New link today. Check out Matt Fugate's website. If you cruise around it long enough, you'll find a free download section with three handy little links. It's funny, I promise. Would I lie? Yes, you have a point. Actually I just put the link up because I posted on his message board. So, if he happens to visit my shanty nesting site, he'll feel welcome. I just typed out my true intentions, so the whole thing is going to be completely ineffective. I wish I didn't suck so much at life.

So I'm in Louisiana right now, visiting family. I haven't seen any of the horrendously disfunctional ones yet. How strange that the only cousins that I want to see are the ones that aren't in this congealed shithole. The ones that stay, aren't...let's use the term 'winners.'

Watched three movies with the pops last night: Reign of Fire, The Recruit and The Hunted. They weren't nearly as bad as I thought they would be. Especially The Hunted. Nobody ever told me that The Recruit (capitalizing these titles ends now) was shitty, as 'they' had with reign of fire, but reign of fire has fucking dragons. So, needless to say, I was infinately surprised with The Hunted. It's got Benecio Del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones in it, but it's about the US military. My dad usually likes shitty war films (and I don't really blame him for it) so I expected an obsolete ideology cuntflapfest. It wasn't a feel good, yay, we're americans movie at all though. It was a knife fight movie, and that's about the size of it. Anyway, enough about the movie that didn't suck.

Reign of Fire was surprisingly cool. Everyone said it blew chunks, but I didn't dislike it at all really. The plot is as follows: In London, in about 5 years (2008) a subway project or some shit hits this cavern where dragons have been sleeping for a very long time. These dragons caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. In a few years, they decimate human civilization, breeding, burninating and munching on fleshy, pink 2 legged meatbags at an alarming rate. They year is now 20*cough* and there are but a few scattered remnants of humanity. Here's where I have my first big problem with the movie. The narrative starts following this certain human fortress in the former UK.

They have electricity. It's never explained, but they have fucking spotlights, and lamps, and toasters and fuckin wall mounted dildos. Well, maybe not two of those. All the dildos in the movie are battery operated. But, back to the electricity...HOW? I mean, the entire infastructure of the world is decimated, yet they have electricity? They're not even concerned about their usage either. Do they just magic the electricity into the shit? I mean, theoretically, their service should have been cut. They don't even have a mailbox. Maybe it's on automatic withdrawal. Ok, logic hole filled. I'm gonna finish up this post in a day or two, so check back constantly.

Anyway, here's me finishing up this post. "Hey Nate, why don't you delete the line about you finishing up the post, since it's obvious that's what you're doing to anyone who's already read it, and confusing to anyone who hasn't?" Fuck you! You people and your logic, and your 'facts' and your ethanol containing spirits, and your.... I admit I have no clue where I was going with that.

I guess I could talk a bit more about Reign of Fire. Sounds like an idea. Ok, so one of the main reasons I like the film is because it's a post-apocalyptic movie without being a two hour long Aerosmith music video. Not naming any names, you know. Reign of Fire just fills that particular void in American cinema, the post-apocalyptic and the complete lack of dragons. That's not to say that there are no movies about those two things, but just that it's rare. And I happen to like them both.

So, after that useless fucking paragraph (which I'm not going to delete), you need something to keep you reading. What can I possibly say, to compete with such entertainment gems as Paradise Hotel and Classmates, though? I mean, honestly. Am I the only person in this fading democracy that is absolutely in love with Paradise Hotel? No, not according to the ratings. It's a fucking treat. I was watching it religiously, as much as I can be said to do anything but sleeping religiously. Did anyone else see the episode where they were voting on a new male, and one of the guys that's already in 'Paradise' got in like, an alpha male, macho, gorilla style staring match? They're linked by cameras and televisions, yet they still feel the need to stand up and stretch their arms out, thereby intimidating their opponent. You're three thousand fucking miles from each other. Simmer down, simmer down. There's no reason to get real close to the projection screen and raise your voice an octave. Yeah, bump chests with the pixelated opponent, that's a good signifier of your intelligence, you termite eating with a stick motherfucker. If you want to see proof of man's evolution from apes, watch fucking Paradise Hotel. Besides, what a concept for a fuckin' show. Picture two guys doing cocaine in an NBC employee bathroom.

"oh, that's good hooch. Any idea what you're going to pitch at the meeting this evening, Bob?"
"Sweet, sweet....oh, that. No clue. The American Public wants more 'Reality,' but quite Frankly, I don't have much more."
"Well, enough blow is certain to spark your memory."
"Wait wait, I got it. We'll take as many inarticulate, deluded, low-rent, moderately attractive people as we can. Make them Audition for a trip to "Paradise."
"We should get some marginally talented pop-singer to remake that song."
"What song?"
"You know...'I've got, two tickets to paradise...."
"Hold on there, slick, are you saying that it was a good song in the first place?"
"Of course not, what do you take me for?"
"A corporate worker bee that spent the time period where that song was released in an alcoholic haze."
"Get back to your fucking pitch."
"Right. So we send them to this Hotel."
"Like a real hotel?"
"Shut the fuck up, it's not a real hotel, it's a set. It's set in a 'hotel' like survivor was set on an 'island'."
"Ok, continue."
"Do all the traditional reality bullshit. Get a fake british accent for the host, pretend audience involvement, start out with a chick that's ugly beyond all reason and is a personal trainer, get the hot girl with the quivering lip that cries constantly..."
"I always just want to skullfuck those girls."
"...camera cuts with noises that sound like someone's throwing dictionaries against the floor, a voting system, of course."
"Where's the catch?"
"Well, we'll have two shows, one's a live audience thing, where we pick two new people every week, and the people already on the island, who are already partnered up with the opposite sex vote on who's going on. Only girls vote for the guys going, guys for girls."
"Not going to exploit the inexplicable "Will and Grace" phoenomenon, eh?"
"Not this time. Queer eye for the straight guy has that market cornered."
"And their name fucking rhymes, that is so unfair."
"We could call it Paradise is Very Nice."
"The 80's beat rhyming Paradise and Nice so far into the ground that it is now a type of sedimentary rock."
"Yeah, I guess you're right."

I think that's how it happened. Another thing I love about Paradise Hotel is something they've actually kinda stopped doing. At the end of each of the monday night shows, someone gets voted off. They do lots of camera cuts from all the people's faces, on each word of the sentence (which for the first few episodes, was unaltered) "One of you....will leave paradise...forever." In that cheesy fucking, fake as Pamela Lee's tits British accent. Another thing, is on each word of the sentence, they'd do a camera cut with a sound effect. It was a beautiful thing. True proof that production value is like a penis, you've either got it and don't know how to use it, or you need it and are fucking kidding yourself.

That's probably my final thought.