So, like a genocidal dictator sick of all those (insert ethnic group) mucking up my country’s (economy/morality/religious orthodoxy/racial purity/primetime comedy lineups) … it’s time for a purge.

However, rather unlike a genocidal dictator, I don’t really want to burn any bridges. So rather than meticulously prune my 650+ list of people I may or may not have been in the same room with at some point in my 30 years of life, I’m merely judging them based on the entertainment value their status updates bring me on a semi-regular basis and deciding whether to hide any future mindless, tedious pablum from them from my news feed. In this way I still get to appear popular and someone people generally enjoy being around or occasionally listening to, or at least laughing at, while avoiding the nearly constant agitation and rage they introduce to life. Win-win!

So, fair warning, Facebook friends who will probably never read this — I’ll probably not be reading your 1 millionth update on how funny your stupid kids are, or great your friend’s brother’s stupid band is, or how much fun you had at your oh-so-clever theme party on a party bus (Party Bus!). And I certainly won’t be looking at the pictures of you and your terrible friends at some terrible bar, and I won’t be cringing at your terrible captions that you and your terrible friends find terribly funny. You’re all terrible, and I want to know nothing more about you.

Whew. I feel better already.

See you on Facebook.

This weekend I finally went to see Avatar. The man sitting next to me spent most of the movie sobbing. I couldn’t tell if it was related to the plot, although I’ll admit, I was a bit moved by the plight of the Na’vi as well. But I mean, he was sobbing. It was pretty offputting, to be honest. A man in 3D glasses, just crying his fucking eyes out. And it kind of made me want to cry, too, that and when they shoot down the giant tree and the Na’vi are all freaking out. But I didn’t. I don’t cry at movies.

The week before I went to see Up In The Air, starring George Clooney. It was a tremendous movie, great performances, great script, very insightful and moving, although a very strange one to watch by myself, considering its all about companionship and forming strong relationships and the pitfalls of a solitary, transitory lifestyle. And it really me think about the direction my life was taking. I drank that night.

In between watching these movies, my mother’s best friend passed away. He’d eaten Christmas dinner with us, and then again on my last night in Wichita. He was a very nice guy who didn’t say a whole lot.  He and my mother went to see a lot of movies. Now she’ll be watching movies alone too. Peas in a pod, me and her.

It’s good to be back.

This is a conversation I had with my friend Heather about, you guessed it, movies. (Apparently I need to change the name of this blog to “Floyd Talks To People About Movies.” Because that has a ring to it. And because it’s the only thing I chat about ever.) This conversation picks up after an exchange of pleasantries and a soliloquy by yours truly on the benefits of eating hot dogs that sounds more interesting than it was.

Floyd: hot dogs are a necessity for enjoying a filmdon’t go see Pelham 123 in the theaters it’s not terrible, but it’s very mediocrethe only reason I even went is because I was really bored and hadn’t hung out with my friends in weeks

Heather: i could tell by previews it was bad

Floyd: so I saw The Hangover this weekend

Dan: your verdict? do you want to get into this?

Floyd: I thought it was mediocre overall
although Zach G was hilarious in virtually every scene he was in
I just thought too many jokes fell flat

Dan: Did your audience of peers laugh at those jokes?

Floyd: I think I would rather have watched a movie about the pictures at the end then what happened after the mayhem
yeah, some of them
I don’t know, I was pretty drunk

Dan: I have been telling people
that if they made two DVDs
and one cost $20, and featured the entire movie with the directors cut
and one cost $19, and only had the Zack G quotes in it
I’d buy the $19 one

Floyd: totally
I might pay more for the Zach G one
include outtakes and I’m sold
one question I had leaving the theater
was that his real dick in the blowjob pictures?

Dan: no, it was black

Floyd: well, I missed that somehow
because I was STUDYING IT, man

Dan: I believe I heard that on a podcast
I didn’t think the pictures were very funny

Floyd: I mean, I figured it was fake, because there’s no way they would have allowed that in the movie, even in picture form, I wouldn’t think
I liked some of the pictures, even though they were fairly predictable
it’s just the whole “go crazy in Vegas” thing
ending up with a wrecked hotel room
Hunter Thompson really did that shit
so it’s not that funny when other people pretend they’re crazy
I mean, how the hell do you steal a tiger? while hopped up on roofies?

Dan: when is the Vegas, Baby! shit going to be played out?

Floyd: God, no shit

Dan: I mean, they’re talking about a sequel to the Hangover already

Floyd: enough
enough with Vegas

Dan: it’d have to be somewhere exotic to work
So I’m guessing Dubai?

Floyd: Singapore
Thailand

Dan: Thailand, yeah

Floyd: that place has no laws

except have fun and don’t talk to the sex slaves

Dan: but Dubai could be funny, because of all the laws

Floyd: Dubai would be weird, but I’d watch just cause that place fascinates me
they have slave labor over there

Dan: kinda

Floyd: and you have to be a millionaire to live there basically

Dan: The Beckhams could cameo!

Floyd: and Britney
she and Lohan are there all the time
which makes Dubai lame

Dan: Paris Hilton is filming a show there

Floyd: EXACTLY
I mean, seriously, we have to legitimize Dubai now?
we really need to stop building cities in deserts
what is it about the desert that makes people go crazy?
you know what I think it is?
the heat

Dan: Do you know where this Vegas shit got rolling? Do you know what movie is to blame for starting this now played-out genre?

Floyd: hmmm
well, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas might have started things, as a book
did Deano and Frank make some terrible movie about Vegas?

Dan: Ocean’s Eleven?
the original

Floyd: possibly
but I feel like it’s more recent
like the whole late 20′s frat boy type of Vegas
Dan: Nope, I know the answer
It’s not Swingers
It’s that Saved By The Bell movie where Zack and Kelly got married in Vegas.
That’s got to be it

Floyd: you think?
was the movie Tomcats set in Vegas?

Dan: you’re the one who’s seen it

Floyd: um, no I haven’t
next question

Dan: pass

Floyd: what was less funny: the Mike Tyson scenes or the crazy Asian scenes?

Dan: Uh, I’ll go with Tyson

Floyd: so will I, but not by much
both were trying way too hard

Dan: Too long, and too advertised
Every commercial had Tyson in it

Floyd: yeah, the Tyson scene where he drums to Genesis and punches Zach G was hilarious in the previews

Dan: If it was only that part, it would have worked

Floyd: but when it finally happened in the movie, you knew exactly what was going to happen, and it wasn’t funny at all
and then his whole presence just felt really forced

Dan: you can’t ask Iron Mike to carry 15 minutes of a feature film

Floyd: unless that movie is “Tyson”
which I still want to see
apparently it’s a roundhouse of filmmaking
an uppercut of emotion

Dan: unless that movie is “Beating That One Chick”

Floyd: a T.K.O. of a biopic

Dan: it went the distance
it cut me

Floyd: By unanimous decision, Tyson wins!

Dan: cut me with EMOTION

Floyd: Some of the scenes really hit below the belt

Dan: It put me against the ropes, and wouldn’t let up!

Floyd: they don’t treat Tyson’s story with kid gloves
that’s a boxing reference, right?

Dan: uh, sure
if “take the gloves off” is, I call that one

Floyd: it’ll make you want to go home and rub vaseline all over your face?

Dan: When the credits roll, you’ll be saved by the bell.

Floyd: Excitement from bell to bell!

Dan: Uhhh… Don’t throw this fight – rush to your local theater today!

Floyd: And in this corner…ok, I’m done

Dan: thank god someone gave

Floyd: I just thought Hangover was really uneven
were you surprised that Bradley Cooper had a wife and kid at the end?
what kind of married schoolteacher wears a nice black suit like he had?

Dan: It was, but the other 5 people in the theater seemed to love love love it. So in order for us to continue getting some off-kilter laughs, yet have the movie succeed, there’s going to be some dummy gags
it seemed way too obvious that Vince Vaughn declined Cooper’s role

Floyd: haha
yeah, that was obvious
because Vaughn would have been far better
not that Cooper was that bad, but he’s no Vaughn

Dan: well, and the movie was set in Vegas
Cooper might have been okay if the whole thing didn’t scream Vaughn from Swingers

Floyd: I’m just tired of the Vegas stereotypes

Dan: hookers!

Floyd: for once, I want to see a movie about Vegas that doesn’t feel like it was sponsored by Maxim
and Axe body spray
and Bluetooth

Dan: I thought this was going to be like that
Vegas during the daylight, you know?

Floyd: you know what someone should make? a movie told from the Vegas showgirl’s perspective

Dan: I would watch that.
not the upskirt perspective?

Floyd: what skirts?
what do you think the sequin budget of Vegas is a year?

Dan: I dare not guess. if the sequel is Dubai, or Thailand, will the movie be better or worse?

Floyd: either way, worse
because they’ll just double down on everything
I’d rather just watch a movie about Zach G’s character’s daily life

Dan: I think they’ll ruin Zack’s character – they’ll turn him into the dumbest guy, like Homer Simpson on opium

Floyd: right

Dan: Or

Floyd: just more non sequiturs, just for absurdity’s sake

Dan: they might increase the improv, which would help the movie

Floyd: definitely
there were a lot of forced lines in there
like when Cooper says, totally out of rhythm, “Who invited this guy?”
you could tell he hated the line, but his director made him say it
and then they kept it in the movie for some reason

hey, speaking of hookers

Dan: uh huh

Floyd: what the hell was with Heather Graham?

Dan: she was available

Floyd: art imitates life

Dan: and she’s constantly topless

Floyd: again, art to life

Floyd: what was she supposed to be? kind of a hippy, stoned hooker chick?
she left her baby in a freaking closet with strangers

Dan: just while she got coffee!

Floyd: after marrying a guy hours after meeting him
and treating it seriously
and then we’re supposed to sympathize with her at the end?

Dan: I sympathize with all hookers

Floyd: see, it would have been funny if Ed Helms explained it that way to her face, but still decided she was better than his girlfriend at home

Dan: that is funny!
you win the screenwriting contest!

Floyd: I should make Hangover 2
guaranteed it’d be funnier than what ends up in theaters

Dan: I don’t know if that’s a guarantee
but I will say it would have good ideas

Floyd: I’m thinking “Hangover” meets “Hostel”
which would pretty much just be Hostel

Dan: haha
“Hangover” meets “American Werewolf in Thailand”

Floyd: except they’d graphically torture and murder the baby on screen
and the crowd would laugh and cheer
now we’re brainstorming!

Dan: in my sequel, designed to win over the Two and a Half Men crowd, the baby would talk.
He and Zack G would be best buds

Floyd: would the baby masturbate on its own?

Dan: no, but he would talk about breastfeeding CONSTANTLY

Floyd: well, that’s just funny

Dan: and he would question others’ manliness
he’d be like, “Don’t be such a pussy! Play russian roulette with those Ding Dangs!”

Dan: So I guess it would be Three Men and a Baby, with one extra man, and a Look Who’s Talking Baby. And Deer Hunter stuff.

Floyd: haha
I do think there needs to be more Deer Hunter spoofs man, I really want to see Zach G do DeNiro’s role in Deer Hunter

just the same movie, except with Zach G as Mike

Dan: it would challenge expectations

Floyd: and Paul Rudd instead of Christopher Walken

Dan: We have to cast Ed Helms as Walken

Floyd: oh, right
and, um, Cooper can be the guy that freaks out and gets put in the underwater cage first
or something
thinking about Deer Hunter is making me depressed

Dan: God Bless America

Floyd: you need to see Pelham 123
no you don’t

Dan: did you? WHY?
I want to see the original, though

Floyd: because Lindsey and Dave were going and I was bored and lonely
and I like subways

Dan: Christ.

Floyd: and it was pretty much what I expected
they did have an extra long preview of the new Jada Pinkett Smith vehicle “Hawthorne” though
HILARIOUS

Dan: that nurse doesn’t take any guff!

Floyd: she’s literally a strong, sassy black woman

Dan: like Madea, but a nurse, and fuckable

Floyd: it’s like they intentionally avoided any deviation from the most tired stereotypes
including ALL plot points
the funniest moment was when she’s kneeling by a patient, and she says, “Don’t you die on me!”

Dan: It’s on cable, it doesn’t need a plot
and that line is gold
always has been, always will

Floyd: Hawthorne basically exists in a world where comedy shows, satire and irony never existed

Dan: it’s a REBOOT
duh

Floyd: another great line: “Hawthorne is different from other medical shows, because it’s told from the nurse’s perspective”
which at first I thought was a blatant lie, because I thought Grey’s Anatomy was about nurses
turns out they’re actually doctors that just act like retards because, you know, nurses are terrible people

Hawthorne is out to prove that stereotype wrong

Dan: I wish it was an hour of putting IVs in veins and bringing patients warm blankets
not that nurses are useless
but they get stuck with those useless tasks

Floyd: no, nurses are very important

Dan: it’s like telling a classroom’s tale from the teacher’s aide perspective

Floyd: who else would bring sass and People magazines to a hospital?
like telling an office story from the secretary’s perspective
“Yes, please hold”
“Yes, please hold”
“He’s out to lunch”
DRAMA

Dan: “That’s the fifth call today”
“I tried to transfer a call but we got disconnected”
I’d watch it.

Floyd: but ok, I’m going to pass out now

Just read your colloquy on the Star Trek movie.  Entertaining stuff.  Two points:

BAG: 1. Dan is correct in that there’s a parallel universe angle to all this.  The various Star Trek incarnations have all made use of this device, but usually only for an episode or two.  JJ Abrams trots it out here specifically for the purpose of the reboot.  Thus, most of the events we see in the new movie represent a parallel universe/timeline, and that’s why none of this happened in Old Spock’s timeline, because he didn’t enter the universe/timeline we’re watching until his first trip through the black hole.  This is what allows JJ Abrams to now give us the young characters of the original series however he wants to present them as his movies go forward.  He doesn’t have to kowtow to Trekkie canonicity because he’s created a parallel universe, where he can decide what happens.

2.  If your question about windshields was regarding the Enterprise, then it’s answered by pointing out that what we see on the bridge is not a windshield, but rather a view screen.  But perhaps you were talking about the Romulan mining ship.  I don’t remember if it had a windshield or not.

BAG: Floyd just e-mailed me and I was about to make the same point in reply.  It’s always amazed me how much damage the Enterprise bridge takes.  A couple of photon torpedoes, or a few phaser hits, and suddenly ceiling joists are falling and little multi-colored fireworks are shooting out from various instrument bays (why do they keep 4th of July fountain fireworks under the instruments?).    Why the hell hasn’t the bridge been moved to the middle of the ship?  The entire brain trust, minus the chief of engineering and the doctor, are stationed there.

Occasionally Dan and I get together on chat and have funny conversations. I’ve been bugging him to see the new Terminator movie because it is just SO RIPE FOR RIPPING (that’s the name of your emo band), and he said that we should discuss Star Trek instead, seeing as how we’d both watched and enjoyed the recent sci-fi reboot. But because of my strangely busy schedule lately, we agreed to correspond via a succession of emails rather than a formal chat session. I think the result was probably less hilarious than the machine gun rhythms of our chats, but still worth a read and a laugh.

Note: It should be noted that Dan and I both liked this movie very much, and our nitpicking is done more for comedic purposes than for actual criticism. Also, sorry for the strange text formatting.

Also, I wanted to post this before he did, because I have fewer good posting ideas than Dan. So here you go:

Floyd: I think the Romulans go more for utility than they do beauty. So for a gigantic mining ship, maybe all those arms and stuff served some mining purpose. Still, I think I could have come up with a more efficient, less scary design. I’m still puzzled why they have an actual windshield. It just seems like that’s asking for trouble, like with the crack in it. I figured that in the future, windshields will be replaced by hi-def viewscreens fueled by an array of cameras that give you the best possible angle. Then, you know, maybe there’s an actual glass viewing area with some kind of bay doors that open. Like the sun room in “Sunshine” where people would go to commit suicide. That kind of thing.

Here’s a question – Kirk usurps control of the Enterprise by taunting Spock until he loses control of his emotions and tries to kill him. Then Kirk just immediately sits down in the chair, and everybodys all like, roll eyes, sigh, ok, let’s do this. But wasn’t Kirk yelling at Spock to set him off, thus displaying his own inherent lack of emotional control, not to mention the evidence of his incredible impulsiveness from his earlier adventures? Also, wasn’t it a pretty blatant maneuver to unnecessarily and cruelly taunt Spock into a mistake, then immediately taking his place? I’m pretty sure that crap wouldn’t fly in an episode of The Apprentice, much less on the bridge of the freaking Enterprise. I just thought that was kind of a ham-handed method to show Kirk’s ascent to captain.

But hey! Fun! Lasers! Aliens!

There’s always been a disturbing lack of robots in Star Trek. The Borg was pretty cool, but where are all the droids? Maybe back home building the ships?

Dan: I always thought Starfleet was a pretty regimented organization, but this movie proved otherwise.  Kirk was snuck on the ship without rank, then the captain promptly made him 3^rd in command, except the only witnesses to this were Spock and Sulu.  So when Kirk assumed control, there should have been a few more, “Uhh, what?  The now kidnapped captain secretly made you next in line after Spock?  Are you sure you’re not making this up to take control of the Enterprise?  Because you seem like the kind of person that cheats on tests and lies a lot.  Because you do.”

I think the next movie will deal with Klingons, and the movie after that will focus on The Borg.  Then the movie after that will focus on whales, because Star Trek, while very fun, can also be very retarded.

Floyd: Retarded. Word.

In particular, I participated in this thread on KU sports website Phog.net, which has a pretty vibrant political board full of all kinds of intelligence and crazy. Anyone that’s lived in American for more than a few months can probably imagine how this debate progressed: most people felt that Tiller’s murder was wrong, with some anti-abortion folk  carefully implying that it was also justified. Eventually the conversation got turned towards the question of when life begins, in which the various camps began debating whether that particular line was being crossed at birth/viability/moment of conception/etc.

One particularly obtuse poster named Buddy pulled out the tried-and-true emotional trigger method – he posted pictures of aborted fetuses (always a crowd-pleaser) and then asked the board how, upon viewing such stirring visual evidence, could one not conclude that abortion = murder? This was followed up with an opposing voice posting a picture of a fertilized egg and asking if it looked human as well. Buddy didn’t appreciate this:

Buddy: so really frank, because it doesn’t look like a human at the moment of conception, it’s not a human at some point? You see the problem here?

To which I unveiled my room-clearing fart of a response:

Human at some point. You are committing murder every time you masturbate. Therefore, Buddy is a mass murderer.

The 20 page, 400+ post thread ended five posts later. And that’s how I won the abortion debate. America, send your Thank You’s to Brooklyn. Next up: Poverty and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

This is a loose transcript from an email exchange I had with Dan after he asked me if he should go see the new Terminator:

Terminator – I don’t know whether to give a recommendation or not. It does have a lot of pretty well-choreographed action. It also has a lot of ridiculous, nonsensical action that leaves you less than terrified of the machines.  And the plot makes Michael Bay seem like David Mamet. (Warning: this contains a few vague spoilers, so read at your own risk. It should be noted that the plot is not the strong point of this film, so learning a bit about it shouldn’t lessen any potential enjoyment.)

There were lots of really stupid things about this movie. For instance, the motorcycle robots — it seems a little silly that they exist in the first place, seeing as how the machines have already built heavily-armed flying hovercraft called Hunter-Killers, but whatever, there they are. We’re introduced to one miraculously dodging a piece of flying debris using a series of ultra-fast calculations and incredible motorcycle stuntwork. Later this robot is defeated by a rope strung across the road, Roadrunner-style. Seriously. Then Christian Bale rides it. Like a motorcycle. THIS IS THE FUTURE.

The plot starts out interesting, but quickly digresses into the silly. For instance, the entire movie hinges on the incredibly tired and oft-mocked plot device in which the villain lays out his evil plan to the hero BEFORE IT HAPPENS, thus giving the hero the time and opportunity to escape and thwart said plan. (In this case his escape, from the center of SkyNet HQ, is accomplished by throwing a chair through a window – that’s it. Chair, window, freedom.) Had the villain not described the plan, it would have been accomplished with no setbacks. Game over, Connor’s dead, Machines win. But no – these machines not only developed sentience, they developed PRIDE.

There are plot points that are actually sillier than this, but I’ll wait until after you’ve seen the movie to laugh about those.

One more thing I have to share, and it involves the biggest unintentionally hilarious moment of the entire film. It happens very near the end, as a key character is dying of a massive stab wound to the chest, and the doctor reveals that his heart is giving out and he needs a transplant (because, you know, heart transplants heal stab wounds.) The cyborg (yeah, there’s a cyborg, as revealed by the trailers), who has a real, beating human heart, elects to sacrifice his half-human self to give it to the dying character. It’s supposed to be touching, but it’s just stupid, because you’re supposed to believe that, 9 years in the future, we’ll be able to do heart transplants ON THE BATTLEFIELD. Never mind that there’s no way of knowing if this cyborg is a match, or that the proper equipment isn’t ready, and the potential for massive infection is obvious – heart transplant.

But it gets better/worse – as the tearful characters look around, realizing they’re about to lose their cyborg friend (the single greatest weapon the humans have against the machines, mind you) to save a regular human, the little girl (THERE’S A LITTLE GIRL IN THE MOVIE) looks up with her big, tear-filled Bambi eyes, THEN PUTS HER LITTLE HAND INTO HIS ROBOT TERMINATOR HAND. I started laughing out loud in the theater. This was a scene that literally couldn’t be parodied – it was like watching irony die an agonizing death onscreen. Seriously, that scene was funnier than the entire hour and whatever minutes of “I Love You Man.”

So go see it with the right attitude, and you might be entertained enough to justify the money spent seeing it. For instance, for a matinee price of $6 or whatever, it’s probably worth it. But I was a little upset I spent $12.50 to see it, despite it providing a good deal of both intentional entertainment and unintentional humor. I mean it by unintentional, too; besides the aforementioned hand-holding scene and a few random nostalgic easter eggs for Terminator fans, the movie was virtually humorless.  Christian Bale was playing Bruce Wayne playing John Connor, who was basically like Robin Williams in “Good Morning Vietnam” except far less funny or inspiring. You might say the performance was ROBOTIC!

But let’s be clear: This is a very bad movie. McG is a very bad director. And the plot/characterization was some of the worst I’ve seen in some time. So there you go.