The Degradation of Kid Movies

Recently I saw the animated movie How to Train your Dragon. Now it wasnt a bad movie, there were some parts that were really cute however it wasnt deserving of an A. I have been wondering why there was such high ratings for a movie that wasnt all that great.

The conclusion I came to was the fact that more and more kids movies today dont meet any good movie standards. So when one that is moderately good comes along like How to Train your Dragon, critics go nuts. Before the movie the previews were cringe inducing. Yes that bad. Some of the truly atrocious kids movies to come are Marmaduke and some animal movie with Brendan Fraser. It was so bad I didnt catch the title because my brother and I were discussing how we would rather shoot ourselves than see that movie. Also remember G Force from last year? A box office smash but widely slammed by critics for being utterly stupid.

My real question is what happened to good old classic kids movies like Jumangi, ET or Gremlins. Maybe Im just being a tad too stuck in the past, but those movies seemed to me like they were the movies to grow up to. If I ever do have kids I will physically monitor what movies they see to weed out all the ick. I would rather have a kid watch Pulp Fiction than G-Force.

It is these kids movies today that are packed with jokes which are so stupid. Now I can appreciate most kinds of humor, but that kind I just mentioned is a new breed of lame. Filmakers of these movies and producers too should focus more on the storyline than selling tickets to an animated animal talking yuk-fest. After all if a young kid can learn to like a true good story, they can take that all through out the remainder of their lives.

New Layout and New Posting Schedule

The new blogger template program is just awesome. There is no other word to describe it. Im playing around with backgrounds a bit. So expect changes.

New every week I will post one article. Based on something I read or just my thoughts. Sorry this was a short post but I have to get some sleep.

Be sure to check out my CSI review every Friday afternoon!

The Panty Sniffer 10x16

There nothing like a Vegas convention fetish episode, to either make you laugh or cringe while watching with family members. Trust me I would have been laughing if I wasnt next to my mother. While it may have been awkward the story line was well played out.The Case: Ray and Nick were sent to a fetish convention to investigate the death of a hotel worker with an incredibly weird double life. Turns out an up and coming trend is panty smelling, the natural scent of a woman can go for up to 2 grand....! Anyways the woman who died was missing her panties, which in turn pointed the CSI's towards an exceptionally creepy Mr Pudder. I dont know which actor played him, but whoever it was played him very well. Online Ray finds out that this hotel worker was moonlighting for the panty sniffing operation. In fact she was a top seller of vacumm sealed packs of used underwear. According to the convention manager men fell in love with her "scent". Even though he had her underwear in his pocket he had not killed her which was a weird twist in the plot. It was then that Nick discovered her key card to her room was still active and the card the CSI's had collected belonged to another hotel worker. This guy had an obvious double persona. When inquired about this woman he flipped, and come to find out he had kicked her down a set of stairs because he was jealous of her side job. Meanwhile in the same hotel Catherine and Vartann were staking out a couple of exctasy producers in the next room over. These two young guys were the biggest drug producers and had poisoned some young kids in Tahoe. So while watching them bake the drugs through cameras set up by Archie and Greg they waited for their opportunity to collect the hazardous materials, Jim Brass was going to stake out the rave to collect the drug pushers. Of course one of the guys got away and went back to the hotel where Catherine was bagging the chemicals. This led to several intense moments of running around the hotel room, while Vartann just didnt hear anything. It all ended good though with Vartann shooting Belle the drug dealer straight off of Catherine.

The Characters: Mostly CSI didnt stray very far from the core characters of the episode....Catherine, Vartann, Nick and Langston. I always love the pairing of Nick with Langston because its very real. Here are two different guys, one being a brainiac and the other an ex football good looking man. When they get together Im guarnteed to laugh. Being as they both have a killer sense of humor. Their faces when they discovered what the convention really was......priceless. Im sure the Cartann (or whatever its called) fans were upset that the much anticipated kiss, was a decoy to not blow their cover. However they did share several moments of deep conversation. Why does Catherine always go for the damaged guys? Detective Vartann obviously was not a very good father or husband...though he is kind of adorable. Anyways he seems a tad better than Eddy or that Casino Manager smoozer guy. Wendy and Nick shared a cute banter over the law of the underwear for ladies. Although all her info was pretty self explanatory. Lucky Hodges though because she did say she was an expert...meaning her panties must be top notch. Sorry I couldnt help myself with that one ;). It was also cute how Greg wore a very weird rave outfit and kinda has a history with it. Well it was more funny how Brass reacted.

Favorite Parts of the Episode:

Convention: It may have been weird, but weird things do have their place in Vegas

Creep Mr. Pudder: That guy took perverse to a whole new level

Nick and Langston: Cute Chemistry and conversation....underwear vending machines!?

Vartann History: Interesting character development

Catherine's Wandering Eyes: She kept staring at Vartann's ass.

Wendy: Always feisty and fun to watch

Langston and Robbins: Your very creepy doc! hilarious.

Nicks Delivery: He has such a dry sense of humor especially with the pervert convention.

My Hate Affair with Excessive Sequels

Most normal stories follow the traditional pattern of a beginning middle and end. There are some that constitute sequels that continue a story about fairly interesting characters. Really its not sequels that are the problem, there have been several great ones like with Kill Bill or Spiderman. Trilogies even have their place in my movie heart. There is something really interesting about them, I mean if the storylines keep my interest kudos to the production team. I love the From Dusk til Dawn trilogy and the Indianna Jones one as well.
The problem is rooted in greed, a once hit movie being overplayed for the sake of gold at the box office. It's the ever not classy fourth installments of movies! However I am not saying all are absolutely terrible because in pop culture that can not be said for anything. Call it a golden rule! I did happen to like the fourth Die Hard film, based on the fact that Bruce Willis still has the tough funny edges. Shrek does not. As a matter of fact that was my inspiration for this post. I remain a firm believer that the third shrek was a yuk-fest, which bored me to tears. While I also read up on upcoming movies, my advice to Sam Raimi or whoever may be directing the spiderman 4 movie, should drop the project and make something else.
Pretty much the only movies that should go above three films are movies based on books, like Harry Potter. The Goblet of Fire (the fourth installment) remains one of my favorites. Though a young powerful wizzard IS NOT a big green ogre. Someone tell Mike Meyers that while the paycheck may be extremely sweet (over 100,000$ a minute!?) the lack of storyline may produce the worst grossing shrek film yet. Do they have no dignity? This is what i wonder. The big green ogre hasnt been funny since the first and second movie.
Do not even get me started on the utter fail of a movie indianna jones four. Sure Bruce Willis was a tad old in the fourth die hard but it was nothing compared to Harrison Ford. That man (60 years old) has seen some better times and needs to retire the action routine. The effects were decent until the wtf moments at the ends of the movie. Aliens?! To this day that remains un explainable to me. I just could not comprehend the story line along with the oldness of Harrison Ford. They may be in talks for a fifth......someone shoot me......right now.

Restricting Creativity 3/17/10

It seems like everything in my life right now is screaming at me to finish my homework, and get good grades. What if my ideal career is in film? That has nothing to do with Chemistry, Algebra 2 or Ap European History. Its excessive, I barely have time to write on this blog. I say there should be schools available strictly on a creative basis.

The elusive IB program....its the bane of many of my classmates existance. However they are not taking the right things from it. If academics is what you think I get from this program you would be plainly wrong. My entire film career is hinged on observation, people and their deepest darkest feelings. I appreciate my hobby of people watching. I pride myself in the art of people reading. The IB program is a breeding ground to narcissism, weirdness and opinionated personas. Sometimes I hate it. Other times I use just someones look to delve into them and create a whole made up back story detailing their escapades. Weird? Yeah. I get that a lot. This is the only existing method of sanity keeping I have among the seas of notes and formulas, that I drown in academically.

My advice to up and coming IB freshman, is observe the people around you and determine from them the nature of human condition. I will take more people lessons from Ms. Chen the person than her class Chemistry.

Unshockable 10x14

After a long long break from CSI due to the extremely long Winter Olympics, it was good to be back. Though the Rascal Flatts storyline kind of took to the back burner to the highly confusing CIA case the episode was fairly well planned out.

The Case: While playing their new song, Unstoppable a Rascal Flatts bandmate comes close to death by his guitar. A strong surge of electricity went through his amp to his guitar to his microphone and finally to him. Ultimately he suffered short term neurological damage and had a short hospital stay. It was kind of funny how the effects of a strong shock do to the brain. While lying in bed he claimed to have switched his music tastes to be more of a rap persuasion. For the Rascal Flatts gang it seems like they would have had a fun time filming this, as a fake bruise inducing fight even occured. However later in the episode after many strives by the CSI's to collect evidence they find the primary evidence (Jay's Guitar) in a devote follower of the bands. Upon doing an autoposy of the classic instrument it was discovered exactly how the surge worked out. The explanation itself left me a little dizzzy. While everyone pointed fingers at the other bandmates, it was discovered that the culprit was actually the standing bass tech for Jay who just wanted his moment to shine. Meanwhile the other case took a 007 CIA mystery spin. A dead CIA agent brought CSI's Langston and Sidle under complete chaos. When the head hancho agent got involved everything took a turn for the worst. The CIA confiscated evidence, took pictures of the investigators and just creeped in general. Come to find out what killed the agent was a very top secret biological weapon....Sarin. Which actually induces stage four cancer. As Henry said it was straight out of a bond movie. As the CSI's slowly peiced together small transfer evidence samples more and more of the blame began to fall on the agents estranged son. There were even pictures taken by germans to prove it. However in a big twist, Langston uncovered a big suicide plot. Turns out Head hancho agent had given the dead agent the Sarin because he wanted to die a hero supposedly at the hands of sworn enemies. So much for heroism.

The Characters: Mostly this episode had a spread out array of character quirk, which is exactly the way it should be. Langston apparently knows an inceredible amount of other languages. Chinese from Deep Fried and Minty Fresh and now German breifly in this episode. That requires some extreme brilliance because im struggling just with my spanish classes. Catherine played the role of fierce boss lady and charmer perfectly in one hour. I admire a strong woman who can win over an electrocuted country star and stand up to the head hancho agent on the phone in the next. This was also a good character study episode for Hodges. While talking to Langston about the dead agent found in fishing clothing he began to talk about his father for the first time. Claiming that, his father never took him fishing so he stayed home and baked cookies with his mother and some people wonder why he can be such a suck up? Lack of fatherly love as a kid may have caused that. Nick and Robbins banter about Texas and country in relation to him almost cutting into a classic guitar was perfect. One of the funniest moment of the episode along with the crazy fan and Hodges getting hacked of course. Overall the episode had the clash of funny with serious in a twisting and confusing way. There was a case too many really.

Favorite Parts of the Episode:

Nick and Robbins banter: Haha committing murder to a guitar....classic musical Robbins

Henry Awkward Humor: I love how no one got his reference from bond

Catherine Best of Both Worlds: Sassy one moment and serious the next

Hodges: Him getting hacked and his personal files haha.

Physco fan: Hilarious one of the high points of the episode

Head Hancho Agent: Bad ass and creepy to boot!

Ray speaking German: What is that like four languages!?

Satire 2/20/10 English Assignment

Satire and It’s Affects on a Changing Society
Satire is a form of witty social commentary which communicates ideas through humor and comics. Whether it is political cartoons found in the weekly newspaper or a weekly comedy skit show, satire exists as a major medium of the circulation of ideas. Some of the biggest examples of satire in our society are Saturday Night Live, Family Guy, The Simpson’s and newspaper political cartoons. Using humor may be the most effective way today to get people to listen and think. In many ways political satire is the dominant form, but social is out there as well based on the contrasting moral values we face everyday. Contrasting issues of abortion and stem cell research fight back and forth between political parties and people. People become so passionate about a topic they feel is morally wrong that they form groups that put out biased advertising which may be ironic or funny, thus satire is created. Writers especially of TV shows and movies use this to kind of secretly advocate their ideas to audiences all over the world.
In Avatar now a world wide billion dollar grossing movie there are green party ultra democratic ideas that take place in various parts of the plot. Often times we the audience have to laugh at the over the top army officer, who brandishes his scars and his ignorance like a medal war of honor. A TV show like Saturday Night Live which often puts out comedy skits hurting both parties, may have led to the downfall of the republicans in the last election. Had they not have portrayed Sarah Palin former runner for vice president as a redneck dimwitted person, the respect not have gone down and decreased votes. Satirical pop culture is too influential to be ignored. Some even say Pop culture picked the president. Another show which brings irony and humor to society is Family Guy, an animated show which shows the true ugly ignorance of the human race and how sometimes religion is blindly followed. This medium of entertainment has a major impact on society, as it points out the hypocrisies in government and society.