You haven't WHAT!?

I once told someone that I never had a specific food that's claimed to be made from the kitchen grill's equivalent to the Holy Grail. They chose to discuss this among their own friends, to which one said that they (meaning I) should be shot.

One thing I've learned on and offline, is that you choose wisely who to tell what you've never done that seems to be the thing to do. You haven't seen this movie, you haven't eaten at this place, or had this locally sacred food. Revealing this seems to a way to bring the asshole out of people.

Personally I'd rather them come out and do that towards things actually essential to one's life. Sure it's one thing if at a certain point you've never wrote a resume or changed the oil on your car, but so help you if you've never seen "The Godfather" or drank a Rum and Coke.

Mid-final research paper ramblings.

Forced to choose between the topics of the history, personal feelings, and pros/cons of HD radio or Satellite radio, and it has to be seven or eight pages long.

Five or six, I can understand, but this is a final paper, not just for the class, but for college. None of us in class would expect the end to be easy, but not all of us are graduating. Hell, some people don't even care for the class, which their reasons are theirs.

But much like someone that made off with $5K in equipment in my filming group last semester, my grade's not effected by their recklessness, and for that, I'm grateful.

But with DJ Shadow in the background keeping me going, and another intimidating final being prepped for tomorrow afternoon, I'll end with saying this ;)

A moving-goer observation (when dealing with franchises, anyway)

Chances are, the less you see movies not based on a franchise product, the better your chances of hearing a review that's based on the movie itself, and not a reviewer's interpretation and expectations being ruined by someone else's adaptation.

To those that can watch movies based on a comic/game/cartoon separate from their love for said medium prior to its theater form, cool deal. The rest of you, do what makes you happy, but there's a fine line between justified complaints and pretentious soapboxing, and knowing the difference can make for an opinion worth respecting.

[end scene]

"Stranger Danger" in a different sense.

People have this part of their brain that says "make a smart, ironic comment about a complete stranger's appearance, that'll win their hearts!" The fact that they are a stranger means that you don't know if they may be one step away from filming their own remake of Falling Down. So do your best to approach people the way you'd like to be approached, with respect and peace in mind. Because there's never a good day to earn a speed knot.

The People We Know (Or, "Streamline writing at its 'finest'.")

We all have/had that one friend that wants you to watch a video that you've stated you've seen, but since you haven't seen it with them, it's "new to you." So they proceed to put it in your face, because you completely don't have the option to walk away, push it away, watch it begrudgingly, or hit them.

Speaking of hitting, ever have those people that are talking to you, and tap you every few seconds into their story as if you weren't paying attention to them, which after the third tap, you have all the right not to? Maybe the best recourse is to hit them every time they do that, to the point where they stop and question your increasing urge to be justified in an assault charge on your record. 

Then you have the people on the other end. The ones that actually hear you talk, because they likely asked for your advice about something. Particularly something life-changing, threatening, or it's some old crap you thought they were better than getting into. You go on and on about what they need to do to change the dramatics to being non-existent, and what do they do? Blow all that sage advice away and go back to being miserable and whiny, wondering why the world is crop dusting on their picnic. 

Yes, the phrase is true, "shit happens," every day without warning or sometimes reason, but there comes a point where the mess that you can control, should be controlled by your own meaty digits we call fingers, attached to other parts that make up hands, which come fully loaded with "slap-the-shit-outta'-you" technology, in case you need to wake up the hard way. 

There comes a point for all of us where we have that voice inside that's screaming the answers that others outside of us are saying themselves. It may take a while, but hopefully by the time you've come to the conclusion everyone else did months ago, you won't be celebrating the epiphany by yourself. You might even welcome their slaps, which you greatly deserve, but better those friendly bruises that heal into nothingness, than mental scars that just don’t go away.  

[End Scene]

Oh, you're one of *those* people.

You know that feeling you get when you sneeze, and no one says "bless you" because that's what you might have grow up to expect? I'd like to believe its the same feeling when you wish someone a happy birthday, yet they don't wish you one back when it's your time. Of course, the big difference between the two is that you'd have to know the person well enough to wish them such, while the former example can be done to a stranger or two. Still, I feel as if they, and other acts in this realm, are connected in a sad way.

But I’m wondering, have people, even the ones you might have considered friends, become so jaded or disconnected, that they can't even acknowledge that for a moment, their existence mattered to another?

Yeah, in some cases we get too overwhelmed with life duties that we can't get to say everything or anything we want, but to take a few measly seconds to say "thank you" or something of that feature seems like a method of torture to one's ego. Of course even to the ego-ridden, interactions of any kind with the other can often risk leading to awkward conversations. You know the ones, where they end with one saying they should meet up for lunch/coffee/misc., but never really mean it.  

I guess it's true what some say, that silence can be better than "B.S." But if one's incapable of telling the truth about whether they truly want to associate with you or not (especially outside the internet), then perhaps they were full of crap to begin with. 

That doesn't justify that you have to discontinue any method of kindness to others, be they friends or strangers. Consider your methods as a way to weed out who’s worth your attention.

If you happen to say “bless you” in one’s moment of nasal turmoil, but don’t give that respect back, let them know about themselves.

If that friendly food-and/or-drink-based meet-up is one-sided, your time is too important to be wasted on empty plans, and they should know that.

If it’s a (close) friend that you feel doesn’t care if your birthday’s coming or gone, yet you have, speak up. You can even take the high road and wish them one. Think of it like a reminder them that you were once somebody to them before they became “famous.”    

In closing, it seems like these little things make up the roots of people to grow into their own embodiment of suck. By telling them who they are in your eyes, it might just make them suck just a little less, but if it doesn’t, then at best you’ve started to respect yourself a little more.

No go on and bless yourself.

[End Scene] 

"Minor" Movie Rant time.

This is just a thing I was thinking concerning the popular use of premature judgment towards new movies, specifically the ones with tons of franchise history on their back. 

Judgment can work both ways. Something in this section can look great or terrible all based on what came before it. The new Godzilla, for one, looks great in comparison to the US' ‘98 attempt. So far, that's all that can be said from the cautiously optimistic, but as a movie to come out in this era, will it do well? Some may already have written it off because of more outrageous claims ("the original creators aren't involved," "the monsters looked better as costumes,"), and to those extreme purists, there's usually no convincing them any better.    

Now with this new Ninja Turtles movie teaser out, to many it already looks horrible. No more than two minutes of the movie was shown, and it’s already tied over hot coals. But how much of this hatred can be said and felt with confidence, as in without the negative press and questionable acting ability of Megan Fox attached to the movie? Or that its producer Michael Bay has seemingly toyed with the feelings of loyalists to both this, and the recent Transformers movies long enough? The look of the turtles is even balancing a love/hate fence, ranging from the liking of individual clothing tags, versus “why are they so damn huge and ugly/uglier?”

 I’m not saying that the outcry didn’t need to be done when they were first announced to be “aliens,” but now that there’s official vision of the oncoming film, what does it take to for the purists to put their pre-meditated critiques aside, and at least attempt to judge it outside of themselves, and instead as an adaptation for today’s general audience, and more open-minded fans? Even if they stayed aliens, the top injustice would be to still give it ties to the franchise, which granted had its multiple takes on their origins, but even then, the closest they’ve come to being aliens is that in some versions of their story, the ooze that mutated them was from another world. At least that would’ve been passable to (SOME of) the core fans if that made it to the big screen.    

I’m no saint in this debate, either. I went through this with the live action Resident Evil movies, which while the first one I can still enjoy, the others that followed were watchable to a point, until the fourth, which started to fall in, if nothing else, directorial quality. Change the story all you want (which they dramatically have and arguably should have), but at least have some decent continuity flow, and limit the dramatic slowdown effects during action scenes. 

Also, just because the movies are made more for the general audience, doesn’t mean that it should be watered down to a point where suspending disbelief is replaced with approaching it with the same mind a child might with the Sprout Channel.    

This, like any film/TV/cartoon/game adaptation is not meant to say that your interpretation of your beloved franchise is “wrong” in their eyes, anymore than you feel their take of it is wrong because “no one understands your vision of it.” Everyone has their idea of the “perfect” translation of their ideal series, much like people had their idea of a perfect government, religion, hell even cheese steak. 

But unless you’re part of the machine that built these objects of mass consumption into existence, or in this case, re-existence, then pray any of your complaints towards its revision(s) match that of the angry mobs that could inspire the change you want. Otherwise, your multi-page script rewrite/hate mail may not get past the fan fiction realm of the internet.