This is the first post of a 3 part series, commenting on the current state of the movie industry. The parts are as follows:
violence in movies
sexuality in movies
creativity in movies
This one, kiddies, is on violence...
Were you aware that there is a new genre of movies out there, a subset of the horror genre, called torture-porn? You may know more about this genre than you think- have you ever heard of the movie Saw? Or its sequels, Saw II and Saw III? The genre is called torture porn because the basic premise tends to be that some person or persons are kidnapped and tortured, all for the viewer's enjoyment.
The movies evidently depict extreme scenes of violence, torture, blood, guts, dismemberment, etc. I don't know first-hand because I have no interest in seeing these movies, but based on reviews that I've read, the content is pretty gruesome. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?
I'm being sarcastic, of course, but I guess that some people reading this blog might very well answer with an emphatic yes. I mean, it doesn't really surprise me that "torture-porn" exists, as you can find a sick person to cater to almost anybody's fantasies- what surprises me is that there is actually a mainstream audience for this stuff. People enjoy going to the theatre, grabbing a tub of popcorn, and watching helpless people brutally tortured and killed. Sure, it's not actually real, but at the end of the day, does that make it right?
Now I realize that this is just a subset of the horror genre, and I certainly enjoy quite a few horror movies, but to me, the best horror/thriller movies are the ones that leave it to your imagination. The Sixth Sense, The Others- barely a drop of blood. The Ring, the Grudge- very little blood. And these to me are all great horror/thriller movies.
So, I'd like to hear a response here- if you have seen one or more torture-porn movies, and you liked it/them, I'd really like to know why you decided to see the movie and why you liked it.
Up next- Sexuality in Movies. Why is it PG-13 to feature gruesome murders and NC-17 to feature sensuous love-making?
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Random Amusings (past blog, but this one's from June 2007)
random amusings
Surgeon General's warning- reading this blog has not been scientifically proven to reduce male-pattern baldness in male and female subjects, but it hasn't been proven NOT TO either. Don't read this blog at your own follicles' risk!I saw an article talking about lots of people scheduling their wedding for 7/7/07. That's cool. Then I read that even Wal-Mart is getting in on the $fun$: "Wal-Mart will marry seven couples in the lawn and garden section of seven of its stores as part of its "Lucky in Love Wedding Search." I guess this is in follow-up to their poorly received "Roll Back the Wedding Vows Divorce Search"...Next up- Blockbuster has decided to drop HD DVD's completely from their line-up, since the SLIGHT majority of people renting high-definition discs are renting Blu-Ray. For the uninitiated, Blu-Ray and HD DVD are the two formats competing to take the place of DVDs. Their benefit is that they have much higher resolution video and audio, even better than HD TV and DVD-audio. This is BAD NEWS for the consumer. Why? Because the company behind the Blu-Ray format is Sony. You may remember them as the company that introduced the Walkman back in 80-something, or the company behind the Playstation. They're also the company that DOES NOT CARE about consumer rights. If Sony wins the DVD-replacement war, expect them to clamp down very tightly on all Blu-Ray players, virtually eliminating consumer digital freedom. For more on Sony's attack on consumer rights, just go to eff.org (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and type in Sony in the search box.I went to my younger brother's graduation Saturday night (and my cousin too). It was nice seeing them graduate (congrats, Dave!!! congrats, Zach!!!) It was not nice hearing him graduate. It's one thing to not show respect for your fellow man. It's quite another to take said respect, bite it off with your gold teeth, shove it under your gold chains, down your way-too-small shirt, past the rolls of gratuitous fat, down your itsy-bitsy skirt and piss all over it- while screaming and yelling at the top of your lungs because you're so proud of the 30 or 40 high school Seniors who somehow managed to graduate despite knowing you. I do believe the zoo would be too civilized for the group of people a few rows above me, and I would like to apologize to any animals who were offended by even being in this comparison. Oh, and the graduating students were all very well-behaved, and did a great job. I sure hope that David and Zach have as much fun in college as I did. As opposed to my wife, who has a sticker that says "School prepares you for the real world. Which also sucks". I like that one. And I hope there were at least a FEW highlights for her in college :). Well, I think I've gone on well past long enough, and entered into the "really, really bored people are the only ones still reading this" zone. So, buh-bye!
Surgeon General's warning- reading this blog has not been scientifically proven to reduce male-pattern baldness in male and female subjects, but it hasn't been proven NOT TO either. Don't read this blog at your own follicles' risk!I saw an article talking about lots of people scheduling their wedding for 7/7/07. That's cool. Then I read that even Wal-Mart is getting in on the $fun$: "Wal-Mart will marry seven couples in the lawn and garden section of seven of its stores as part of its "Lucky in Love Wedding Search." I guess this is in follow-up to their poorly received "Roll Back the Wedding Vows Divorce Search"...Next up- Blockbuster has decided to drop HD DVD's completely from their line-up, since the SLIGHT majority of people renting high-definition discs are renting Blu-Ray. For the uninitiated, Blu-Ray and HD DVD are the two formats competing to take the place of DVDs. Their benefit is that they have much higher resolution video and audio, even better than HD TV and DVD-audio. This is BAD NEWS for the consumer. Why? Because the company behind the Blu-Ray format is Sony. You may remember them as the company that introduced the Walkman back in 80-something, or the company behind the Playstation. They're also the company that DOES NOT CARE about consumer rights. If Sony wins the DVD-replacement war, expect them to clamp down very tightly on all Blu-Ray players, virtually eliminating consumer digital freedom. For more on Sony's attack on consumer rights, just go to eff.org (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and type in Sony in the search box.I went to my younger brother's graduation Saturday night (and my cousin too). It was nice seeing them graduate (congrats, Dave!!! congrats, Zach!!!) It was not nice hearing him graduate. It's one thing to not show respect for your fellow man. It's quite another to take said respect, bite it off with your gold teeth, shove it under your gold chains, down your way-too-small shirt, past the rolls of gratuitous fat, down your itsy-bitsy skirt and piss all over it- while screaming and yelling at the top of your lungs because you're so proud of the 30 or 40 high school Seniors who somehow managed to graduate despite knowing you. I do believe the zoo would be too civilized for the group of people a few rows above me, and I would like to apologize to any animals who were offended by even being in this comparison. Oh, and the graduating students were all very well-behaved, and did a great job. I sure hope that David and Zach have as much fun in college as I did. As opposed to my wife, who has a sticker that says "School prepares you for the real world. Which also sucks". I like that one. And I hope there were at least a FEW highlights for her in college :). Well, I think I've gone on well past long enough, and entered into the "really, really bored people are the only ones still reading this" zone. So, buh-bye!
Vacation blog 2007
Vacation blog (because you truly care. right???) Current mood: calm
So, we went on vacation this past week, to Tan-Tar-A resort on the Lake of the Ozarks. Maybe some of you have heard of Tan-Tar-A, and I'm guessing a lot of you have heard of the Lake of the Ozarks. Tan-Tar-A is the largest resort on the Lake. And believe me, after getting pummeled nearly to death on a waverunner, all in the name of a good time, you realize just how big the resort is (and how much walking up and down hills you do).
The Lake of the Ozarks, of course, is a large lake that is man-made- Union Electric ('ne AmerenUE) dammed up a river to create a massive source of hydro power, thus creating the Lake of the Ozarks. This of course was a good thing for everyone involved, as it generates clean power, and created a great recreational body of water. Oh, did I forget to mention that a lot of people lost their homesto the lake (original homesteads now reside along the bottom, but at least the owners got paid for their homes) and it has the dubious distinction of hosting the most fatalities per year of any US lake (think Party Cove- lots of very drunk people trying not to ram their boats into each other in a very crowded area of the lake).
Other than those two items though, it really is a great recreational lake. We rode on waverunners and a ski boat, both of which were a lot of fun. As I mentioned, though, the waverunner really kicked my ass. I woke up the next day feeling like I had been in a bad car accident. And really, that's not far from the truth, when you consider just how hard you hit those waves at almost 50MPH on a small craft. But it was worth it though.
So, what else? Well, this was a family vacation, and we hooked up with my mom and dad and brother and sister and brother-in-law for some family fun. No, I'm not being sarcastic- it really was a lot of fun, and we all managed to get along. We also went out on a cruise ship, and played miniature golf, and shopped at the outlet mall, played at the arcade, went horseback riding on a wooded trail, ate some good food, hung out on what I dubbed the "sandlike beachlike area", which Tan-Tar-A calls the sandy beach. But since it is neither sandy nor a beach, you get the idea.
We also swam a lot. Tan-Tar-A has 2 outdoor pools and 1 indoor pool, and we swam in all 3, as well as the whirlpools. And we relaxed too. We were upgraded for free from a room on the edge of the resort to a big suite literally on the lake that was close to everything. So, the accomodations were very nice. Oh, and we thoroughly enjoyed not working for a week. It's gonna suck to go back tomorrow :(
Well, that's all I've got. Cya!
So, we went on vacation this past week, to Tan-Tar-A resort on the Lake of the Ozarks. Maybe some of you have heard of Tan-Tar-A, and I'm guessing a lot of you have heard of the Lake of the Ozarks. Tan-Tar-A is the largest resort on the Lake. And believe me, after getting pummeled nearly to death on a waverunner, all in the name of a good time, you realize just how big the resort is (and how much walking up and down hills you do).
The Lake of the Ozarks, of course, is a large lake that is man-made- Union Electric ('ne AmerenUE) dammed up a river to create a massive source of hydro power, thus creating the Lake of the Ozarks. This of course was a good thing for everyone involved, as it generates clean power, and created a great recreational body of water. Oh, did I forget to mention that a lot of people lost their homesto the lake (original homesteads now reside along the bottom, but at least the owners got paid for their homes) and it has the dubious distinction of hosting the most fatalities per year of any US lake (think Party Cove- lots of very drunk people trying not to ram their boats into each other in a very crowded area of the lake).
Other than those two items though, it really is a great recreational lake. We rode on waverunners and a ski boat, both of which were a lot of fun. As I mentioned, though, the waverunner really kicked my ass. I woke up the next day feeling like I had been in a bad car accident. And really, that's not far from the truth, when you consider just how hard you hit those waves at almost 50MPH on a small craft. But it was worth it though.
So, what else? Well, this was a family vacation, and we hooked up with my mom and dad and brother and sister and brother-in-law for some family fun. No, I'm not being sarcastic- it really was a lot of fun, and we all managed to get along. We also went out on a cruise ship, and played miniature golf, and shopped at the outlet mall, played at the arcade, went horseback riding on a wooded trail, ate some good food, hung out on what I dubbed the "sandlike beachlike area", which Tan-Tar-A calls the sandy beach. But since it is neither sandy nor a beach, you get the idea.
We also swam a lot. Tan-Tar-A has 2 outdoor pools and 1 indoor pool, and we swam in all 3, as well as the whirlpools. And we relaxed too. We were upgraded for free from a room on the edge of the resort to a big suite literally on the lake that was close to everything. So, the accomodations were very nice. Oh, and we thoroughly enjoyed not working for a week. It's gonna suck to go back tomorrow :(
Well, that's all I've got. Cya!
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