Punchin' Judies.

Hyperbole can be a dangerous thing when used improperly. It can cause people to take leave of their senses and assume the worst of things. These things, more often than not, are hardly worth the effort expended on decrying them and they lead one to wonder just what the big fuss is about.

In case the last paragraph (and post title) was, in any way, vague, I went to see Sucker Punch today. Maybe, my standards are too high (or too low), but this was hardly the worst film I've seen in a while (now, why does that sound familiar?).

That's not to say that I'll serve as one of its defenders, not that there's a shortage of them; its IMDb rating is currently 6.8/10, not bad for a movie everyone supposedly hates.

The story concerns a young woman, Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who is shipped off to a mental institution for murdering her younger sister, never mind that we never see the bullet from the gun she fires enter the girl, nor do we see blood staining the girl's dress, just that on Baby-Doll's fingers (more on this later). She meets a number of other girls there, including Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone, but I swear I thought it was Alexa Vega) and Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish). Then, for reasons the movie doesn't even pretend to explain, the scene shifts from an institution to a brothel.

Within this brothel, Baby Doll escapes into fantasy, freeing her from her harsh reality(ies?). The audience is treated to a number of sequences ranging from war movie, to futuristic train chase to a medieval romp with a dragon to what I can only call steampunk Shaolin.

While I watched the film, a number of things failed to add up for me. First, why the reality shift? Granted, the institution scenes would keep the audience at arm's length if held up for the rest of the movie, but why a brothel? No, I can't name a better venue for the majority of the narrative, but it seemed arbitrary. Also, people rave about Baby Doll's dancing, but we never see it, just people's amazed reactions before another elaborate fantasy sequence. This complaint seems a little "When are they getting to the fireworks factory?", but I was curious. For the life of me, I could not get a handle on when this was supposed to be set. The 40s? The 60s? Right now? What the hell? The use of modern pop songs didn't help in this regard. I can sort of see why people complained about that in A Knight's Tale and Moulin Rouge (whose music supervisor, Marius De Vries, performed that function here): that shit's distracting.

Lastly, how obvious was it that this was cut from an R-rating? And without Zack Snyder's knowledge (I forget where I read it, but Snyder walked off of S.W.A.T. when he found out that Sony wanted a PG-13 rating for the film.)? There's the scene where Hudgens (in a moment that would give her "High School Musical" devotees pause) says (paraphrasing, so give me a break), "You ugly motherfucker!". Her lips clearly say the word, but no sound comes out. Was someone too busy to cut that part out?

Did I like anything about this movie? Carla Gugino was good as a live-action version of Bart's ballet teacher from that one "Simpsons" episode, it's always nice to see Jon Hamm, the ladies are attractive and Scott Glenn (my favorite thing in the movie) made for a perfect inscrutable guide.

Glenn has a line early on: "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." I stand for this: Sucker Punch was neither great, nor lousy. It just was.

Doing me a flavor.

After all this time of vocally expressing my displeasure at their sudden disappearance, they're back:



Taken at my job this afternoon. I took something of a risk. We're not supposed to have cell phones on the floor, so if I don't have a job at the end of this week...yeah, this is probably the reason why. In which case, I say...worth it.

Given how my morning has been going (and given that I watched the "Spongebob" episode, "Krusty Krab Training Video" before I left), I really wish that buttons reading "I really wish I weren't here right now!" and "Go be stupid somewhere else." really existed.

Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)

Another star in Hollywood's sky fades away.

For my generation, Taylor is known mainly for her perfume commercials, playing Pearl Slaghoople in The Flintstones, her friendship with Michael Jackson, her many marriages (joked about by every comedian and talk-show host you can think of) and, most notably, her two guest spots on "The Simpsons" - as herself in "Krusty Gets Cancelled" ("I've got to fire that agent.") and as Maggie in "Lisa's First Word".

This does something of a disservice to the many classic (and, of course, unseen by my eyes) movies in which she starred: National Velvet, Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Cleopatra (granted, applying 'classic' to this film is questionable, but I'm trying to make a point).

I shouldn't have to say that she'll be missed. That much is certain.

So, let's see: I'm currently (sort of) working on three screenplays with three more on the backburner, three fanfictions (two of which are my own; long story), juggling two credit cards with a phone bill and working out the best way to stay in New York City for this fall's Comic-Con without a) breaking the bank and b) waiting too long that I'm forced to sneak around the Big Apple without a place to stay in between enjoying the fruits of my non-refundable four-day pass.

No pressure, right?

Went to work at a different store today. The experience (once I acclimated myself to the new location and various codes) was bump-free...until the end of the shift.

A little backstory: at my store, there's usually a bookkeeper at the end of business who goes over the day's transactions, making sure that everything is kosher. Also, we receive carrying cases and starting forms, to (respectively) organize our items and mark what our totals are. I didn't get anything like that here and I had to share my drawer with two other people at different times in the day. Also, there was no bookkeeper, just a manager who, herself, wasn't familiar with the way things were done.

Needless to say, counting down was very frustrating. Imagine being a passenger who's never flown before and you're asked to fly a nosediving plane. Yeah, it was kind of like that.

Pity that Ain't It Cool News is on the fritz. From what I'm hearing, Red Riding Hood could really benefit from the Capone/Massawyrm touch.

EDIT: I had the wrong web address in my links. The site is working fine. It's just that the old, 'aint-it-cool-news.com' domain name expired.

And Capone's Red Riding Hood review was as good as I expected. That comment about Gary Oldman pouring hot sauce on the scenery before chewing it was a riot.

Well, today's Fat Tuesday, that day when people gorge before fasting for Lent. Except for the fasting, everyday's Fat Tuesday for me.

I've been taking cholesterol-lowering drugs to counteract my binging. Unusual when you're not even 30. I don't have any pussy to eat, so I may as well eat my feelings, right?

So much for my happy ending.

I seriously can't imagine why people prefer depressing endings. It breaks my heart scanning the 'Downer Ending' page at TV Tropes that there can be so many examples. My thinking is this: isn't real life full of these kinds of endings? What's more, why would people want them in their movies, where people go to escape reality?

Interestingly, I stumbled upon an article that makes another argument for why purveyors of these conclusions should soak their heads:

Why all stories should end happily