinely likeable person. His bandmates similarly came across as a group of down-to-earth guys with great senses of humor. The sense of camaraderie amongst Frontalot and his merry band, which often manifests itself in wookie imitations, was also inspiring. Everybody seemed to enjoy each other's company and accept each other's faults and limitations. Thus Nerdcore Rising thankfully remains devoid of the usual petty drama that you often see in movies about bands such as this.

MC Frontalot's fans were generally sympathetic characters as well. Many of these fans were quite obviously true blue nerds and outcasts who found some solace and sense of belonging in Frontalot's so-called "nerdcore" brand of hip-hop.

So what's my problem then? Honestly, I just couldn't get into the music. Nerdcore, a genre that MC Frontalot claims to have invented, is simply hip-hop with stereotypically "nerdy" lyrics. Thus we get songs about Internet porn, Star Wars conventions, and slave Leia outfits. Yawn. Don't get me wrong, I love Star Wars as much as the next person, but I'm pretty bored with generic references to "the trilogy" in geek culture. To make matters worse, behind the cliche lyrics the songs weren't all that catchy. In another movie the strength of the characters might have pushed these issues out of my thoughts, but since the music is the centerpiece here it's hard to ignore its mediocrity.

But as I stated earlier I don't think I'm a part of the intended audience for this movie. MC Frontalot's tour ends at the Penny Arcade Expo where he gets to feel like a rock star whilst performing in front of a massive crowd of fans. Cut into this final segment are interviews with various online video game personalities, most notably the creators of the popular webcomic Penny Arcade. Now back in my early teens I used to read Penny Arcade regularly. I was up on my video game news then, so I understood every obscure in-joke in the comic and I reveled in the fact that I got these jokes. Perhaps if I had discovered nerdcore then I would have thought it was cool, but alas that time is over and now I just couldn't get into it.

Damn. Now I feel old.

What Ever Happened to the Dell Dude?

It was about six months ago now that I was sitting around and wondering aloud, "What ever happened to that 'Dude, you're getting a Dell guy'?" I think it's a valid question. In the early 2000's that guy's weaselly little slacker face was flashed across TV screens at a near constant basis. And then...nothing.

A quick bit of Internet research will clue you in on what happened to the Dell dude aka "Steven" aka the real life actor Ben Curtis. Apparently Mr. Curtis's career reached a screeching halt after he was arrested, whilst wearing a kilt, for attempting to buy a bag of marijuana on the streets of NYC. You can see Curtis himself explain the situation in this video at around the 2:00 mark. This incident proved to be the death of the poor Steven character and his Dell hawking ways. Ben Curtis subsequently faded from the public eye as well. An article from 2007 has Ben working at the Tortilla Flats, a New York bar which is described as belonging to "...that species of cantina where you can scream 'whoo-hoo!,' make a lasso out of your Brooks Brothers belt and still find a date." Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

As much as I hated those Dell commercials back in the day and as much as I find this whole story perversely funny, it's hard not to feel a bit sorry for old Ben (Curtis, not Kenobi). This guy had ambitions of becoming a real actor and had even put in some time at NYU to show for it. And yet perhaps it's this desire for a real career that only makes the punchline that much more potent and ironic.

...Or perhaps I'm over analyzing? Oh well, you have to admit that it's a great story.

A Machine Girl Retrospective

It's been about three years now since The Machine Girl was first released to the American public. It's honestly hard for me to imagine a time before this little piece of Japanese splatter comedy gold came into my life. A world without killer ninjas in tracksuits and prosthetic chainsaw legs is like a summer day without sunshine. For those of you who aren't in the know (though I'm pretty sure most of the people reading this do indeed know), The Machine Girl tells the simple tale of a girl who loses her brother and her left arm to a irredeemable group of yakuza. Our protagonist then attaches a machine gun to the stump and sets out for revenge. That's it.

One of the beauties of The Machine Girl is that doesn't even try to develop an intricate plot. The characters and their motivations are exaggerated as is the violence and the gore. This approach results in an epic tale of blood, guts, and hilarity. Is it shallow? Yes, but you'd be hard pressed to find a boring second in the movie. In the spirit of my previous post on Lucio Fulci's Zombie, I have decided to do a countdown of three reasons why The Machine Girl is awesome. You can thank me later.

1. Its commentary on Japanese cuisine
The Machine Girl trailer, which is a work of art in itself, promises viewers chainsaws, a drill bra, revenge and...sushi. The sushi in question comes into play when a chef screws up on the job and is forced by the sadistic yakuza mama to eat his own fingers along with the sushi he prepared earlier. The chef's terror and anguish are, as expected, exaggerated to comic effect. As good as the sushi stuff is though, the real memorable food moment in the movie occurs when the protagonist's arm is dipped in batter and fried like "tasty tempura"! Truly there is enough culinary goodness in The Machine Girl to make both Julie and Julia green with envy.

2. The aforementioned sadistic yakuza mama
This woman beats a maid to death with her bare hands, constantly berates her husband for showing any signs of compassion, and is the owner and wearer of the deadly "drill bra" shown in the trailer. She is a hilarious villain for the ages.

3. The gore
The copious sprays of blood and gore in The Machine Girl are both impressive and funny in their excess. The special effects in the film were created by a guy named Yoshihiro Nishimura, whose previous credits include Suicide Club and Meatball Machine. Nishimura would go on to direct Tokyo Gore Police, an ultra-gory sci-fi movie with a similar brand of humor as Machine Girl. In 2009, Nishimura co-directed Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, which was basically a high school comedy with supernatural elements and lots of blood splatter.

Thor: Escape From the Renaissance Fair

The truth: I wasn't all that excited to see Thor. It's not that I was dreading it so much as I just wasn't actively interested in it. Don't get me wrong, when superhero movies are done right I can, and often will, fall in love with 'em. Last year, for example, I ended up seeing Iron Man 2 a grand total of seven times in theaters. For a number of reasons, though, Thor's no Iron Man. Whereas I went into Iron Man 2 already invested in the characters, Thor still had to lay out its lead hero's origin story. And besides that, the characters that populate the world of Thor were a hard sell to me, as a non-comics reader. Thor's blonde flowing locks and steely gaze looked like they'd be more at home on the cover of a paperback romance novel than at the head of a summer action movie. And I knew virtually nothing about Chris Hemsworth (the man who would be Thor) aside from his small roles in 2009's Star Trek and A Perfect Getaway.

OK. I'm rambling. The bottom line: going in I didn't have high expectations for Thor. I wasn't expecting it to suck, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did, you know? Well, after finally seeing Thor the other night I can safely say that it's okay. No, it's not going to light your world on fire, but I'd be damned if it doesn't entertain for one hour, thirty minutes and some change.

If you don't know what Thor's about by now then you probably don't really care, but I'll run through the major plots points regardless, just for clarity's sake. In the realm of Asgard, Thor lives with his villainous bro Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his dad Odin (Anthony Hopkins), king of the Asgardians. Thor is arrogant and hot-headed, two traits that put him in hot water and ultimately get him kicked out of Asgard. After Thor is exiled to Earth he (literally) runs into scientist Jane (Natalie Portman) and her crew (Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgard). Hijinks ensue, stuff explodes, romance blooms, and important life lessons are learned.

So the plot's pretty cliche. If you are twelve years old you might find it gripping, but the rest of us are probably going to walk away slightly less enthused. That's alright, though, 'cause it is a summer blockbuster, not classic literature. The big question is, "Is it entertaining?" To which I'd answer yes, but with reservations. Thor's fish out of water antics on Earth provide some entertaining silliness and clean fun. While I had some doubts about Mr. Hemsworth's acting prowess going into the film, he turned out to be an engaging and surprisingly charismatic lead. His budding romance with Jane was, despite its predictability, still rather sweet. Jane's not given a ton of depth. Seriously, she's a female scientist and that's pretty much it. Yet I still thought Natalie Portman did a solid job of bringing her to life. She brings energy and girlishness to the drab character of Jane.

So while I overall liked watching Thor's antics in New Mexico, Earth, it was Asgard that slowed things down. The first word that comes to mind in regards to Asgard is "cheesy". If I were to be a bit more descriptive I'd say that Asgard resembled the gaudiest renaissance fair ever. This unfortunately makes Anthony Hopkins (Odin) just another crazy old dude on the fairgrounds. Loki's character progression is even more tedious. I understand that Loki added some much needed conflict to the storyline, but did he really have to be so dry, dull, and serious? They tried to make Loki sympathetic, but to me he just came across as an uncharismatic cry baby.

Despite the tedium of Loki's scenes, however, Thor managed to entertain me enough to warrant the approx. two hours of time I had invested into it. Will I see it seven times in theaters? Uh, no. Still, while it never exceeds expectations, it manages to take care of most of the essentials. It's worth seeing if you need a superhero fix, just make sure to temper your expectations before you dive in.