· rants

roger ebert and i agree? shocking!

September 27, 2007 in rants | 2 comments

last christmas while home visiting my wonderful family (they sometimes read this blog – so be nice) i was subjected to this very issue that Ebert goes on about here. i can’t agree with him more. it is a sin against artists, directors, writers, actors, and the very medium to so corrupt it by viewing anything at the wrong ratio and thus changing the very way in which it was INTENDED to be viewed.

you are slapping brilliant artists in the face by ignorantly complaining that you “want to fill your screen” or that you “hate those black bars” (sorry mom and dad). the thing i really don’t get is why this doesn’t just LOOK wrong to people. i understand wishing that everything was shot at an aspect ratio that will maximize your expensive new screen, but wishing doesn’t make it so…and neither does stretching programs to inhuman and abnormal proportions.

if you genuinely don’t see the difference (or don’t think you do) i beg you to try a little test next time you’re watching something “stretched”. wait for a good scene where this abnormality will be most obvious…a scene of a character or two walking down a street together would be a great example. pause your dvr/tivo/dvd/vcr whatever (or if it’s a long enough scene just let it keep playing) and switch from the way you have been viewing it to the other options available…and see how suddenly people don’t look so chunky, stretched, and abnormal. it’s a world of difference. if you can’t see it, well i guess i just don’t know what to say, there’s no way i can help you.

sidenote: don’t try to cheat and use the “zoom” feature that many screens have available, where you fix the aspect ratio so that nothing is stretched, but then to get it to fill in your screen you zoom it so that in close ups heads are cut off or other important things. you will never know what you might be missing if you do not view things they way they were intended by creators to be seen…you could be missing everything.

this is not the planet i want to be living on…how do i get off?

September 21, 2007 in comics, craptastic, daniel clowes, rants | 5 comments

Less than 5 days after posting the Daniel Clowes NY Times Weekly Strip on my blog, I came across this blurb on Vulture about this article.

What is the world coming to? How did Americans…a people that should be like the revolutionary teenagers of the universe (making idiot rookie mistakes but being young and confident and full of ideas about change and pushing limits) become the fucking scared conservative old woman of the world? When did this happen? WHY?

Yesterday it is cover stories about genital cutting and today it is about censorship in schools, it’s too much. If the father of this girl (who is a complete ass) would read a book once in a while maybe they would realize that their daughter is actually better off being challenged by teachers that don’t have blinders on.

I have read the book in question and while I will concede that it is debatable as to whether it is definitely appropriate for a 14 year old (it really depends on the 14 year old I suspect) I can also say in no uncertain terms that I WISH I had been given something like this by a teacher. Something that actually was outside the box. Something that made me think and/or feel. One of the mother’s complaints is that the teacher asked the student “how does this make you feel?” she said it like that was an inappropriate (read: pornographic) question for a teacher to ask a student…are we really no longer even allowed to FEEL? Is it wrong to read something that causes you to feel something more than the crappy television shows that just wash right over you? Is it a crime to challenge a student to not just do the assignment but to be challenged to answer tough questions about it? I just can’t believe this. If I had been given things like this when I was kid, maybe I would have learned something about life and what else was out there much sooner…as is, I feel like I had to hunt down every single thing I have learned…if ONLY someone could have handed me something that would have challenged me…think what I could have been.

I’m so disappointed in this planet and especially my backwards fucking nation. Stop the planet, I’d like to get off please.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/09/daniel_clowes_pornographer.html

female genital cutting in Egypt

September 20, 2007 in feminism, feminist rage, misogynistic bullshit, rants, the continued torture of women | 3 comments

i’ve been debating all day whether to write about this article i read in the New York Times today or not. i guess i decided to write about it. but i still feel conflicted.

here’s the problem, i’m a smart girl, i’m no genius but smart enough most days and while i’m more informed about worldly events than the average American (and apparently more educated considering i can point to not only North America but several other continents – not to mention actual countries too – on a map) i have been doing a piss poor job of keeping involved in current events, politics, world issues, etc. i get my news mostly from the internet, clicking on stories that interest me. i don’t regularly read any newspapers and i refuse to watch American news reports which we all know are really entertaiment news programs anyway. as such i feel like my information is a bit limited and part of this is deliberate. like many educated people i suffer from a strong desire to know these things and be involved, but also like many people i feel overwhelmed quickly. i can only read about a war that i have no interest in (and if it were up to me we would not have ever gotten involved in) so many times before i give up in frustration.

i think it’s a combination of things, but mostly there are not enough hours in the day for me to work my job, submit (and write) short fiction, submit my novel, re-write my novel, re-draw and re-tool my graphic novel, work out (which always seems to get lost in the shuffle), engage in my relationship, and also both care about and do something about things like female genital mutilation in Egypt (or anywhere else for that matter). so all i end up feeling is frustration.

on one hand it is my choice to not do anything about it, to instead focus my energy on becoming a “successful” writer. on the other hand if people like me don’t care (there seem to be so few of us out there) then who will do anything? *sigh* it’s depressing. in my mind there is always going to be ample time to care about such things when i quit my full time job and become a “full time writer” because then i will have all this magical free time that used to be used up on writing…but we all know that is a myth. there will never be any extra time. maybe this is why i get mad when people tell me they are bored. please, give me your extra time that you have to be bored, because there are plenty of things i’d like to do with your “i’m bored” time.

okay, enough of the rant. please read the article below, and if you’re a better person than me (i hope you are) consider getting involved. there must be something that can be done.

these men are cowards. they are afraid of change and more importantly they are afraid of the power of women. they hide behind religion because it is hard to attack religion without being called all sorts of things, but what they are too cowardly to realize is that they are hiding behind man’s interpretation of God’s word and man gets things wrong all the time, this is no exception.

and speaking of getting things wrong…how is female genital mutilation the same as circumcision? it’s not female circumcision it is female castration.

it is female castration and it has to stop.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/world/africa/20girls.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

this is a picture from the NY Times article of some of the men who defend the tradition of genital cutting with the words, “we support circumcision!” you are cowards. you are all cowards.

the first 14 minutes of The Bionic Woman…oy.

September 20, 2007 in craptastic, rants, television reviews | 2 comments

the first 14 minutes of the Bionic Woman have been posted online, click below to watch, but be warned, you will probably want to claw your eyes out, even if there are no bionic eyes with which to replace them. it is a pretty horrible 14 minutes. i don’t know how hard you have to try to write something this terrible. and it’s a real feat to get actors that are equally as terrible as the writing. whoo-hoo! the only bright spot seems to be Katee Sackhoff, but even that stuff is stiff and frustratingly stupid.

i promised myself i would sit through the hour long premiere…boy do i hate it when i promise myself stuff. yuck.

http://video.aol.com/video/tv-bionic-woman-2-acts/1970902

check out the cast shot below, how do you make even a simple cast shot look lame? the show is called the bionic woman for chrissake…i mean you actually have to work hard to make that boring…congrats guys.

UPDATE: looks like they have pulled the first 14 minutes of the net (could it be because it sucks?)…the link above no longer works and i can’t find a duplicate that is the same as the one i originally posted. interestingly enough there was an older 4 minute trailer on youtube that had very similar scenes but with a different “sister character” (pictured above actually) who is deaf (like in the original Bionic Woman). i think it’s a mistake that they changed this direction, at least it would have given something unique to the show. also, it’s annoying that they went with the “cuter, slimer, bitchier and more annoying” actress that is also not deaf as the sister. not that i’m shocked. it sounds about par for the course.

sean young…blech.

September 18, 2007 in hollywood, rants, writing | 9 comments

you know who i really dislike, despite the fact that i have never met her and cannot give you one good reason for disliking her, except for the fact that i think she’s a shitty actress? that’s right, Sean Young.

i can’t put my finger on it, but she annoys the hell out of me, to a really insane degree. anyway, for some reason, despite the fact that she’s sort of a has been/never was, Entertainment Weekly is doing a cover story on her (why? i don’t know…i don’t ask these questions anymore…mostly because nobody answers me). so i am kind of loathe to give her the free press of my dozens and dozens of readers (that’s you!) but i posted the link to the full story below.

she’s so pathetic in the interview that i actual started to feel a little sorry for her, but then she just continued being whiny and annoying and fake and psycho and comparing herself to Julia Roberts (are you kidding?) and saying she has at least as much charisma as George Clooney (are you KIDDING?!) and so my ‘sorry feelings’ evaporated like fine mist and i just went back to hating her again. this is one of those few times that Hollywood seems to agree with me and has forcibly kept her on the sidelines…it feels good when a powerhouse like Hollywood finally agrees with you. it feels like delicious satisfaction and let me tell you, i could get used to it.

as a sidenote, i’ve been compiling a list…you know how i love lists dear reader…of the “10 Most Overrated Actresses”…Sean Young would be #1 on it, but since she isn’t really “highly rated” i guess she’ll just have to get an honorable mention, as only women who are actually getting good roles in Hollywood (for no reasons understood by mankind…or, well, me.) should be on the list. anyway, here’s a link to the full story, in which you can feel writer Karen Valby’s palpable disdain for her, you can feel Valby trying to like her and Young just cutting her off at every pass:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20056516,00.html

ps – no picture of Sean Young because i hate looking at her (even though she says “humor and beauty are two things that come naturally to her” yuck – i just threw up a little bit) and i don’t want her image posted on my blog…ever. it was painful enough to write her name and link to a story…

UPDATE: this is not a “cover story” in Entertainment Weekly, it is just “a regular story”…the cover i saw in the current article (but didn’t bother to read the caption on) was a cover story they did on her back in 1992…she didn’t warrant a cover story back then to my mind either, but at least she could have been considered “entertainment news” back then. sorry for the error!

is there some way i can un-see this? please?

September 12, 2007 in rants | Permalink

so every couple months the anti-smoking lobby comes up with a couple horrible disgusting new commercials that i cannot un-see and i’m just sick of it.

is there some kind of “non-smoker block” that i can have put on my television, like a parental control so that i as a lifelong non-smoker don’t have to be subjected to these horrible visuals?

i almost threw up my corn chex the other night when i was accosted by the image of a foot being operated on because of gangrene apparently due to smoking.

i get that they are trying to educate and i guess i’m all for everyone having as much knowledge as possible, but i don’t smoke, never have, and never plan to, so do i really have to see this stuff too?

also, and i’m likely to get flak for this, but just leave people alone. i don’t understand the anti-smoking lobby…much like i don’t understand most of these things. i know smokers, i know non-smokers, and i know plenty of smokers that are always on a quest to become non-smokers and i don’t think one of these disgusting commercials has helped any of these people. i don’t think as a smoker you wake up every day and go “Yes! Today I will smoke and it will be awesome and good for me!”, no you just do your best every day like the rest of us. we all have devils i think and they just come in different shapes and sizes, for some people that devil is smoking. i’m not trying to justify it and it puts your health at risk obviously, but i think we can all look inward and find some shit about ourselves that is not healthy that we feel compelled to do. having a lobby that spends god knows how much money trying to stop you from doing something that you probably wish you weren’t doing in the first place, i don’t know, it just feels stupid. and actually kind of mean.

i can get behind the idea of putting this information out there for kids who are impressionable and might be wooed by the mystique of starting to smoke, and certainly the idea of making sure that the information is available and the facts generally known, but for people who are already immeshed smoking as a habit, i guess i feel like if they are already trying to stop, then being shown horrible images is unlikely to somehow miraculously help them stop. so why do we all have to suffer (and lose our lunch) if it’s not even helping?

i would certainly open this discussion to anyone that has any personal experience with this – especially if these horrible commercials have helped you stop smoking – because then at least i could feel okay about not being able to eat my corn chex – because someone is being helped. thoughts?

there is no image or link in this post because i don’t want that horrible nightmare inducing stuff on my blog. but if you wish to find any of this stuff just google it, or check out commercials on you tube.