Sep24

Frat Boy At the Movies: The Informant!

by tonyd on September 24, 2009 at 4:07 am

It’s always interesting to me that actors spend their entire careers trying to be famous, good looking and rich, but they love to play average schlubs whenever the chance arises.  The basic premise of this movie is the true story of an ADM executive that turned in his bosses for price fixing lysine, a by-product of corn.  Directed by Steven Soderberg, the trailer would leave you to believe that this is a hilarious movie about a hapless informant that just wants to do good.  Unfortunately, trailers are often very misleading.

While there are a few funny moments in The Informant! most of them are in the trailer and the trailer is cut in an extremely misleading way.  You know the shot of Scott Bakula, as the FBI agent, saying “Oh, no” in that incredibly disappointed tone?  The next shot is literally Matt Damon’s character waving at the hidden camera, then immediately regaining his composure to the point where he actually keeps an executive from sitting in front of it.

Soderberg tries to be funny, but he only goes half way with it.  This made me and at least one friend in the audience feel like we’d been robbed by the movie.  The missus liked it well enough, I think.  The ending is kind of a downer and what little comedy was in the first two acts suddenly gives way to a problem that probably could’ve been left out of the movie altogether.

Matt Damon is pretty good, but so is Scott Bakula and Tony Hale and they don’t get to do much in this movie.  Let’s put it to you this way, I don’t really like the Ocean’s 11 movies and I’ll admit they were funnier than this.  I give The Informant! 3 keggers out of 10.  No, make it 4.  I’m probably prejudiced by that damn trailer.

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Sep24

Who Should Eat a Dick

by tonyd on September 24, 2009 at 12:01 am

sf-chris-avatar.jpg with Chris Moreno

Every Thursday, Chris Moreno lists individuals whose behaviors have been so deplorable that they should eat a dick.

— The Polk County undercover drug officers who raided a drug dealer’s house and then spent hours playing his Wii Bowling game should play a little game I like to call “Eat a Wii Bawling”.

— To the Queensland state health officials who wrote a document encouraging Australian doctors to drink coffee to work longer shifts, I prescribe a steady diet of dick for 30 days, or until conditions improve. Please see the receptionist about the bill.

— The Pennsylvania man who fired his replica cannon and hit his neighbor’s house should eat the barrel of my replica “love gun”. For those about to chow– FIRE!

— A Melbourne, Florida man pretended to be retarded in order to trick the caregiver he hired into changing his diapers as part of his bizarre fetish. He wants to act like a baby, he should get treated like a baby– by getting force-fed a dick whilst sitting in a high chair. Here comes the airplannnne…!

— And finally, for flooding the airwaves and interwebs with their shitty, immature divorce theatrics, Jon and Kate should both eat a dick. We can even make a reality show out of it– “Jon & Kate Plus 8… Dicks”.

Think someone needs to eat a dick? Email suggestions to dicketer@gmail.com or post in the message board.

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Sep23

Twitter in Focus: Douglas Coupland

by tonyd on September 23, 2009 at 12:01 am

Hello, bros!  And welcome to Twitter in Focus, where media comes to die.  Today’s contestant is author of “Generation X”, Douglas Coupland.  He’s got a new book out called “Generation A”, but screw that, we’re going to review his tweets.  Let’s take a look.

September 11th, 10:31am:  “Smart: http://bit.ly/aCCFx (thank you Kate)”

What?!  No link honoring those that died on 9/11?  You commie.

September 12th, 2:38am:  “Dubai: http://bit.ly/4uw61R”

What?!  No link honoring stupid enough to follow Glenn Beck?  You liberal elitist!

September 12th, 1:58pm:  “I really have become addicted to Klondike bars for breakfast… they’re like square frozen bowls of cereal — they’re practically vitamins.”

I agree.  That’s why I’m 450 lbs.  Well, that and I drink mayonaisse.

September 13th, 6:41pm:  “Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday …just who was this ‘Wednes’? And why do they get a whole day named after them?”

He was the Roman God of Hump Days.  Romans celebrated his day by offering $2 pitchers at their local vomitorium.  But only from 4 to 7.

September 13th, 7:30pm: “Crap. *Now* what? Just got an angry email from Tues.”

Don’t answer a future email, Doug!  Especially an angry one!  You might never be born!

September 14th, 2:21pm:  “http://bit.ly/10vumE”

Pleasant!

September 14th, 8:36pm: “Cease and desist letter from Satur’s lawyers. This is getting too freaky.”

Satur?  You mean the male companions of Pan and Dionysus?  I didn’t know those guys even had lawyers.

September 15th, 10:55pm:  “To all event attendees this week and next: I’m collecting plastic bottle tops: peanut butter, juice, detergent… it’s for an art project.”

You know, it’s in my trash somewhere.  I’ll just bring you the whole bag and you take whatever you want.

September 15th, 10:57pm:  “Shaving cream. Toothpaste. Glue. Hair gel. Coffee cans.”

No, leave the toothpaste.  The raccoons love that.

September 15th, 10:58pm:  “Question for smokers: Do Canadian cigarettes have individual logos on each cigarette? Some brands, not others?”

No, but they all contain just a hint of back bacon flavor.

September 16th, 5:53pm: “Chuck Klosterman’s ‘Downtown Owl’ is an amazing book.”

Dude, you’re never going to move any copies like that.  Link that bitch.

September 17th, 12:14am: “Thanks to those who brought plastic bottle tops and caps to tonight’s taping.”

Dammit!  Now I’ll have to give my trash to David Sedaris.

September 17th, 12:15am: “Cigarette packs smell just as ravishing now as they did 21 years ago. Lure! Temptation! Taunt!”

Doug, you are truly an addict.

September 17th, 4:53pm: “Cigarettes are the same price as a huge box of 64 pencil crayons. Something is wrong there.”

You think that’s wrong, try smoking the color Orange.  You will NOT be in flavor country.

September 19th, 2:24pm: “Tried buying dynamite for recreational use? It’s hard. Seriously.”

If Hunter S. Thompson can make do, so can you.  Just mix it up from a formula from the Internet like a normal person.

September 20th, 3pm: “Please just send it to Vancouver: http://bit.ly/JXstY”

Best part about a Lego house?  If you get bored you can turn it into a Lunar Module or a Battleship.

September 20th, 3:03pm:  “Enjoyably lose a few minutes of your life: http://bit.ly/Fep8C”

Ah, nice link.

September 20th, 3:11pm: “Chernobyl satellite fun: http://bit.ly/44Wk05”

I can’t see any of the mutants no matter how far I zoom in.

September 20th, 3:20pm: “The Guardian ran a photo of my cousin, James, thinking it was me; a photographer has pulled a fast one.”

That happened to me once.  Why does your cousin always jump in front of people when they get their picture taken?

September 21st, 6:14pm:  “If attending a Toronto event, don’t forget plastic bottle caps: peanut butter, mayonnaise, shaving cream, pop …solid colours only. Beauty!”

Sorry, I can’t make it.  I’ll just have to mail my garbage postage due to Canada like I normally do.  If you get it, you get it.

Well, Doug, thanks for playing and good luck with the new book.  As for your tweets, well, I’d give you a 9 for Style (paced well and easy to read), 4 for Insanity (very levelheaded and normal) and a 5 for Mustness (regularly updated, but not urgent).  This gives you an overall score of 6.   Worth following, bros.  And if you have a suggestion for Twitter in Focus, email us here.

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Sep19

Frat Boy At the Movies: Gamer

by tonyd on September 19, 2009 at 12:01 am

Not a bad little flick.  It’s pretty derivative.  It borrows from movies like Death Race, but has a slightly better explanation of the technology behind it.  As always with these “Future gone awry” movies, there is a resistance fighting the good fight, broadcasting from a secret location and a very bad man, played by Dexter, out to take over the world.

The history of the game inside the movie is probably the most unique thing about it.  It’s kind of like the Sims gone awry.  At first, players only controlled other people to do Sims like activity (have sex, interact, etc.)  But then the ante got upped and they created a killing version where players get to move around death row inmates and kill each other.  Ultimately, the resolution is not as satisfying as Gerard Butler’s life has been destroyed for seemingly little reason.  Also the same question with every movie like this, why doesn’t the bad guy just have Gerard Butler shot if he has that much money and power?

The story is pretty by the numbers, but also examines the lifestyle of gamers in the subplot. The gaming “superstar” that controls Butler is forced to confront the fact that he’s a rich little geek that is nothing without his star pawn.  There’s also a second gamer that will remind you of the episode of South Park where the boys play an online game waaay too long.  Although the movie doesn’t really examine gamer lifestyle in much depth, it did make this version of Running Man slightly more interesting.  (And when I say slightly, I mean like fifteen more seconds.)

This is a decent popcorn movie if you don’t think too hard.  It won’t insult your intelligence much, but you’re not going to be blown away by it.  Entertaining, but not very daring.  Watchable, but not great.  I give Gamer 5 keggers out of 10.

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