George Lucas And Indiana Jones

I tried to take a vacation last week, if that helps explain the lack of posting (as opposed to my usual laziness being the culprit). But alas, there can be no vacation from suck. The fat bearded ewok George Lucas saw to that with his glorious “film” Indiana Jones And The Movie I Will Pretend I Didn’t Watch.

This movie is a fucking mess, let me get that out of the way early, in case you’re already way too retarded to figure out that I’d be talking about something I disliked in something called the F- Blog. I can’t believe this movie got made, honestly. I thought it would be another faux-pulp romp through Egypt or some jungle or wherever-the-fuck-some-damn-relic-is-this-time. Instead I got a good old fashioned eye-raping.

First we’re treated to a laughably bad dub of an aging Indiana mysteriously lisping his way through some hackneyed lines (“I like Ike” is not acceptable for last words, Indiana. Whoever wrote this, stop writing things. NOW). I know George Lucas lives on some kind of nutty ranch, but I still thought he had enough money to sync up sounds and visuals.

The first scene continues to dazzle as our Russian villainess drifts in and out of her terrible accent like a weaving drunk. Seriously, Cate Blanchett? I would expect this kind of crap from Eliza Dushku or something, but you? You’re better than this.

The movie somehow gets much much worse from here, as the viewer is treated to (punished with) the reunited Jones family being cheesy through South America together, an alien plot that I refused to accept that I was watching until I saw the crappy fucking alien at the end of the movie, and of course, Shia LaBeouf swinging through the trees of a jungle canopy with a group of terribly animated monkeys. Any one of those things would have been godawful in its own right, but this movie just piled on the horrible like I’ve never seen before.

Shia LaBeouf is supposed to be tough in this movie. Do you hate it yet? Because you should. If you don’t understand why you should hate it, based on that piece of information, than stop reading this blog, or stop having someone read it to you.

But if you think Shia LaBeouf is a dreamy hunky tough guy, or you’ve ever wished grandma and grandpa would go resurrect some dead interdimensional pieces of crap with a plastic hydrocephalic skull, or you want to see some 100 million dollar fan fiction, get your ass to whatever theater is still playing this before I burn it down.

Since I like to be helpful, here are some alternate titles for this movie. George, I will sell any of them to you for $50, or two hours of my life back, whichever is easiest for you.

Indiana Jones And The Pixar Alien
Indiana Jones And The Sweatiest Story Ever Told
Indiana Jones And The Golden AARP Card
Indiana Jones As ACTION GRANDPA!
Indiana Jones And That Shitty Kid From Transformers

You’re Welcome, Mr. Lucas, or Grandpa Suck, as I shall now know you.

So George Lucas, Harrison Ford, and S. La B. you all get an F- to share amongst yourselves, and I’ll be damned if you didn’t all earn it. If you’d like to appeal this, or get an F- for each of you so you don’t have to figure out a complicated schedule for sharing it, feel free to hit me in the face with a bullwhip/lightsaber, set a pack of crappy CG ants on me, or do it the hard way and email johnnyjive@hotmail.com

The Real World

Okay, time to once again level my sights on something that sucks, and revolutionize our very culture as a result. This time I’m calling out The Real World, a poorly named departure from reality and shame entering it’s 300th season on MTV. Get ready for suck.

The basic concept of the show is as follows: you take the seven most desperate people you can find at Senor Frog’s, invite them to take time off of their jobs as receptionists and out of work actors to come live in the worlds tackiest house in whatever town seems cool and hasn’t been used yet, give them unlimited alcohol, and then film them. How did this ever get made? I blame the terrible competition on TV at the time this concept was introduced. Wings, you have failed the American people yet again.

I have a new idea for your crappy spoken word introduction, Real World producers that are assuredly reading this blog every week looking for ways to make your show more horrendous. Ready? Okay!

“This is the heavily edited story-
of what happens when seven highly confrontational personal trainers-
are forced to live in an eyesore condo together-
and abandon all semblance of manners or shame-
and start getting drunk.”

You’re welcome, producers.

I just don’t understand the appeal of this show. It is like any other reality show, but with less likeable contestants, and no actual point to it, like the others where someone can win or lose or get kicked out (except when people leave The Real World because of drugs or drinking, which is always hilarious). So with no purpose or competition, there is no conflict other than the intense suckiness of all the denizens of the house. But there’s conflict aplenty, in the form of slurred cussing and sloppy sex, due in part to the copious amounts of alcohol being foisted on the shameless morons.

I’m trying to figure out the target demographic for this show. I think it’s people that wish they had awful roommates, but instead live alone, and want to know what it’s like to live with a bunch of idiots that don’t have personalities. Or maybe it’s targeted at people who want to turn on the TV and immediately have a reason to go on a shooting spree. Those are huge untapped markets, I would assume.

And The Real World can’t blame its suckiness on pioneering a genre, ever. The other early reality show was, in fact, much much better. I’m talking about Cops, of course, also known as The Wacky Adventures Of Meth! Cops is still my favorite reality show to this very day, while The Real World is still the most boring one ever made (yes, worse than The Hills, but only just barely). So if you want to blame someone for creating the formula for an extremely boring reality show that doesn’t involve tasing meth addicts, blame The Real World.

So for creating terrible reality TV, crapping up the airwaves for nigh on 20 years now, and for making boring people all over the country want to go on reality TV to debase themselves, I am giving The Real World a big fat F-. If you would like appeal your grade, or just drunkenly yell at me, then cry, then go have sex with your roommate in a hot tub, or if you just have a good idea for something else that sucks, I can be reached at johnnyjive@hotmail.com

Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo

So this post is going to be the F- Blog’s first foray into popular culture, though many of you may argue that the bum on the bus was popular, I debate his lasting presence on the cultural scene. I mean, what’s he going to do to follow up? Drink wine and fall asleep in the park? Ask me for change on my way to Subway? We’ll just have to see.

But more to the point, this entry is concerned with the film John Rambo. This Sylvester Stallone vanity project got me out to the theaters twice (that’s right, twice) to try and comprehend the condensed suck I saw the screen vomiting forth. John Rambo, you get an F- and here’s why:

Your movie was the funniest thing I have seen all year, by far. I thought you were going to be a boring war movie, or a boring jungle combat movie, kind of like Predator if the titular predator wasn’t in it. But after being in the theater for about four minutes, I was laughing hysterically at the buckets of flying guts careening across my field of vision. I seriously saw what I think was a Burmese guy’s smoldering lung fly into the air before splashing down comically into a rice paddy. I wish I could say that about every movie I’ve watched recently (I’m looking at you, The Producers). He fucking vaporizes the driver of a jeep with mounted machine gun. He rips a guy’s throat out with his bare fucking hands. Yeah, that was his movie. This movie was like a 100-minute heavy metal music video without the pesky heavy metal.

Unfortunately, Stallone thought it would be a good idea to have the titular character, John Rambo, actually talk. It’s an easy mistake to make, I can almost understand it. But it was a grave mistake indeed. He tried to carry the extreme nature of the film over into the dialogue, which results in half-slurred gems like “fuck the world,” cascading out of the diagonal sneering mouth of Mr. Stallone. His pseudo-philosophical speeches stayed in the realm of humorless drama for the entirety of the film, ensuring that any moment when someone wasn’t exploding or being cut in half, the audience was still laughing.

I also loved how he completely dehumanized every non-white actor in the film, choosing to forego subtitles for the most part, turning them into gibbering caricatures of what Sly thinks south Asian people are like: evil sunglasses-wearing rapists, or rice-planting bullet-magnets. If a white character died, the camera was quick to zoom in on their suffering, so the audience knew that someone important was having their guts blasted out. But if a Burmese person died? Oh man, they were getting mowed down by the truckload, don’t even worry about them, Sylvester. We’ll just assume they deserved it for their godless heathen lives of wickedness, or whatever.

I think this movie was basically some kind of awesome joke Hollywood played on Sly, where he brought this insanely awful screenplay to them, and they were like “oh man, this is great! Why don’t you start shooting it tomorrow, little buddy?” the same way their refrigerators at home were plastered with pictures scribbled by their two-year-olds. “no, Sylvester, I love the character, I really (snickers) identified with a man who’s neck is wider than my waist, and how he’s filled with conflict, like whether or not to kill everyone with a machine gun or a machete that he just made himself in like 45 minutes. That is the kind of depth you just don’t see in those namby-pamby movies everyone else is putting time and effort into.”

Before I give this grade, I have to confess: I actually paid to see this movie, both times. It was fucking hysterical. The second time I saw it was at a second run theater, and there were homeless people asleep in some seats up front from the show before ours, who didn’t wake up and leave until the people started exploding. Yes, they would rather be back out on the streets than watch this movie again. But not me, I was in the back playing air guitar to the Iron Maiden song in my head while I watched the townspeople blow up like gore-filled piñatas.

That being said, Sylvester Stallone, I am giving you and your film John Rambo an F- (but an A for effort/being completely hilarious). If you would like to appeal this grade, or threaten to jam a homemade machete into my torso and then emote about it, or if you have suggestions for other things that suck, email me at johnnyjive@hotmail.com

Guy drinking Olde English on the bus at 8:30 am on July 17th

To the homeless man drinking a can of Olde English on the bus this morning, I’m giving you a grade of F- and this is why:

On my way to work this morning, a very dirty man got on the bus (in the free area) around Westlake center. He then proceeded to lift up a newspaper and pretend to read it. While he did this, he simultaneously drank a can of Olde English 800 High Gravity malt liquor, hiding it from the busdriver, and probably also the dorky security guard in the front of the bus. Nice work, dirty guy.

Homeless man, if you’d like to appeal your grade, please email me answers to the following questions:

1) Why are you on express bus? You don’t seem like you’re the type to be in a hurry to get anywhere. The weather is nice these days, take a walk.

2) Why are you out at all, drunk or not, at 8:30 in the morning? I’m going to work, where the hell are you going? Something tells me the good panhandling starts around lunch, so if I were a bum, I’d probably sleep in.

3) Seriously, drinking Olde English at 8:30 in the morning? That’s more of an after dinner drink for me. I would thinking something sweet, like a dessert wine or some Kahlua would be more appropriate. For 8:30 in the morning. At least drink regular beer, you could not possibly need malt liquor at that hour, the day hasn’t even been around long enough to start sucking.

4) Why were you pretending to read the business section of the paper? Your ruse might have worked a little better if you didn’t pretend to be a filthy, sweaty man, checking in on your tech stocks. While reeking of beer. Maybe next time, try reading the funnies. Garfield makes me want to drink, people might sympathize with you. Like “drink up buddy, Family Circus has been going downhill lately, ever since they got rid of ‘Not Me.’”

Homeless man, please go to the library and get on a computer and email me justification for your actions this morning. And everyone else, please email me if you know of things that suck.

I can be reached at johnnyjive@hotmail.com.