Movie Musicals

I've got a few problems with movie musicals (obviously, or you wouldn't be reading this right now). Specifically movie musicals. The musicals I've seen performed live on stage have been, for the most part, extremely well-assembled and highly awesome.

Which segue's me nicely to my first beef: they're uncomfortably fake. "Well, no duh, they're fake," I hear you saying, and I get that. But movie musicals are what I'll call "fake squared". That's right, "Fake" with a little number 2 on the upper right.

Let me explain. When you see a musical on stage the plot is fake, but the performances are the real deal. The actors are carrying on with ridiculous shit that would never happen in real life (more on that later), but the beads of sweat trickling down their faces after the big number are real. Stage musicals are basically the equivalent of the High School Musical director showing up on Day 1 of shooting and telling everyone "I'm'a keep this camera rolling for 2 hours and that's all. One take. Whatever you do is going to theatres, so make it good."

Movie musicals, on the other hand, are fake shit upon more fake shit upon even more fake shit. The plot is fake, but that's normal for most movies. The behaviour is fake, by which I mean rival street gangs DO NOT fucking sing to each other and rumble in meticulously choreographed dance moves. And strike three is that the whole thing is filmed in parts and edited together. More fakery. A performer fucks everything up and you can just yell "Cut!" Pshaw to that!!!

And why are people in musicals always so dangerously happy about everything? Everyone's springing out of bed all doe-eyed and Ritalined up, throwing upper story windows wide open, and busting into song about sunshine and confectionary items. Good for you. You've succeeded once again in waking up. Now put on some damn coffee for Christ's sake. Some of us need it.

The worst part of a movie musical is when an actor sings the first line of a song. Because all that means to me is, "We were here just a second ago with conversation between characters that perhaps you were at least minutely interested in. Now please enjoy 3-4 minutes of crap that does absolutely fuck-all to advance the plot!"
When the singing starts, so does the sighing.

Lastly, there are way too many shaggy-haired prettyboys and overly made-up robo-bitches in anything made in the last decade. I'm looking at you, Disney.

Please, there is music and there are movies. Pick one and stick with it. No more of this "you got movie in my music, you got music in my movie" shit.

Pre-Movie Crapola

Damn it, I remember (vaguely, mind you) when going to see a movie meant going to see a movie. But today you don't just go to the theatre to see a movie, you go to plant your ass down and take in roughly 10-11 hours of Coca Cola and Levis ads. Once you're through that, you can give youself a pat on the back and rest easy knowing that you've finally made it. Made it all the way to the elaborate and expensive looking "Coming Attractions" intro. At this point you're thinking, "Christ Almighty, do I still have my ticket stub on me? I'm going for a smoke."

Like, what the fuck is going on? The coming attractions I can understand because you're in a movie theatre and it makes sense to advertise upcoming movies in a movie theatre. That doesn't mean I enjoy watching them, it just means I see where they're coming from.

Back in the day I remember the coming attractions portion being quite tolerable and I'd imagine that has to be true because I would have been a kid and very antsy. If my squirmy little 10 year old ass could sit through the previews without getting up and tearing through the theatre throwing poporn everywhere, they couldn't have been too bad.

But then the coming attractions segment got super long. I was older and more patient, but even then I remember thinking, "This is...kind of ridiculous." And a few times I even forgot what movie I had come to see for a second or two. But length aside, it was still "Coming Attractions" so it was somehow acceptable.

Then the day came when (gasp!) a Coke ad was played before the coming attractions. Imagine! A TV advertisment in a movie theatre! How devilishly scandalous! It was only a minute long though so it's brevity made this risquee move relatively harmless.

And here we are today when we actually have to sit through an endless stream of advertisements that are completely unrelated to movies or movie theatres. Those boring-ass Telus ads with the animals on a white background are bad enough on TV. I have no desire to see them on the big screen with surround sound. Seriously, this is not one 60-second ad we're talking about here. It's not something that you can laugh off and say "Whatever" to. I mean, you could walk three towns over for a glass of beer and return before this shit is over and they still have the audacity to show a bunch of trailers for shitty romantic comedies.

I go to the theatre like once a year and I'm still fed up with this crap. I think I've discovered why I have trouble sitting through movies. By the time the movie starts I need to walk around and stretch my legs. It's absurd.

EEEWWWWWW!!!

Dear God, why?! Why?! I really hate how you can't unsee things.

You're probably a little confused. Why is the title an exclamation of disgust? Why do I want to apparently unsee Milo and Otis, such an innocent children's movie? Well, I'm here to tell you, friend.

<<< SPOILER ALERT >>>

Milo and Otis was a family favourite when I was a kid. Dudley Moore's charming narration and British Bob Saget-like animal voices could always coax a smile from my brother and I. Then I grew up and the our video just kind of disappeared and was forgotten about.

A couple weeks ago I read something online that mentioned the movie and I had one of those "OMGZZZ I TOTES FORGOT ABOUT THAT!!!" moment and decided that if I happened to come across it in the video store I'd check it out again for old time's sake. Well, I did see it in the video store and I did rent it.

Today I watched it and was having a nice trip down memory lane. Milo didn't die when he went over the waterfall in a box...Otis rescued his friend from a hole that he was trapped in...and then DEAR SWEET GOD WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?! THE CAT JUST SHIT OUT A KITTEN! IN EXTREME CLOSE-UP! WITH INCREDIBLE DETAIL!

I spent the next hour and a half periodically dipping my head into a bucket to expell my lunch of yogurt, Werther's Original, and caffeine tablets. My head was spinning. How could this be? It was like the filmakers wanted to drop an atomic bomb on my friendly, sunny mosey down memory lane. And then crash like 6 trains into it.

This was not in the script. I was supposed to watch this movie without crapping yogurt out my mouth. I couldn't remember ever seeing graphic footage of a cat dumping out the brood. Of all the times I watched Milo and Otis as a kid, I can't remember ever being completely grossed out. Was the scene cut from the copy I had? Have I just become a huge pussy (no pun intended) in my age? Either way, I'm now traumatized.

In closing, use your best discretion when watching Milo and Otis. It gets pretty rough. Apparently you get to see the dog laying egg as well, but I was too busy vomitting and crying like a little girl to notice. Speaking of which, fun fact: yogurt has pretty much the same consistency coming out as it did going in. The more you know.

Skateboarding DVDs

I was just looking at my movie collection and it occurred to me what an empty-headed teenager I was. The reason being that I own 3 skateboarding DVDs. Yes, folks, entire DVDs of skateboarding footage set to shitty music.

I haven't watched them in several years and with good reason I say. Who wants to watch skateboarding footage? It's god damned boring. I'd rather watch golf. Skateboarding is a guy flipping a board with his feet over and over. These guys need to kickflip their asses into a job interview.

The guys in these videos always look so wimpy too. They're always 85 pounds, they've always got their stupid hair in their eyes because they have stupid haircuts, and they're always wearing tight girls shirts.

I own one DVD called "The DC Video". Supposedly it's so creatively named after a skateboarding company, but given it's track record in my DVD player, I think it must be short for "The Dust Collecting Video".

Another one I own is called Yeah Right! Apparently named for the reaction one has while looking through one's DVD collection and realizing what a dumbass one was. The last one I own is a DVD some guys made called Opinion. Sadly, theirs aren't being heard in my household.

But enough with the lame jokes. What a waste of money. Anyone want 3 skateboarding DVDs for like 5 bucks? I won't judge...

Medusa From The Rescuers

My God, what a big heaping pile of bitch. Everything she says just makes you want to kick her squarely in the box.

Until last night I hadn't seen the Rescuers for a while. Both of the DVD players I own have crapped out at the same time so lately I've been watching VHS movies. And since DVD is the standard now, you can imagine that most of my VHS movies are ones from when I was a kid. So I watched the Rescuers last night.

SPOILER ALERT!

I feel obligated to say that even though I know that anyone who reads this
a) has seen the Rescuers
b) really doesn't give a fuck whether or not I give away details to a childrens' movie

So in the movie Medusa kidnaps a small orphan girl named Penny because she's looking for a huge diamond called the Devil's Eye. The diamond is buried down in a cave that adults can't fit into so that's why Penny was kidnapped. Medusa and her pussy-whipped, wimpy husband Snoops live on a shitty riverboat with Penny and basically treat her like ass all the time.

Medusa is seriously an ugly, snooty, bitch of a cunt, whatever that means. She is like turbo-bitch. Super robo-bitch. She had Penny lowered into the cave in a bucket to find the diamond and wouldn't pull her back up until it was in Penny's hands, even when the fucking tide came in and Penny and the Rescuers almost died. I mean, I've heard of being on the rag, but this is not normal. This requires therapy or medication.

Then when she finally got the diamond, super-robo-turbo-bitch defied the impossible and became even bitchier. She kept the diamond all for herself and held her own husband and a small child up at gunpoint. That was until the Rescuers showed up, oh ho ho!

Medusa got completely boom-roasted I'm proud to say. I won't go through everything, but in the end Penny stole her swamp-mobile and her diamond and Medusa was launched into a stack in the middle of the bayou and clung there as her two pet alligators snapped at her ankles and her husband pointed and laughed at her. The last time we see her she is clinging to this fat pipe wailing over her precious diamond. Slam!

Unfortunately I got carried away last night and drunkenly cheered at 4am, waking everyone up. When I became aware of this, I also discovered that in my excitement I had hurled an empty whiskey bottle at the TV screen and it was at that point when I decided perhaps it was best that I just go to bed.

I still don't know how the movie ended but I think Penny got adopted by the swamp creatures and now has severe social and mental deficiencies. Great flick.