Lately the film industry has produced numerous remakes and sequels. Good movie ideas are at a premium because so much has already been done. Sometimes it is too hard to come up with a brand new, unique idea and it is much easier to take a movie that has already been made and put a new spin to it, thus we have movies such as this summer's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." Let's show how apes took over, what a great idea! I could take the Roger Ebert approach and say the movie sucks ass for many reasons, even though he didn't actually shit on Rise of the Planet of the Apes that much, but here's what I think.
I kind of like this attitude
I wasn't really sure what to expect from "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" when it hit theaters. I am not a fan of the Planet of the Apes, I never saw the original with Carlton Heston and I don't remember much of anything of the newer installment that came out some years ago. However, I am aware of the famous "Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape!" line, and yes, it was placed in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," uttered by the guy who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films (hooray for fun facts!). Anyways, I found myself captivated by the opening sequences in the film. James Franco's character, Will Rodman, works for a company trying to find a cure for Alzheimers' disease. The drug, ALZ 112 is being tested on apes and there's a problem where one of the apes goes ape shit (haha!) and then the company orders to have all the apes put down and start working again on the formula. Will (Franco) takes a baby ape home with him, the only ape escaping termination at the hands of the Man. Will raises the ape and names it Caeser. Caeser is a very clever ape because the smarts gained by his mother from the ALZ 112 were passed down to him at birth.
Caeser is NOT home
I found the aforementioned part of the movie very intriguing and attention grabbing. I enjoyed the conflict of the imperfect formula, the struggle with the Man, and the growth of a unique ape in Caeser. In my estimation the movie went downhill when Caeser was admitted into some home for apes. I think Will put him there in an attempt to give Caeser more space to live and grow rather than be confined to his attic. So Caeser gets admitted to this ape home and he, along with the other apes, are treated extremely poorly by the staff, including Draco Malfoy. I guess Draco only plays dicks in movies, that's one way to make a living. Caeser wants to go home, he isn't allowed to, he gets pissed off, finds a way to escape from the ape home, goes back to Will's and steals some of the prototype Alzheimer's formula from the refrigerator (I don't know what it's doing there either), and exposes his fellow maltreated apes to the formula, and they devise a plan to break out. In the process of breaking out they beat the turd out of one of the employees!
I thought I was going to find nothing but milk!
What happens next is what I have the largest issue with in the movie. Caeser and his cronies escape and proceed to break out the apes in the zoo and Will's place of employment, which apparently has tons of apes. I think the amount of apes that are broken out is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy tooooooooooooo large. They would definitely have THAT many apes in San Francisco! I also don't understand how all those apes would have the mental capacity to comprehend what is going on and be able to help Caeser and his fight for ape freedom. The movie was ruined with a big bang Hollywood ending. Mass ape exodus! The apes take down a helicopter and kill a black dude! At least I'm rather certain they killed him, he fell with the helicopter into the ocean and we all know he can't swim, right?
The little bastard looks so innocent
The movie is without a doubt set up for a sequel. I must say that I am curious to see where they go with this. I wonder if they'll have the apes take over planet earth or hijack a spaceship or something and go start their world on a different planet! The movie ends with Caeser and his cronies climbing to the top of the trees in forest nearest the Golden Gate bridge. I don't know why they climbed up there, I think it would have been funny if Caeser got to the top only to be shot and killed by a sniper! Game over, Caeser! I really think technology poses a greater threat to mankind (like Skynet in "The Terminator") than apes.
"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is an entertaining film and is worth a watch. As I said before, the beginning is very good, I very much enjoyed the development of the situation, but the climax and finale were nothing special. Although, I do believe that many people will enjoy the way the movie ends because it is a Hollywood finish and that's what people like to see: large numbers of apes running rampant through San Francisco proving unstoppable by authority with firepower and helicopters. I give "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" a solid 7.2936 out of 10.001.
Retentive Gibberish has taken a great step forward this last day in the blogging world. Today we became more respectable than the famed Boston Barstool Sports on the grounds that we have never had to use child pornography for a joke, and know that it would be wrong to do so. My brother, who was once featured on BBS for a video in which he failed a backflip, when asked how he feels about being featured on the same website as Tom Brady's naked 3 year old son responded "I'm fucking disgusted." Indeed we should all be fucking disgusted at the blogging world before us, so please continue to read Retentive Gibberish, we don't feature any porn (adult or child) because we are trying to be your diversion from it.
I rather enjoyed reminiscing about past experiences, so I'm going to do it again! This particular experience occurred when I was a freshman in high school and I was at tryouts for the baseball team. For some reason I was practicing with the JV team, probably because I could field somewhat well. My fielding was one of my best areas in the game, if not my strongest. I think that I owe this to a drill which I thought of more as just having fun! My dad would stand at the edge of our driveway facing the garage. I would position myself in front of the garage armed only with my glove. My dad would then toss up tennis balls and hit them with a tennis racket toward the opening of the garage and I would field them! It was so much fun and probably the reason I could field somewhat smoothly.
I did a little bit of this, too
The weather around here sucks ass so we were having batting practice in our shitty gym where the batting cage was set up. We had a designated on deck circle where the person who was up next could get some practice swings in. I had just finished batting and I had gone back to my bag to put my bat away and take off my batting gloves. I would also like to add that my bag was nowhere near the designated on deck circle, who would have guessed. I had just finished putting my batting gloves in my bag when I stood up and turned around. What did I see when I turned around, not much but a blur and something hitting me in the face hard. I just stood there and touched the top of my right eye with my hand. When I looked at my hand it was covered in blood and I saw blood dripping to the floor. My teammates rushed me to the locker room where they did their best to clean me up and my mom was called to take me to the hospital. I'm sure the janitor loved me because now he had to clean up the long trail of blood!
This guy got off way too easy
Apparently I had been struck in the face with the bat wielded by my teammate who was on deck. I'm still certain that I was not in the on deck area, but who cares now, that was about six or seven years ago now. This was not just an ordinary bat either, it had a weight taped onto it, a practice bat. So I took a weighted bat to the face, more specifically, to my right eyebrow. My mom came to pick me up and brought me to the local hospital's emergency room. I still remember telling the emergency room people why I was there. The women on at that time looked at me horrified and asked me if I had been in a gang fight. Absolutely classic! Yeah, I got in a gang fight then got my mom to drive me to the hospital and calmly strolled into the emergency room, no big deal. I just hope for everyone's sake that the people who did this to me don't find us here, then shit's going down!
I had to wait forever in that emergency room. I remember seeing people walk out with the most miniscule issues, too. There was this one guy who came out with a band-aid on his thumb. Then there were those other people there complaining about the common cold, in the emergency room. I ended up getting three or four stitches and now there is a thin line on my eyebrow where hair no longer grows. I still remember going to school the next day, too. I had this patch over my eye and a couple of times I heard people say "hey, that must be the kid who got hit in the face with the bat."
Telling stories from my past is fun! Stay tuned for more coming soon! At least I hope coming soon.
Village People - Sex Over the Phone
Okay, now that I've got your attention I can move on to some other videos where I have to actually explain why I love them so. Oh and somebody really needs to petition Lady Gaga to cover this song.
The Darkness - I Believe In a Thing Called Love
This video is so wonderful (as is the song) that I will have to walk you through all the things I love about this video so strap yourselves in!
0:23 - Sweet Headband in the bathtub dude!
0:32 - MAN ASS!
0:37 - I need a drying/rape monster in my house immediately!
0:40-0:51 - This little period taught me more about sex than anything else I have ever seen or heard.
1:03 - Does the bassist really need to walk out like a robot?
1:10 - Somebody just pressed the instant solo button! (By the way this song has some awesome guitar work)
1:26 - Who can say they haven't been tormented by giant space crabs at some point in their life?
1:30 - Best thumbs up shot ever, everything is indeed "A-Okay".
1:39 - With the help of my spirit band and their harmony, I shall vanquish this monster with his own rock!
1:59 - Pause it and contemplate if you would rather be able to get away with having such terrible teeth as this guy, or being able to get away with wearing that headband. I'd personally go with the headband.
2:04 - Is that some new age dildo?
2:08 - Commence amazing solo #2, and stay tuned for the greatest room ever created.
2:20 - Don't you want a Marshall amp? I bet he got those wholesale.
2:31 - Blue fire room with amplifying archs! And it cuts into the obligatory minutely shot of the other band members.
2:45 - Red unicorn lady? I bet the singer took her to pound town.
2:49 - This is the best moment in any music video ever, I hope they did this at all their concerts ever.
3:06 - Ah, it is coming to an end, but not before we battle a GIANT SQUID!
3:27 - Yes, the drummer is utilizing the squid's appendages as part of his set, no biggie.
3:33 - This jump beats anything from any basketball game or Olympic event ever.
3:44 - Another great thumbs up shot for showing the true power of rock and roll! Excellent song over.
Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage
Could and probably should have gone with this video, but I like this one just as much and it is a little more obscure than the other.
Not as action packed as the Darkness but I'll point out my favorite parts.
0:21 - Pencil Moustache = 100 points.
0:28 - Man? Woman? Natural? Intentional? Gloves?
0:46 - HIGH VOLTAGE!
1:00 - Now it is getting good! Dramatic standing grasp..
1:08 - Have you ever seen anybody keep their mouth open larger and longer?
1:16 - 1:43 - Didn't expect it to go on that long did you? But there were also some good moments in between.
1:23 - Going two hands there buddy? It's gonna be a good day for him!
1:34 - That is what I call a handful of ass!
1:36 - Awkward eyebrows as if it wasn't strange enough.
2:11 - WET WILLY! Part always kinda creeps me out.
2:17 - From the people who brought you dramatic standing grasp comes, explorer suits and a stuffed moose!
2:20 - Oh yeah, its so hot even the dead moose is feeling it.
2:32 - 2:40 - They are back for more and this time there was no cutscenes to take you away from this madness.
2:40 - 2:47 - I dare you not to be scared shitless by any one of these pieces of "art."
2:48 - Fire in the disco!
2:50 - What a cute family portrait!
2:56, 2:58, 3:00 - I'm pretty sure all three of these are the same shot.
3:04 - So that's where the saxophone was coming from!
3:17 - And you probably thought the wet willy was creepy earlier...
3:27 - Return of the wet willy!
3:38 - Fire in the Taco Bell?
These turned out to be a little longer than I intended, so leave a comment if you like this (suggestions?) and I'll try to do some more in the future.
It's been a little while since I've written here, probably would have written over the weekend but I was nowhere near technology for a couple days. Yes my friends this means exactly what you think it means, the man who's interpretation of fun is crunching baseball stats on Microsoft Excel went on a weekend camping trip!
Nature!
The trip came out of nowhere for me, as I was minding my own business at home one day when I received a call from one of my housemates at school and while I was confused by why he was calling at the time, I had wanted to go visit that weekend so it was nice. The next words he said were more or less "camping and canoeing, tomorrow, be there or be square" in which case my response was more or less "fuck yeah!" In order to arrive at our school house at a decent hour I had to take the day off of work and leave early as I have a two and a half hour drive just to get there, so that too was kind of a nice consequence. Things were going swimmingly on the drive up and I even got to play some X-men Arcade with one of my friends who wasn't going on our adventure. But then things became more interesting. We didn't leave for the camp until around 7:00 and it took about an hour just to get to the place we were going to push off with the canoes. If you are not aware, that means it was starting to get very dark by the time we had all of our stuff put into the canoes and put them into the water. This is when I found out two new pieces of information about our adventure, first that we had a 45 minute canoe out to the island we were staying on given you are experienced at canoeing, second I found that none of us were experienced at canoeing.
We aren't this good...
After taking about 20 minutes to figure out we were in the canoe backwards and another 15 to figure out how to pretend we were canoeing straight we started to canoe straight off into the massive lake. The sun was going down rapidly and our island was far out of sight, but that did not break our resolve at all. Now a couple of interesting things would happen, first once the sun was officially down and it was very dark out, and then fireworks filled up the sky! Take this from me, there are not many things more awesome and peaceful than floating in the middle of a lake watching a fireworks display in what is pretty much perfect weather, it was amazing. Then a little later when it was pretty much pitch black, we started going by a dock on what we now refer to as "Old Lady Island" in which we got heckled by the old lady inhabitants of the island. They started yelling "What you are doing is dangerous" and "you guys should stick together" saying it as if both of these tidbits were completely foreign to us before meeting with them. Really? Canoeing in the dark when we only have a few flashlights to make people aware of our presence is dangerous? I would've thought it would be more dangerous to cross an empty street at noon, go figure. Also, I don't know if these bitches ever rode in a canoe, but it isn't exactly a wheel turn to change your direction, it is difficult for us to stay as close as they would've liked (which would be more-or-less canoe buttfucking.)
Isn't there a kitchen you should be in?
Eventually we found our island and campsite, which was right on top of another which was inhabited and the inhabitants were sleeping. We decided to take up another empty one for the night and be prepared to leave if someone showed up the next morning. What happened the rest of the night was a few beers and someone trying to throw a bowie knife into a tree, it was fun. The next day was regular old camping experience, sit in the outdoors, go swimming in the lake and do camping-type stuff. This was nice until we had a park ranger come by and inform us that we had to move because the people who's campsite we took couldn't talk to us themselves, so we moved back on top of the inhabitants of the previous night. This was a really annoying inconvenience to an otherwise relaxing day. But once again the sun would go down and we would have some good old fashioned fun. Drinks around a campfire and one friend became the topic of the night as he tried a to inhale a certain type of plant for the first time in his life, it was not a pretty sight as a normally outgoing kid was more or less comatose for the better part of an hour. Don't worry though, he was fine, all he had to do was throw up in the tent right next to me and he was back to normal. I guess he just went a little too far.
Truly words to live by.
I don't recall anything particularly interesting happening on the last day besides moving back of the island and returning to civilization. I eventually found myself back home and writing this so I figure all turned out well. I also learned a valuable lesson, whenever you are doing anything you just have to remember two important things "what you are doing is dangerous!" and "you guys should stick together!"
