Art Films

The Retard Returns

Due to yesterday's perfectly mediocre performance, I, the noble dorkgeek known as "Fragmaster," have been officially appointed as the Something Awful Weekend News Goon. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

See, I used to work with Lowtax at GameSpy "back in the day," when I was the grizzled old veteran and he was the energetic, young, grinning-at-the-gums uppity upstart. For those of you with great memories, I ran PlanetQuake back when Quake totally blew our collective minds. "You mean… it's possible to shoot people with phallic rocket launchers… ONLINE!? With other people? Zounds, this is truly a magic item for my collection that I must procure!" This was during the Internet Dark Ages, 1997 or something like that. ICQ was still a larvae in the mind of some crazy Israeli programmer and the best way to get MP3's were through lame FTP sites that allowed you to download one mp3 for every seventy you uploaded. Anyway, we worked together at GameSpy while Lowtax was running PQ. As I recall, work consisted of watching a lot of Pokemon and MST3K while flaming each other publicly in the PQ and Planet Half-Life mailbags. Ah, those were the days.

But now the tables have turned and I'm the new guy everybody's going to hate and Lowtax is the Living God whose every word positively reeks of funny comedy hijinx. I can see the SA forum threads now: "FRAGMASTER: FAGG0T EQUALZ OR SPPORFED DUMBFAWCKL!?" or perhaps even the wildly creative "FRAGMASTER IS FAGMASTAH!" I don't even know why I'm volunteering to assist that Brillo-headed weasel. The only thing he's ever helped with is three broken ribs and a cracked nostril, both of which I graciously received after Lowtax "accidentally" pushed me over a balcony railing while trying to find his car keys.

But enough of my pathetic little prattle. I've probably alienated 94% of you already. Onward!

Art Films = Sucks

I love movies, but I absolutely hate most of the movies they play in those small, musty theaters that only urban socialites and yuppie beatniks frequent. When I go to the movies, I want to see at least one of the following clichés: car chases, gratuitous full-frontal female nudity, kung fu, hammy villains, explosions, juvenile dick farting jokes, or a witty sidekick. Any of those will do nicely.

I don't go to movies to be inspired by the human condition, moved by a touching story of some cheeky little girl, fall in love all over again, or believe in the power of miracles. If I wanted that junk, I'd watch "Touched By An Angel" and "Oprah" while sucking down Little Debbie snack cakes and collecting Beanie Babies. So I never go see any of these movies, but since this America, I can still speculate on the horrors these films contain and encourage people not to see them (even though I haven't viewed these cinematic achievements myself). Inflicting your ignorance upon the populace is one of our most basic freedoms, especially on the Internet! Here's what's playing currently at my local film snobbery:

"The House of Mirth" - In this Victorian era (or whatever) period piece, X-File hussie Gillian Anderson trades in her Alien-chasing FBI badge for… I don't know, a tragedy and melodrama-chasing badge, I guess. Here's a description:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, some poor 19th century lady can't get laid. Big deal. Some stupid movie studio squanders millions of dollars to dress up a Star Trek lady in huge hoop skirts while I suffer the shame of not being able to afford trendy, solid Oak furniture! Next time you come up with a movie idea, Mr. Hollywood, just give me the damn suitcases of cash and save yourselves the trouble.

For all you visual learners, I drew the entire movie for you below (click to enlarge).

Anyways, back to this movie. What kind of love story could this possibly be? Back in those days people could only get busy after:

1) getting married,
2) turning off all the gas-stove lamps to protect their eyes from the sight of each others un-bathed flesh,
3) turning around all the pictures of Jesus so He couldn't see them hump, and
4) putting a sheet with a hole in it between the two lovers so their skin wouldn't actually touch and cause them to experience unneeded physical enjoyment.

These days, you can skip all that and pound away at ANYTHING you're attracted to in a Mall Food Court without catching any guff.

In addition, the dialogue in these movies always makes you feel like you're in a basket of elderly people. What are they going to say to poor Lily Bart after she commits some social travesty? "Pardon me, young merry widow, but your bloomers are peeking from beneethst ye mud skippers. Ye brazen temptress! Begone with you, and ye charlatan canoodling!" Yawn.

As for that line about how "Lilly always seems to do the right thing at the wrong time," I bet the marketing people stuck that in there to fool stupid guys into going to this film thinking it's one of those wacky slapstick comedies where the main character does stuff like farting BEFORE he gets to the bathroom and politely asking his MOM for a kiss instead of his love interest. HA HA, you loveable funnyman, will you ever correct the error of your social deficiencies, save your granny's house, and land this hot babe who'd be way out of your league in real-life in less than two hours? Of course you will because movies in no way resemble reality!

Now, back to the "House of Mirth." Ah, nevermind, just take my word for it and don't go see this movie. I can guarantee that you won't walk out of the theater and say to your friend "Yeah, man that 'House of Mirth' was tight. Did you see that social injustice? Snoogans, man, if only Lily stayed true to her heart, ya know? Then she'd be all hand holdin' and all." When a movie says it's about "social hypocrisy," it's just a nice way of saying that it's about women crying over inane, stupid, boring problems that men would usually shoot to death and forget about in under five minutes. And that there's no tits.

I think I've got time to squeeze in another art house movie review, so here it is:

"Chocolat" - Some French floozy sells chocolate, puts out for Edward Scissorhands, pisses off a bunch of ignorant townspeople, and hawks magical candy that makes people horny for that old ugly lady from the James Bond movies, but only while she's bent over and cleaning bathroom floors. At least that's what the trailer led me to believe. And great job proofreading the movie title, guys. If you ran out of "e's" you could have gone out and bought some delicious Alpha-Bits brand cereal.

Ill-gotten Gains Leads To Astronaut Fame

California millionaire to go on $20 million ride to space station - The headline says it all, but here's the first paragraph:

Of course he's getting much more than he bargained for! Hasn't he heard about the terrible secret of space? Lowtax has already warned you dear readers about space's deep, dark, clandestine what-have-you, yet the general populace seems to completely ignore his wise words of warning.

So this rich guy who apparently made his fortune off the sale of his fourteen offspring to South American mind-control brothels, gets to blast off into space. Whoop-dee-doo. I just don't see the appeal of space. Sorry, but floating around, pissing upside down, dodging flying Cosmonaut dandruff, and eating dehydrated ice cream doesn't do much for me.

Two other things that bug me: first of all, what's with "getting more than you bargained for?" Nobody bargains for anything except at garage sales. And when I go to garage sales, I don't bargain down the price of somebody's old socks to twenty-five cents a box and then suddenly discover that my skillful haggling tactics has inspired the housewife selling this crap to also throw in four Apple IIe games, thus allowing me to proclaim that I truly did get more than what I bargained for. Upon re-reading this paragraph, I'm kinda disturbed by the fact that it sounds a little Jerry Seinfield-ish, which wasn't my intent. Yeah, I have a huge nose and use ICQ all the time, but I'm not Jewish.

Also, "gleaming." It's not just a "new" space station; it's the "gleaming, new" space station. WTF? I have never heard another human being utter the word "gleaming" in conversation. It's simply not a very good word. The English language has far too many words and it's impossible to learn them all, so can't we just outlaw all the stupid ones that are only used by people who have 27-volume dictionaries, big egos, and too much free time? This situation is unreservedly outlandish!