Well, despite having absolutely nothing to do, and being mind-numbingly bored, for the past however-many days I haven’t posted in awhile. But all that is about to change. As part of a major effort to beat my life into shape, I’m going to write a post. How does this help me get my shit together when I could be sorting through my possessions, dealing with my student loans, working, packing for grad school, or engaging in communication with actual human beings? no clue. Moving on.
Reviews:
Superbad - One word review: Hilarious. More detailed review: Probably the funniest movie I’ve seen all year, certainly as good as Knocked Up and Hot Fuzz. What an awesome year for comedies, especially compared to last year which produced what…Clerks 2? Idiocracy? Both decent, but I wouldn’t go out and buy either one. You should be able to figure out if you’re going to like this from the trailers and, if you don’t like it, you can’t be my friend. I think I’m going to go watch it again later this week.
Disturbia – Not a bad little thriller, but not really all that remarkable. Worth a rental, and would probably make a decent date movie since it’s brainless and there are some parts that generate those minor scares that girls are into (for a more detailed description of what horror flicks are acceptable on a date see chapter 5 of Dan’s Bad Life Decisions: “Thinking it would be a good idea to watch The Devil’s Rejects with a girl”). On another note, what the fuck kind of name is Shia LaBeouf? It sounds like something out of a cartoon. His parents should be beaten and mocked, as I’m sure young Shia was in middle school. Luckily, Tyrannosaurus Rex but-instead-of-arms-Velociraptors-for-arms Yingst will never experience that pain.
Black Sheep – Black Sheep is a movie about mutant sheep that eat people. Furthermore, when people are bitten by the evil sheep they become mutated anthropomorphic carnivorous sheep themselves. This is all a lot scarier when you realize it takes place in New Zealand, where there is a 17 billion:1 sheep to person ratio. Needless to say, this movie is fucking sweet. It kinda reminded me of Dead Alive, one of Peter Jackson’s earliest films, which is possibly the most awesome zombie movie ever. Black Sheep did suffer, however, from the lack of a Kung-Fu priest who kicked ass for the lord, gets impaled on an angel statue, and has zombie sex to create an evil zombie baby before being decapitated with a lawnmower. Also, New Zealanders apparently love insane amounts of ridiculous gore (played for comic effect), which is never ever a bad thing (see lawnmower scene, Dead Alive). I love the black-comedy/horror genre. (go buy Slither, right now, and while you’re at it buy Evil Dead 2, and Bubba Ho-Tep. I’ll wait.)
Death at a Funeral - Quirky British comedy that has a gay blackmailing midget as a key character. Plus Alan Turdyk! A little too unfocused to be truly great but pretty good nonetheless try to catch it if you don’t live in a cultural wasteland like Hanover and can actually see independent movies in the theater.
Running Scared – This one came like a year ago and I was initially reluctant to watch it because it didn’t get stellar reviews and starred the less-than-awesome Paul Walker as the lead character. Nevertheless, my weakness for beautiful woman willing to watch movies with me overwhelmed my snobiness and I was pleasantly surprised. After the opening sequence, which was edited in a manner designed to make Tony Scott barf, the director’s meth apparently wore off and the result was kinda entertaining. There was still weird editing, but it actually worked, and the movie was really really intense and grimy (and super bloody), which was cool since I haven’t really watched anything like it recently. Plus, the pedophiles scene was one of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen. I’d be interested to see what the director did next and it’s a shame this movie fell so far off the radar, and as I look on IMDB I realize that the director also wrote/directed The Cooler, which is a fantastic movie. Of course, he also directed Mindhunters…
I was going to talk about some books but I haven’t actually been reading anything new so I’m not going to bother (although I will drop a recommendation for Connie Willis’ The Doomsday Book) . I’m hoping to get a look at the Rob Zombie Halloween (which I’m pumped for, Zombie knows how to do classic 70s horror) and the BBC series Jekyll, which had gotten some buzz on the various nerd blogs that I read. Also to alleviate to soul crushing tedium of being at home I’m trying to plan a road trip to visit all my various friends in easy driving distance, so hopefully tales of drunken debauchery in various locales will follow.
