Thank you Coen brothers

This is the Zodiac speaking...
I've written in other posts about how much respect I have for Joel and Ethan Coen as filmmakers, I've also voiced my disdain for a certain old time "screen legend," a term a use very loosely.

 Looser than his definition of acting

Of course I was aware that the Coen Brothers were remaking a John Wayne classic in the form of True Grit, I read Entertainment Weekly after all, and I was also aware from the uneducated masses that I call friends that this was one of the great John Wayne movies. Feeling like Alex at the Ludovico center whenever I watched any movie with the "actor," there are going to be a lot of quotes in this article, I can feel it, above mentioned, I chose to ignore the original film and wait to see the quality of the remake.

 Me during a John Wayne marathon on TBS

 

Let me be the first to tell you, oh my brother's, that the Coen brothers blew me out of the water with this film. It was a tight, beautifully shot, amazingly acted story that still survived the acting ability of Matt Damon. I can't see an actor other than Jeff Bridges who could have pulled off the grizzled, broken Rooster Cogburn. I really liked The King's Speech, but the academy really missed the mark this year.

 It happens more often than you think.

 

It was at this point that I felt it would be remiss of me not to at least try to watch the original and compare the two. Well the first thing I noticed is that the stories are pretty much the same. Mattie hires Rooster to hunt down Tom Chaney. There's a Texas Ranger also after Tom who is hanging out with Lucky Ned Pepper. Even most of the dialog is the same.

  Fill your hand you son-of-a-bitch!

Even the glowing reviews of the actress' who played Mattie seem quite consistent, one because she's a good actress, the other because the juxtaposition of her costar. So why would a movie that I rave over being so good, come from a film that I will never watch again?

Oh yeah, that's right

 

Just another hearty example that John Wayne is the worst actor to ever be captured on celluloid, and I've seen "The Room." He is especially bad in this film, having to take deep breaths in the middle of lines of dialog, due to his lung cancer. It's got a really bad "Shatner" vibe to it, and unlike with Marion, we can all agree that Shatner ranges somewhere above Keanu Reeves on the acting scale.

 Act............ing!

 

All that this really is is a big fuck you to John Wayne and all those misinformed bastards who still think he's a great actor. It takes innovators like the Coen brothers to remake what the misinformed think is classic cinema and show it's meant to be done. John Wayne became famous because all of our other actors were off fighting in WW2, his level of stardom could be attained by Frankie Muniz if Daniel Day Lewis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and that guy from the Old Spice ads all got drafted and sent to Afghanistan.

  Yeah, I can play a cowboy!

 

What I'm getting at here is that we need to take all of these old John Wayne "classics," there I go with the parentheses again, and remake them with the ability to put a decent actor in the main role. The story is sound, we just need to tweak the leading man part and viola, box office gold.

  I'm glad you're dead, you undeservedly smug son

of a bitch. I really am.

Why you shouldn't read books

This is the Zodiac speaking...
As I mentioned in my last post, I have an incredibly hard time doing only one thing at a time. I watch television when I play video games, I eat while I shit, and I chew gum while I walk.

 Harder than you think.

In accordance with my constant need for stimulation I have the habit of listening to audio books while I'm at work. For clarification reasons I want you all to know that I only listen to unabridged books, meaning every word of the book is read, as opposed to abridged books, that are shortened, kind of like movies. This is where you all can talk about how an audio book isn't the same as actually reading and puritanical hipster bullshit involving a history lesson about Gutenberg. To all that I say, fuck you and your Kindle.

 "I put my Kindle inside a book before it was cool. "

It was only a couple of days ago that I finished "The Three Musketeer's" by Alexandre Dumas. It was a mere four hours into the twenty four hours of audio that I began to notice a problem... the story didn't seem to match the movie I had seen. I'm talking about the 1993 Disney movie, with Kiefer Sutherland, Tim Curry, and Charlie "Winning" Sheen playing a priest, perhaps the greatest casting decision ever.

 "Then Jesus ascended into Heaven.. "

I understand that it is hard to take a book with a days worth of content and turn it into a two hour movie, things obviously have to be dropped. I also am fully aware that Disney doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to converting it's base material for the big screen, just read The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  Gets hanged for attempted murder

 Steals Esmeralda's corpse and dies of starvation

It wouldn't be the best ending to pitch to the children, so it is understandable why Disney felt they had to change it, but a whole fucking movie. The only thing Disney used from the book were the names of the Musketeers, and the fact that there were three of them. Imagine my surprise while reading this book, the whole plot of the movie, never showed up! Disney would have you believe that the Musketeers had been outlawed and Cardinal Richelieu was plotting to overthrow the King, none of that shit happened. 

  Source material doesn't need to be followed!

The only problem with all this is no one has read the book, at least no one I know. Pat. So when I talk about the book all I get are confused stares and, one fellow, a big mongoloidish steroid popping fucker, actually punched me. As I lay on the ground checking to see if I still had all my teeth, pondering over what all this "high falutin book learnin" has gotten me, I decided, fuck it, I'll never read again. 

  Education is painful

Books are for pretentious assholes who want to show off how smart they are. Movies are for the Gods. It doesn't matter if Romeo and Juliet run off to Rome and live happily ever after, or instead of a murder suicide Gatsby runs off with Daisy and gives up his mansion and his riches to an orphanage, only to live a poor farmers life in South Dakota. I have learned that no one reads anymore, especially the writers of movies, and to fit into the society I have chosen, neither should I. 

  The Valedictorian of my Senior Class

To ensure that I have the same knowledge as all of my contemporaries, I will now only get information on the classic works of Literature from my masters, the movie studios. I want to fit in with the uneducated, unwashed masses spending my time watching marathons of American Chopper. I'm not cynical, I don't even know what that means. Someone once wrote "Ignorance is bliss," can't tell you who wrote it, but I do remember hearing it in "The Matrix." 

  This dude said it

No sleep for the wicked

This is the Zodiac speaking...
It seems easier to talk about myself on this blog than movies, while movies are my passion I don't want to be one of those blogs where I watch a movie, break down the plot for you, and tell you how shitty it was. I can do that if you'd like, but as a cynical asshole most reviews would be negative, and as I've told you before, it's real hard for me to praise anything in a comedic fashion, and God help me, I am trying to at least make you chuckle.

 I googled   "monkey shooting a clown  " and this is what

they came up with. Seriously.

I have to go to work in three hours and obviously won't get any sleep before hand, don't worry to much though, I tend to sleep late, so I sit here running through my watch instant queue trying to kill a few hours. I can't help but wait for the day that Netflix offers up their entire library to streaming cause unless you want to watch a TV show, the pickings are kind of slim.

 Maybe I'll just watch the IT Crowd again

 

I have an extensive DVD collection and video games to play, I'm right in the middle of Dragon Age currently. I guess I could do that. However the mass influx of media that controls my life makes it hard for me to even do that without doing something else also. For instance, while I play a video game I always have an earbud in and listen to some sort of movie on my computer. I made it all the way through every season of Monk while I played Final Fantasy 13.

 He has OCD and fights monsters

 

Shit, while I'm writing this I'm stopping to fast forward through commercials on a Tivoed episode of Criminal Minds. I can't be the only person who is in need of constant entertainment. I don't have ADD or anything like that, I just find that time moves so much faster when I'm distracted. The shitty thing is that I really don't have anything I'm looking forward to either, hang on, the Criminal Minds episode just ended in a cliffhanger so I guess I need to put on the next one.

  God bless you little Tivo alien

 

In the time between my last post and this I kept hitting the stumble button. I chuckled at a few things, like a collection of Simpson's quotes, I'm a huge Simpson's fan. Also for some reason I was sent to a page about the comic books, even though I don't read them and gave Stumbleupon no reason for thinking I did. Sometimes I hate stumbleupon, then it gives me gems like Zladko "Zlad" Vladcik.

  Zlad. I won't go through the trouble of  finding

out if it is real. But it's funny.

 

Posting this was good enough to kill an hour, and now I only have two left til I have to get to work. Hopefully at some point in the future I will figure out a way to make all this writing that I do pay off. As of this writing I've made a whopping $5.61, none of which I've seen, damn AdBlocker. Maybe I should write a children's book about a inquisitive monkey who lives with a man in a canary colored hat and all the crazy adventures they get into. That's original right?

  Nah, no one would read that.

Cracked.com

This is the Zodiac speaking...
I vary from the movie world a little bit for this post, and let us be quite frank here, I'm not really all that good at following just that topic. My life doesn't just consist of watching movies, I also do other antisocial activities such as gaming, fucking around on the Internet, reading, and masturbating, to the Internet. Pretty much whatever keeps me inside.

 A safe for work Rule 34

Much to my surprise and, I'm sure, yours, there is a whole plethora of sites out there that have very little to do with what Jesse Helms, called "Po-naw-graw-fa." Before we get to much further I feel the need to state that according to the website for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, lds.org, I have a completely healthy porn use. I got a ten out of ten on the test!

 Not anymore I'm not.

 

Everyday, without fail, I visit Cracked.com. I want to tell everyone how awesome this site is and hopefully make a reader out of those of you unaware. America's only humor site since 1958, until the launch of my site, Cracked provides us with the funny, useless bullshit that we crave.

 With funny pictures interspersed for your reading pleasure

Where do you think I got the idea

 

The daily lists always provide a good ten minute distraction to my otherwise banal life, like "7 insane Easter eggs hidden in movies and television," or the ever lovely "4 famous authors and their hip-hop equivalent." Lists aside, there is the weekly photoplasty contest where readers photoshop funny pictures based on whatever the random topic Cracked has chosen for them, like this one from "18 Darkest Movie moments if they had been made by Disney."

  I would pay to see this

 

I have no affiliation with Cracked, I would like to, they do have a submissions page that I've been looking at with ever growing interest, as soon as I can find the time to write about the "5 biggest douchebags that competed at the first Olympics" or something of that ilk, I'll submit. Until that time, I just ask that you head over and check out the site. You take my advice about the shitty movies that Hollywood is ramming down our throats, or at least I hope you are, so why not take some time out to look at a non-porn website that has brought me so much pleasure. Cracked just click that link and enjoy, if you are really adventurous, come back and tell me in the comments what you thought.

  This is what you get when you Google pleasure

I got spammed!

This is the Zodiac speaking...
I feel like I'm reaching all of you out there in reader land now, I got my first spam comment! I check my site about thirteen times a day waiting to see what you dear readers have posted, which is usually for naught, and was quite surprised to find a new comment the other day.

Me, if I were an attractive blond woman

 

My normal fare of comments usually range from strange nonsensical ramblings by Pat, to "fuck off dildo ass fucker" from the ever lovely anonymous. So imagine my surprise to see an ad for cialis, the hard on drug, put into the comment section for my five worst film remakes. I was under the impression that no one actually reads my current posts let alone looks way back at the older ones.

Admit it, you're just in it for the funny pictures

 

As an avid user of Stumbleupon I can see how one might come across an older post of mine, however, this isn't the case here. I know because all of my stumble submissions, minus the ones about boobs, still only have the one page view that I gave to them when they were submitted. It might have been a link over from America's Hobbies, which has been getting inundated by Chinese handbag sellers. This I find much more likely. I haven't clicked the link to figure out where the knock off cialis is coming from because I fear viruses.

I set my safe search to strict before I looked for this image

 

It is clear that whomever posted this link has not so good grasp of the language that is English cause we speak it and they no write it good. Admittedly that does not rule out an US poster, even one born and educated here. Read it and you can see why I would think that it might be of some sort of foreign origin. Which I guess just leads us to our last issue.

Someone must remember Smiling Bob!

 

Cialis is used to remedy erectile dysfunction, as a 28 year old healthy male, I say with full pride and not a least bit of exaggeration, I've got no problems in the area of getting my man to stand at attention.

  All the Cialis I need

 

Now if it were an ad for Extenze, well that would be a different story. Finally something that is catered to me. It's as if someone has been reading my diary and forming the advertisements I see to my specific needs. Kind of like what ad-sense is supposed to do for my blog but fails, unable to follow lofty concepts like, all I do is talk about movies.

  If you like movies, then you'll love taxidermy!- google ad sense

 

I guess the whole point of this tirade is that I'm lonely, I seek such approval that I'm willing to allow anyone to post anything in the comments of my blog, my penis is small but working properly, Google Adsense makes no sense, and everyone will look at the funny pictures, however, not much else. It's all good though, writing this has been rather cathartic, and it has been nice for a change not writing about how shitty the movie Ninja was, it was terrible, that's what I was going to write about initially. Maybe in the future I'll tell everyone about the ham fisted acting, and awesome fight sequences, until then qu'est-ce que c'est.

  Told you it was about taxidermy!

 

 

The four best fictional holidays that television has given us.

This is the Zodiac speaking...
With mother's day passing only a few weeks ago I find it time to point out some other fictitious holidays that the world of television has given us. Before we begin I want to stop all of you ladies right there, Mother's day is a bullshit holiday created by Halmark solely for the purpose of selling cards. It's not REAL, not like Father's Day. Am I right guys!? Now that we've got that established, let's begin.

Freedom Day- Futurama

  Pictured: The Freedom Day dance. Looks fun, eh?

 

In the future the World is overrun by weird ass aliens and surprisingly attractive one eyed mutants. With so many different cultures melding together we were bound to come up with some new holidays. Something along the lines of Boxing Day meets Cinco de Mayo, or maybe just a global rip off of Independence Day. While the former would've led to some great wacky adventures, Freedom Day is more like the latter. Freedom Day is all about doing whatever you want, regardless of the consequences.  No doubt a further reincarnation of the "Do what you feel festival" started in the town of Springfield a thousand years earlier.

 Did I mention Nixon was President? What a

crazy future we live in! Or will live in.

 

Traditions: Doing whatever you want, eating the flag of Earth "Old Freebie", nude hot tubing. 

Happy Freedom Day!

 

Yak Shaving Day- Ren and Stimpy

  

For children there is no more exciting day than Yaksmas Eve. The little ones hang their soiled diapers on the mantelpiece all in anticipation of hearing the enchanted canoe, which carries, none other than, the Gilded Yak. It is hoped, that if the children are good, the Gilded Yak will enter the house via the bathtub drain and leave shaving scum in the sink. 

Those better be soiled!

 

Traditions: Hanging soiled diapers, filling your uncle's boots with coleslaw, leaving a bowl of hat lather by the sink.

  A must have for Yak Shaving Day!

 

Festivus- Seinfeld

 

A Festivus for the rest of us. Fed up with the commercialism that has tainted the holiday season Frank Costanza invents the holiday know as Festivus. Celebrated on the 23rd of December, family members gather around the Festivus Pole, usually made of aluminum, which offers a high strength to weight ratio, and prepares for the airing of grievances, where each person takes turns explaining ways the others have disappointed them throughout the year. After dinner, it is time for the feats of strength, wherein Festivus will not end until the head of the household has been pinned.

   Which can be surprisingly harder than it appears.

 

Traditions: The Festivus Pole, Airing of Grievances, Feats of Strength, claiming easily explainable events as "Festivus Miracles"

  Another Festivus Miracle!

 

Whacking Day- The Simpsons

 Always be prepared for Whacking Day!

Legend has it that town founder, Jebediah Springfield, started the tradition back in 1775 but history has a more sordid tale. Whacking day was originally started in 1924 as an excuse to beat up the Irish. Now every May 10th the citizens of Springfield gather to drive the snakes to the center of town and whack them to snake heaven. Luminaries such as Barry White and Richard Nixon have taken part in the traditions over the years.

 For being dead, Nixon sure gets around

 

Traditions: Killing snakes, unwarranted beatings of the Irish

It's easier if they're old and very stereotypical