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Monthly Archives: June 2012

Jack reviews Ted — by well…uh…Jack.

25 Jun

But teddy bears are wholesome!!

Should you see Seth MacFarlane’s new comedy Ted about a crude lecherous but lovable teddy bear come to life? Chances are you’ve already decided. If you like Family Guy and all of MacFarlane’s spin offs you’re going to laugh and have a fun time. If you don’t, you won’t like this movie.

Now for a more thorough opinion. I think Seth MacFarlane is funny. He makes jokes about things many of  us are thinking and does so through crude and clever ways. Often times it’s based around pop culture from the 1980’s, but I’m 28 and so works for me. Can he cross the line and rely on stereotype, becoming both tired and offensive? Absolutely. And sometimes it’s obvious his scrips are too short and he resorts to filler. But all in all I’m probably going to laugh when I watch him.

Ha ha…I have so much money now.

Is Seth MacFarlane a talented story teller? Not so much. His plots are vessels for his jokes. And that is very true with Ted.   It doesn’t take a genius to take one look at the poster and guess the plot.  John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) wished for a living teddy bear as a boy and hot damn it came true. Now an adult, John and Ted are still best buds. Ted (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) is crude but lovable. John’s long time girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) thinks he needs to grow up which requires saying goodbye to Ted.  And let’s throw in a crazy guy(Giovanni Ribisi) who wants to kidnap the bear so we can have a chase scene.  Oh and Community’s Joel McHale shows up as the douche bag that wants to bang Mila Kunis. He has one good line.

The question is does the comedy work? For the most part, yes. The opening is hilarious. The humor mostly hits throughout the middle. Occasionally, I was actually sick of the jokes and wanted the damn thing to move forward.  But the ending really sags. It’s both predictable and tiresome.   Ted is essentially Peter Griffin (there’s a crack about this in the film.) When he’s on screen you’re gonna laugh. I’ll hand it to the script for making the girlfriend, Lori, actually likable. She puts up with a lot of John’s crap before she lays down the Ted or me ultimatum.

But my question is why Mark Wahlberg? He’s not very funny. He doesn’t pull off the every man particularly well. There’s this feeling of “I’m love this walking teddy bear, I do this infantile shit, and I’m obsessed with Flash Gordon because the script tells me to.” I just don’t buy him. The character of John (not Wahlberg’s fault) fucks up his life so many times, it’s pretty hard to stay with him by the end.

All in all I mostly had a smile on my face. $13 bucks to see it in the theater? I didn’t smile that much. It probably be better to wait for the DVD, get drunk or stoned with a group of your friends and pass out before the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

–Jack Out

 
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Posted by on June 25, 2012 in By Jack, Reviews, entertainment, etc...

 

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Quantum Entropy Stage Two: The First Date — By Mack

23 Jun

There’s nothing like that feeling when things are clicking at the beginning of a relationship. The excitement of your text messages immediately being returned.  That person getting your jokes. Testing the waters of sexual innuendo. It’s like crack.  But that inertia can only last for so long.  A first meet up must be necessary. Plus well, that’s the point.

But as vibrant and fun as the text message portion can be, when you actually meet the person all can go to hell. Maybe they don’t look like their picture. Maybe they’re an ass hole. You must remember, when you first meet someone, we take what we know then fill in the gaps with our imaginations. We do it with presidential candidates, jobs, everything. So when you’re sitting at that table for the first time, the reality gets defined as your hopeful imaginings die.  And for that reason (among others) that first date I tend to make lite. Coffee, maybe a bar. NEVER dinner.

I met Quantum Entropy for dinner at a place called the Crooked Knife. (yup I just contradicted myself.) Upon seeing her, I think my impression was “I think this could work.” Granted I was hoping for “My God! Her pictures don’t do her justice!,” but at least it wasn’t “oh Lord, so that’s why she didn’t have any pictures from the neck down.” Her style wasn’t quite a match and if anything you do to your nails impedes any hand movement, it’s a turn off, but I knew she was from Jersey when I messaged her.  However, in addition to the shared interested/sense of humor she also had a little bit of fire. And has been a while since I’ve played with fire.

The date itself did what I hoped. It continued that momentum where the text messages left off. But then it did even more. Dinner finished, we each had two drinks, the restaurant was closing. Most first dates that would be it. But then her fire came out and she wasn’t done with me. We hit the bar next door. When you get caught up with someone there is a magic that can happen. Like a shared solitude that the rest of the world can’t penetrate.  The Crooked Knife had been a place where a server brings your drinks on a tray. This bar was a place you had to shout at the fat old bartender over a row of barflies to get your shots.

I don’t remember when the first kiss happened. I just remember sitting on couches towards the back while the MTV music awards were on. Or maybe it was the Grammy’s. Either way an old man was looking at us and Adele just won album of the year. I didn’t care because Quantum Entrophy was playing with my beard as she made out with me. The she pulled away and looked at me with what I call hungry eyes as she said, “You’re going to be fun.”

I offered to walk her home ( she lives like 2 blocks away ) to which she politely refused.
“You sure?”
“Yea, I just…have this thing…”
“Okay?”
“I know you’re not crazy, I have this thing about guys knowing where I live…I’ve had some bad experiences…”

And we left it at that. But now I was wondering what I was dealing with. Was this an overly cautious girl or was she hiding something?  Come back next week to find out!

–Big Mack Attack

 
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Posted by on June 23, 2012 in By Mack, Dating

 

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A New York attitude — By Jill

14 Jun

It’s on!

Moving from Seattle Washington to Manhattan has definitely added a bit of an edge. Maybe it’s the cramped spaces, high prices, crappy service, or just every single person’s damn certainty that they are right and they’ll tell you so with the snarkiest comment they can think of.  Or maybe I’m just getting older. Whatever the cause, things that I would have shrugged off in Seattle, in New York I get into a grudge match over.

So I’m walkin’ yesterday listening to This American Life. (Yes some parts of Seattle me still exist.) I cross the street when all of a sudden I hear…

Sure, take your time!

I turn around to see some douche bag in an SUV, button down shirt with rolled up sleeves, and sunglasses stopped in the middle of the street yelling at me. I look around seeing no other traffic but this asshole’s car and reply…

You must be in such a hurry if you stopping to have a tissy fit.
You’re walking around with your head phones for chistsake!
Don’t have a fuckin’ heart attack or nothin’.
Why don’t you use the fuckin’ cross walk next time?
What the fuck you wearin’ sunglasses for? It’s overcast.
You can suck my dick.

By then, this fucktard who was in such a hurry, now has four cars behind him honking for him to get moving.

Looks like I’m not only one who wants you to get the fuck out of here.

The impulse to snap back at someone comes so much easier now. I used to get stifled. Granted I don’t go looking for people to verbally abuse, but if you’re going to bitch me out, you’d better be ready for a bit of a fight. Besides, who the still drives an SUV anyway?

 
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Posted by on June 14, 2012 in By Jill

 

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Prometheus Review — By Jack

12 Jun

Hey all.  The summer movie season is in full swing. We got the very satisfying Avengers about a month ago.  Battleship sunk (easiest flop headline ever) and MIB3 is pretty much now off everyone’s radar.  The next benchmark film, Prometheus is finally here. So does it measure up to the hype? Short answer: no.

To those of you living under a rock, Prometheus is the prequel to the prolific Alien saga. It follows the crew of the ship, wait for it…Prometheus, as they search for what they believe are a race of “engineers” that created human life. They arrive on the desired moon, LV-223. Once there, they uncover the remains of an alien spaceship, littered with the corpses of dead “engineers,” and some very eerie artwork.  As they explore, the ship’s android David, played by Michael Fassbender, clearly has his own agenda as he tampers, secretly, with the  “engineers’ ” remains. His meddling leads to catastrophe for the crew members.

You know, these Aliens.

In a nut shell, the film is an enjoyable experience.  It looks good. There are some really stand out performances. It’s fun to see references to the Alien films, particularly the engineers’ ship. There is a very intense surgery scene.  And even a storm sequence that is impressive. But unfortunately, the film never rises above the average space alien disaster film.

Prometheus is directed by Ridley Scott, the director of the first Alien film from 1979 who has since has gone on to many other important and distinguished films.  (I’m very hot/cold on Scott. Loved Thelma & Louise, Black Hawk Down, and Alien. Not a fan of Gladiator, Hannibal, or Blade Runner, blaspheme I know.) And moment to moment, Scott gives us an entertaining ride that never feels boring even if it does seem cliche.  There are a few unintentionally laughable moments, but all in it’s got a great look, mood, and tone.

Most of the characters are pretty indistinguishable or completely forgettable.  There is a security officer introduced early in the film who I confused with one of the geologists. The security officer disappears after his introduction and the geologist gets lost and dies. The main character, scientist and crisis of faith heroine, Elisabeth Shaw, (played by Noomi Rapace) isn’t terribly charming or likable. She’s obsessed with meeting these engineers, but by the end of the film I can’t understand why she’s still on that quest.

Michael Fassbender as David

The real gem of the film is Michael Fassbender. He plays the ship’s android David, with excellent physicality and an eerie but captivating coldness in everything he does. The man is just fascinating to watch.  The Wire‘s Idris Elba plays the ship’s captain. And even though he doesn’t do much, we get enough of his character and Elba’s charm that you really like the character.  Charlize Theron plays Meredith Vickers, the stern and driven woman in charge.  Unfortunately, Vickers starts strong, but as the film unravels towards the end she just falls away.

Charliz Theron and Idris Elba.

So what stops this movie from being the epic classic it should be?  The plot. The movie has a lot to live up to. A legendary director, one of the most influential sci-fi and horror series in all cinema history, and it even invokes the name of Greek mythology. So when **SPOILER** the characters finally uncover the one living engineer,  the thing with the all answers we’ve been sitting the edge of our seats waiting to hear… instead of telling us, what does it do? Runs amok trying to kill everyone, becoming the monster of the film. And out of nowhere it resumes some out of left field mission to destroy Earth. It’s a momentous let down.  It changed a movie that could have been about humanity, exploration, and meddling with powers not meant for us and turned it into a run of the mill monster movie.


For more on Prometheus, check out Kevin Smith’s new show Spoilers on Hulu . It’s a fun new show where he and an audience see a film and bitch about or cream their jeans over it. It’s good fun.

http://www.hulu.com/embed/Db2v06F3U9TlHetIWbnonw

— Jack out.

 
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Posted by on June 12, 2012 in By Jack, Reviews, entertainment, etc...

 

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Mack’s dating Series: Quantum Entropy. Stage 1: Initiation

08 Jun


Ending my cycle of romance was none other than Quantum Entropy. Of the women I had been seeing she was the only who gain any traction.

There is an art to the message on internet dating sites. I won’t get into the details here, but the sad thing is that I rarely get replies from the really cool girls (by really I mean really dorky, video game interested, Battlestar Galactica loving, Neil Gaimen reading, cool.) I usually get responses from “Interior designer who loves wine and cheese” or “fundraiser who loves NPR. Message me if you have a dog!”  So when I saw the profile of Quantum Entropy, I didn’t expect a response. But I sent one anyway.

So I am always suspicious when OkCupid says I’m 90% or higher with someone. I honestly think they have monkeys randomly match people up. But you and I actually might share an affinity for the same dark/mystical subject matter.

You seem smart and driven and I can say with no hyperbole that you are the most intriguing person I’ve ever come across on this site and I want to get to know you.

Come along for the ride.

-Mack

She stuck out to me as a cool dork +. Not only was she hot and had 12 Monkeys in her profile, she wanted to study the psychology of prison inmates. How cool is that? A day later a message was waiting for me.

I don’t know, I get a few emails from guys in the 40-60% range and most of them have _4u somewhere in their names and/or a bottle of Jack Daniels in all their pictures. Nothing against a good Jack & Coke but I feel these people must walk around in a perpetual state of inebriation… 
Out of curiosity, what are the 40-60% females like? 

Kudos for typing that all out on your phone btw, and such flattery! You’re like an award-winning email writer 😛 

And thus started the back and forth. Over the next few days the messages back and forth were plentiful and easy. With a lot dating messaging, the connection isn’t there.  Sure you’re attracted to the person, but there’s a lot of misinterpretation and your senses of humors may not be in line.  Not here. Never had I felt so comfortable sending that text.

I got my nails done a few days ago. Typing has been a bit of a Sisyphean effort ever since…

Why the hell have you been typing with a boulder?

You don’t?

I prefer to fly with wax wings on sunny days. 😉

Oh look at us all being mythology geeks 😛

And…

I think I have a stomach virus or something, I feel terrible. Being at the computer is kinda making me more nauseous for some reason… :/ Blahh. I’m going to bed, but I just wanted to shoot you back to let you know, you’re adorable omg. 😛  Thanks for the well wishes, I’ll email you tomorrow if I’m still alive :/

Well it’s half way through the day and no email, so I’m just going to go ahead and assume the dreaded illness has gotten the best of you and you are no longer with us.

Your memorial service will be held on tomorrow (yea during the Superbowl, not really expecting a great turn out.) There will be bounce house, a slip and slide, if we’re lucky Red Bull will be catering the event. So you will be the only one “resting” any time soon. Also we’re hoping to get Eddie Izzard to do the eulogy, but he can’t make it, there’s a homeless guy we’ll throw a dress on.

You’d be proud. But if by chance you’re not really dead, please contact me as soon as possible so I can cancel the reservations. And remember time is of the essence (I had to lie and cancel some kid’s bar mitzva reservation to get the bounce house and sumo wrestling suits) so message me back quickly.

I mean…how are you feeling today?

The connection was there. The stage was set for the first date…

–Big Mack Attack

 
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Posted by on June 8, 2012 in By Mack, Dating

 

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