Battle of the Week entires

{All originally published in the C. W. Post Pioneer. My very first article at the Pioneer, our college newspaper, was something we'd dubbed a "Battle of the Week". I had, at the first meeting, butted heads with the Head Editor over Lady Gaga, who had recently performed her single "Paparazzi" at the VMA's. We decided she would discuss the "pro" side of Gaga, and I would tackle the "con". The piece proved popular, and soon I was ranting and raving about everything from P.T. Anderson's Magnolia, to Avatar and doorknobs. Here I've published only my sides of the debate}

Lady Gaga

No matter how much you “wanna take a ride on” my “disco stick”, you won’t. I’d probably catch something. This year at the VMAs, an award show I watched primarily to ogle Taylor Swift, the best new artist category was a joke. You had the douche who “loves college”, the guy who made the repetitive-like-a-herpes-outbreak “Best I Ever Had”, two people I’d never heard of, and the always unsettling Lady Gaga. The winner was about as unpredictable as the outcome of a Cubs game. After observing her drenched in blood like Stephen King’s wet dream, I wondered what the appeal of this woman was. It seems, while her music is actually pretty good, most people just see a woman who may be avant-garde, or just bat-shit crazy. Her date is Kermit? Really? The day she’s on Sesame Street is the day they let Michael Vick on Blue’s Clues. Now, I get the glam thing. I like Bowie and Kiss. But once the make-up and androgyny over-powered their music, they ditched the gimmicks and just performed. For Lady Gaga to haunt my stereo, and not just my nightmares, she needs to calm down, be a musician first, and a spectacle second.

Andy Samberg

I swear to Christ, I want to shove my dick in a blender any time I hear anything by The Lonely Island. And no, I’m not saying that as a play on their song "Dick In A Box". I would just rather have rapidly rotating blades hacking at my dangly bits than have to listen to that god-awful “humor”. I have yet to find anything Andy Samberg has given this world that I don’t want to send back. The guy looks like if Woody Allen and a mule had sex, and Andy got the mule’s comedic talent. There was a time, America in the 50’s, where saying “shit” on stage got you in jail. Lenny Bruce became a martyr for free speech in comedy. For god sake, Andy, Lenny Bruce died for your right to say “fuck”, and you waste it on idiocy like “I’m On A Boat”. Conceptually, the work could be genius. A rap solely about being on a boat is a great springboard for comedy, and it’s wasted by having no joke other than the premise. The Lonely Island is the equivalent of that guy who lights his farts on fire. And if the Lonely Island is the future, that fart guy’s getting a Grammy.

Armageddon receiving a Criterion Collection DVD

For years, the Criterion Collection has been the apex of quality DVDs. They’ve brought us the likes of Bergman, Fellini, Cocteau, and Fassbinder, as well as modern auteur like Kevin Smith and Wes Anderson, and packaged them with such fascinating features that they are the definitive releases. With commitment to the accentuation of quality films like these, how in the all holy hell did Michael Bay’s Armageddon get chosen for a Criterion DVD. Look, Aerosmith’s fun, but Armageddon? Are you sh*tting me? Criterion has been committed to putting out films that are hard to find. You can find Armageddon very easily, in the $5 bin in your local Wal-Mart, right next to “Barbershop 2: More Sassy Black Stereotypes”. Armageddon is some cheap, testosterone fueled entertainment for steroid-stuffed tools to whack their willies to, just like Bay’s other crap-fests. Am I saying there’s no place in the world for these films? No. I just believe that the elitist DVD distribution company should stay that way. Criterion, you were my safe-haven, man. Even when assh*les were buying up Raging Bull DVDs “because it’s about boxing”, I knew you’ never pander. And even if you were gonna pander, at least pick a quality director, that tools and self-important pricks can agree on. Why does Michael Bay get a Criterion release before Quentin Tarrantino? (Ah, now I got all you Kill Bill leg-humpers out there rabid) I’m not suggesting that beer-swilling fans of Transformers and 300 should endure mandatory castration, they just shouldn't be everyone’s target audience. Grow a pair, Criterion. Next week’s battle: Why beer-swilling fans of Transformers and 300 should endure mandatory castration.

Megan Fox getting the cover of Rolling Stone

What cruel, bitter god let Megan Fox on the cover of Rolling Stone? Once, Lady Gaga adorned that cover, and while I dislike that centrifuge of psychosis in heels, she is giving the music world the swift kick in the ass it needs, and deserved that cover. What’s Fox’s great achievement? Being able to act more mechanically than her robot costars?

    When my Rolling Stone arrived, Megan with her black unitard and vapid stare, I flipped to the Pearl Jam article without a second glance. And I’m a borderline sex addict. If a barely dressed girl is on a magazine cover and I don’t stare, there’s something horribly wrong.

    In her interview, Megan said “Men are scared of powerful, confident vaginas.” This caused me to question whether my penis was powerful or confident, and how Megan Fox had somehow become Kinsey, and found that genitalia have self esteem. But I don’t fear Megan’s vagina. Nor the squawking flesh-bag of idiocy attached to it. I fear a leg humping society where a person’s achievement is judged on how many high schoolers flog the dolphin to them, not their contribution to society. After all, Mother Teresa never got the Rolling Stone cover.

Avatar

Seriously, I’m really lost as to the appeal of this rather than the base need for pretty things. This movie is not only reckless thematically (with a main character who basically commits the Fort Hood massacre* and exploitative 9/11 imagery) but just plain shitty.

Seriously, besides the military propaganda** (the army, it’s just like a videogame! Flock from the theater to the recruitment center, kids! Flock being the operative word), what is this film?**** 3 hours during which Special effects geeks can masturbate, and the average viewer gets a little dumber. How any serious filmgoer can lower their standards enough to enjoy blue cat-monkeys is beyond me. Avatar beat out Up In The Air and Inglourious Basterds at the Golden Globes? This is like somebody saying “The Sopranos and Band Of Brothers are good, but they’re no Dukes Of Hazzard”. Yes, Avatar has as much of a plot as your typical Dukes of Hazzard episode, except it’s so drenched in Rachel-Carson-For-Kids environmentalist simplicity that I felt like I was being clubbed in the head by Captain Planet. And let’s not forget “unobtainium”, which can’t be “unobtainium” if it’s attainable, which it clearly is by just killing the Na’avi, or the fact that a dragon that couldn’t be tamed by centuries of indigenous people is duped by a guy who’s there 3 months.

So, yeah. Fuck Avatar. Fuck Blue cat monkeys. And if I offended you, good. You offended me by making this cacophony of color the highest grossing film ever. But I’m at least happy the idiot Avatar fans can distract me from the Tarantino-leg-humpers. Find me someone who doesn’t think Avatar or Basterds is “the best movie ever”, and you will restore my faith in humanity.

*A soldier falls in with a foreign people and their religion, and subsequently slaughters all of his fellow soldiers in the name of and defense of this religion. Yep, that’s the plot. Keep classy, Cameron.

**I am aware the film paints the Army as “evil”, but your average Avatar fan doesn’t have the I.Q. to process anything past “Look, they get guns. I wants guns.”

***Maybe they are smarter than that. Maybe they just choose to shut off their brains for the duration of Avatar.

****Besides Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, Fern Gully, etc.

*****The most irritating CGI aliens since Jar-Jar Binks

3-D Movies

Ok, so I will concede that I will go see Alice In Wonderland in 3-D. But, to be honest, that tab of something that rhymes with flaccid in my pocket will make that movie 3-D anyway. But for most cases, I think this 3-D thing is the most unnecessary bullshit since the gimmick of the 50’s teen horror films, which was…oh, yeah, 3-D. That’s right, we’ve done this already. Exploiting debases to drop an extra $6 to see plot-less cat monkeys a little better is the greatest way to rob money from the gullible since the multivitamin (it’s expensive pee). Clash Of The Titans in 3-D? (First of all, Clash Of The Titans? Again?) Harry Potter in 3-D? Why? What is the need? Coraline was just as good when I wasn’t wearing glasses that added the tiniest bit of depth to the film. And let’s not forget the asinine 3-D Michael Jackson tribute at the Grammys (The one good thing about Taylor’s performance was you could at least see a non-blurry singer). 3-D already died out once. Are we really too unoriginal to even come up with new gimmicks? And do they really enhance the film at all? How much is us just taking the 3-D placebo effect? Seriously, I’m done with 3-D movies. Why waste the extra money? The most gorgeous creature to walk this earth could ask me to go see a movie (and might, I think I’m in class with them) and if they say it’s in 3-D, I’ll…ok, I’d say yes, but I’m weak and lonely. But I expect better from you, dear reader.

Magnolia

Well, after battling about has-beens like Lady Gaga and Andy Samberg, I’m so glad I finally get the chance to talk about a current issue: A movie from 1999 that got overshadowed by American Beauty. God bless relevancy. I first saw glimpses of Magnolia when I was 15. I thought the movie sucked and didn’t understand it, but then again, I only saw about 5 minutes of the thing, as I’d just left it on so that there was some ambient noise and my girlfriend’s parents wouldn’t come downstairs. But now that I’m in film school, and hearing all these people cream their jeans over this movie, I figured it was time I gave Magnolia another try. After all, I like Tom Cruise, and I’d heard Aimee Mann’s soundtrack, which is gorgeous. I popped in the DVD, watched the trailer, and was ready to have my mind blown, just as P.T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood had done. Well, 188 minutes of my life I’ll never get back later, and I had a definitive opinion of Magnolia: “What a self-indulgent piece of crap.” For the love of Christ, how do you take some of the best actors in Hollywood (Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and waste them like that? As if the raining frogs and full-cast-kumbaya to “Wise Up” weren’t enough to make you go “What a pretentious dick”, Anderson’s ability to make a film full of fascinating characters and use none of them to anywhere near their potential ought to. P.T. Anderson’s “Look at me, I’m artistic!” excursion feels like he missed the point of his own story. So watch Magnolia, and decide for yourself. But be ready to love or hate.

Door Knobs

I’d like to start this by saying “F**k you, Osbourn Dorsey, man who filed the first patent for a door knob in 1878.” That’s right, I went there. Sorry Osbourn Dorsey fans, but me and my fellow Dee Horton and Lee Hewitt (inventors of the first automatic door in 1954) groupies are telling you to suck it. Door knobs blow. Not only are they impractical for the elderly or frail, but they’re inconvenient for every man, woman and child. To set the scene: You’re walking around your room, you reach for the knob to open the door, and BAM! Static shock. And not that cool cartoon about the black superhero on the WB when we were kids, the painful kind. Or another scenario: Your walking out of a classroom, reach for the door, turn the knob, and everything’s fine. Three days later and WHAM! Swine Flu. That’s right, door knobs carry germs. They are the bubonic-plague-carrying rats of the 21st century. Or picture this: You’ve just eaten something that has caused you to shrink to an incredibly small size in this bizarre world you fell into down a rabbit hole. You walk up to a talking doorknob and ask him to open up, and that prick won’t do it. He’ll stand there, blabbing his damn key hole off, but does the son of a bitch bother to open up? No. An automatic door opens whenever you walk in front of it. And if you hold your hands up as it opens, you can pretend you’re a Jedi. You can’t do that with doorknobs. I hope this encourages you to end the tyranny of the doorknob. One day, our children will view the doorknob as a thing of the past, like we view 8-track tapes, steam engines, and personal responsibility. I have a dream.