There’s a Dinosaur in my Office (or, What the Fuck Happened to my Childhood?)

When you’re a little kid, dinosaurs are the coolest thing ever. Don’t lie; you went through a dinosaur phase too, just like the rest of us. The second they released Jurassic Park our entire generation was done for. When I think back to that time in my life, I remember building blanket forts with my brother to defend against Raptor attack, reading book after book and being able to list ridiculous amounts of dino-facts, watching dinosaur docos with those crappy paper 3D glasses and thinking they were going to eat me (the dinosaurs, not the glasses), sitting through The Land Before Time several hundred times, and making Stegosaurus and Brontosaurus action figures do things God didn’t intend Stegosauruses and Brontosauruses to do together.

So you can imagine my delight, then, when the following headline came up in my work’s internal news bulletin:

“Dinosaur Footprints Seen in the Core Laboratory”

Yessss, I thought, I KNEW it! I’m working for a secret laboratory genetically engineering LIVE DINOSAURS in an underground facility funded by an eccentric old scientist with a cane, but sabotage has set one of the creatures loose and a technician has discovered the ominous muddy footprints of a Tyrannosaurus Rex which ESCAPED and will probably EAT EVERYONE I KNOW!

Unfortunately, upon further reading of the article I found out it wasn’t anything quite so exciting. But that’s most likely for the best. I guess.

The core lab downstairs is actually where my company tests drill core samples for oil or coal or gas or whatever to see if the field they grabbed it from is likely to have a sustainable amount of oil (in this case) there to set up mining operations. But check out what they found:

That right there is a dinosaur’s footprint. No, seriously. An actual one, right here in my office – they put it on display down in the lab so we could all go gawk at it.

The rocks are around 150 million years old; part of the Late Jurassic period, apparently. The sediments are lake deposits with sandy beaches and river channels. When the lake level dropped, red soil developed over the mud and sand. Some of the soil shows local pressure deformation – you can see in the photo – layers of mud up to three centimetres thick have been squeezed upwards and sand has later filled the depressions about seven centimetres apart on either side of the mud mounds.

So basically, given the age of the formation and shore setting of the rocks, what you’re looking at is the cross section (so looking at it from the side, not from above) of a dinosaur’s footprint. You know when you’re at the beach and the sand is wet and mud squeezes between your toes? It’s like that, only 150 million years later. Pretty cool, right? I mean, the scientist presenting it was no Sam Neil, but that’s not his fault.

So, caught up in these dinosaur-related reminiscences of old, I wondered – what the hell happened to my childhood? Because you know what? I don’t care what people say, Jurassic Park is the motherfucking dinosaur BIBLE, okay, but you only need to take a cursory look at current evolutionary theories to see that the entire scientific world has basically called bullshit to everything we were taught as kids.

When poor Pluto got de-listed from the Planet Club, everyone kicked up a fuss, but no one seemed to notice when our good buddies the Velociraptors went from this:

I WILL EAT YOUR FUCKING FACE

To this:

GOBBLEWARRK?

Seriously, what the fuck, that’s just not cool. There it is: my childhood. RUINED. They’re described as “feathered and turkey-sized”. That’s… I mean… it’s pathetic. Hahaha. And that’s just the beginning!

My theory is basically that when scientists were ensuring their discoveries were as hardcore awesome as possible and handing out planet badges willy-nilly, it was back in the early 1900s when everyone was on crack and theorising whatever they damn well pleased on the assumption it would make a totally sweet movie once they got around to inventing special effects and stuff.

Nowadays? Scientists just seem to be intent on being huge dicks and ruining all our fun by doing silly things like proving their theories and using rational thought and not doing hard drugs and stuff. They’re taking back their planets and their dinosaurs and god knows what else and slapping hands after they’ve already been dipped in the candy jar. It’s just bad parenting. ALL I AM SAYING IS JOHN HAMMOND DIDN’T PULL THIS KIND OF CRAP, OKAY.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a blanket fort to disassemble.

Watch Me Make This Pencil Disappear (aka The Dark Knight movie review)

So this week, I went to go see Batman: The Dark Knight, because I am a conformist who easily succumbs to peer pressure. Also, I desperately wanted a hot dog that night, and when I was told that I could get one AND a drink for the mere price of 2.00 (at a THEATRE!) because a friend worked there…well. I was sold. Note that I don’t actually know anything about Batman, and that I haven’t seen any other Batman movie. So I might be wrong here but…

The movie was fucking ace.

Despite the fact that Batman sounds like a heavy smoker named Barbara, all of the acting was fantastic. I’m not one to be into super hero movies, because they make me think of movies based on video games (oho, what’s this? We just had an article related to this? Really?) I feel a little bit like the producers are trying to rip me off, taking something I enjoy and making it into a flashy, high end film with the hottest actors that their budgets can manage. And usually COMPLETELY lacking whatever it was that made the original product so great. Never the less, I did like Ironman, so I figured I’d give this baby a shot.

The movie was like 458420 hours long, so I won’t try and write out a summary for you. Just some key points:

1. Bruce Wayne’s whole “playboy” thing was blown a little bit out of proportion, but somehow, it worked.
2. People are calling for an oscar for Heath Ledger, and he did an amazing job. I don’t think the oscar is going to happen but…Jesus Christ. The guy WAS the Joker. There’s no way you could tie this guy:

And this guy:

Insane. But there’s going to be a shitload of biases in all directions. The fans will want Heath Ledger to get an oscar because he’s dead, the voters won’t want that because…well, because he’s dead. And they probably don’t want to give the impression that death = oscar. Does he deserve an oscar? Who knows?

3. The moment leading up to Two Face…c’mon, I don’t follow batman, and even I was excited. The wait was fun.
4. The Joker apparently has no real backstory, according to my thorough research (aka browsing wikipedia at work). There’s something about him falling into a vat of chemicals or something or other, but basically, they keep the whole “WHOO MYSTERY” theme pretty well. In this movie, he has those scars on the side of the face, which seems absent from the comics, but which reminds me of Kuchisake Onna, so that’s always good.
5. Fuck Microsoft Office for closing and losing the rest of this article.
6. There were a bunch of really random cameos, one of them being Anthony Michael Hall. (That Dead Zone guy?!).
7. Morgan Freeman is always a winner in my books.
8. For those who have already seen this movie: The pencil trick was badass.
9. WTF, seriously, Batman’s girlfriend is a total whore.

So, for those of you who haven’t yet gone, go see it. The music is great, the action is really …action packed, and Heath Ledger does a magic trick. No, really. He makes a pencil VANISH. Don’t spoil it for yourself online though; those videos are poor quality and REALLY, REALLY don’t pack the same punch. You have to watch it in context, and you’ll be pleased that you did.

Why So Serious?: 9.5/10 teacups. Yeeaaaaah.

Mirrors Are More Fun Than Television

A couple of days ago 20th Century Fox finally released the trailer for their up-and-coming Max Payne movie, based on the pulp noir game franchise of the same name responsible for some of the most awesome bullet-time gameplay I can remember (come on it was sepia, okay?), the most consistent use of groan-inducing “pain” puns to date, and the occasional nightmare about dead babies.

For those of you unfamiliar, it’s basically about a disgruntled New York cop who lives in a perpetual John Woo movie and goes around angrily killing mobsters and corporate jerks because of some silly technicality like they killed his family or something.

I kind of feel sorry for people seeing this who haven’t played the games, though – here’s the synopsis from the movie’s official site:

Based on the legendary, hard-hitting interactive video game, MAX PAYNE tells the story of a maverick cop determined to track down those responsible for the brutal murder of his family and partner. Hell-bent on revenge, his obsessive investigation takes him on a nightmare journey into a dark underworld. As the mystery deepens, Max (Mark Wahlberg) is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world and face an unthinkable betrayal.

Face an unthinkable betrayal? Oh, great, way to ruin the fucking movie for us you cockbites.

Anyway, check out the trailer:

Max Payne is played by Marky Mark Wahlberg himself, who has shown his raw talent when mixing his career with video games in the past with such raging successes as… oh, wait, no I remember now, that was a complete and utter fucking failure. Oops! But I’m sure he’ll do better this time. The gal they’ve cast as his sexier-than-thou token love interest Mona Sax is That 70’s Show’s Mila Kunis, who played that one retarded chick Jackie. So that’s good, I’m sure she’ll fit right in.

This movie is going to be AWESOME.

But I digress; back to the trailer! I can’t lie – all my well-intentioned sarcasm aside, I almost orgasmed watching this. When I first heard they were making a Max Payne movie, I giggled like a schoolgirl at the thought of two hours of SHEER UNADULTERATED HARDCORE BULLET-TIME AWESOMENESS peppered with a few awkward scenes of people silently standing around dingy hospital waiting rooms watching ridiculous soap opera romances.

All I can say is they’d damn well better work their asses off to make this live up to my unreasonably high expectations, because if there was ever a game perfect for film adaptation, it’d be Max Payne. I’m really interested to see how much of the game’s original charm they can bring to the silver screen – the comic book elements, the dark noir atmosphere, the allusions to New York’s very own ragnarok, the creepy flamingoes, and goddamnit, the soap opera too!

Either way, the trailer looks pretty awesome and I’m excited. Not entirely sure what to make of the bird / angel / enemies beyond the natural world theme they seem to have going there (are these guys high on Valkyr or what?) but whether or not it stays true to the game, I’m anticipating a good dose of entertainment.

Unfortunately, this story doesn’t end in smiles and lollipops for everyone. And why is that, you ask?

It’s because 20th Century Fox are a bunch of jerks.

According to the word on the street, many die-hard Max Payne fans are actually planning on boycotting the movie when it comes out thanks to a little project called Payne & Redemption which Fox fucked up the ass and made its bitch.

Basically, after the release of the games, a guy named Fergle Gibson (HAHAHA “Fergle”) decided it’d be fun to make a short, independent amateur film based on the Max Payne games:

Set a few years after the events of Max Payne (and before Max Payne 2), Max Payne: Payne & Redemption surrounds the psychological trauma endured by the title’s main character after having to deal with the incidents from the story within the first game.

It started off as a little bit of fun for some fans of the games, but took on a life of its own after it generated interest from professional actors and industry crew who all volunteered their personal time to work on the film – these guys seriously deserve a proper shoutout for the work they put in to this thing. Even Sam Lake, the creator of Max Payne and writer of the videos (he was actually the face of the character in the first game, too) showed his full support in saying “Payne & Redemption seems very ambitious and impressive. Good luck with your project! Looking forward to seeing it.”

And what happened then? Fox bought out all rights to the franchise then cried like little girls and specifically banned the Payne & Redemption crew from producing anything to do with Max Payne ever, because apparently multi-million dollar corporations are easily upstaged by tiny independent film projects these days.

So, go see the Max Payne movie in cinemas October 16th, but spare a thought for the little guy! Check out the Payne & Redemption blog and forums and read up on the latest gossip – I hear they’re actually continuing on in their venture like the battlers they are and re-making their entire fucking film sans Max Payne references – plus they have some hilarious anti-Fox rants telling the whole story, so you know.

Really I’m just interested to see whether unlike previous wardrobe malfunctions from the games, Max’s coattails will actually deign to conform to the laws of gravity this time.

The Strangers

Horror Movie Humor Episode 2
Shitting Ourselves So You Don’t Have To

So this week we have a relatively recent movie. Honestly, I was going to save the episode 2 of this until a few weeks down the road, but since this is THE NOW, THE HAPPENIN’, THE …whatever, I figured we’d better do this.

So without anymore bullshit to fill up the intro:

The Strangers

The movie starts out with an ominous disclaimer that the following is based on a true story. True as in “not really”, but still, there are 1.4 million violent crimes each year! What they fail to tell you is this: violent crime includes more than just murder. There are four parts, actually: murder and non negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. According to the FBI, only 1.2 percent of that is murder. And the rate per 100,000 inhabitants is roughly 475, just a rough .4%. And furthermore, you are more likely to be killed by your mom for taking a bath at 3am than by Charles Manson. Who, by the way, seems to be the partial inspiration for the story. The Manson murders, the mysterious Keddie murders, and the director’s own brief contact with a would-be robber. These are actually pretty fascinating cases, and you should go read about them. But yeah, that’s …it. That’s the “truth” behind the stories.

So basically, that first statement is full of shit. Yeah.

There’s the usual hysterical 911 phone call, and then a shot of…a house. A street. A neighborhood. More houses. A house. A house. A house. It keeps doing that artsy “flash on and off”, as though you’re passing several houses from inside of a car. You know, if you were sort of retarded and hadn’t quite figured out the correct way to blink yet.

We meet our two unfortunate victims, James and Kristen. They had some sort of fight, and they are thoroughly upset. Blah blah boring fucking back story that won’t matter when they’re getting axed, etc. James proposed, Kristen was like “Aw heeell naw, I’m too hot to get married already =/” and now they are upset. Boohoo. The friend I was watching this with probably said it best.

“Shut the fuck up and start getting killed already, jesus.”

They seriously keep this going for like the first 20 minutes. BORING.

Then the killers start showing up, and you find yourself almost wishing they’d go back to talking about their feelings. Nothing makes sense. A mysterious girl on their doorstep (who happens to be a model irl), Kristen needs cigarettes so James goes to get her some, and all fucking hell breaks lose. One of the killers manages to get in somehow, silently, undetected (she left the front door unlocked because she’s an idiot), and just…watches her. And she never notices THE BURNING GAZE, and he just sort of disappears. Where he goes? I have no idea.

The thing is, this particular killer seriously wheezes like Darth Vader, so I have no idea how he can be stealthy one moment, and then loud as hell the next. Is he hiding in the house? No? He leaves? Well, she definitely locks the door, so how the fuck do the people just keep drifting in and out? Are they ghosts?Wait, but then they start breaking the door down? With an AXE? Are we going to see Leatherface at some point?

The entire movie is just one really long KNOCK, it seems. There is constant knocking/banging on the door, and then when they get in the house, THERE’S STILL MORE FUCKING KNOCKING FROM SOMEWHERE. From the windows, from the doors…seriously, cut it out. If you’re going to kill someone, at least be less obnoxious about it.

And then there’s the typical horror movie problems that aren’t confined to just this movie. There’s a part where THE PHONE CUTS OUT, HOLY SHIT, but Kristen has a cell phone. But wait, it’s dead. Oh, she’s got a charger. …And she plugs it in to charge, the end. The movie is supposed to take place in 2005; you know, you CAN talk on a charging cell phone. …Well, whatever. Then there’s the whole “pick the WORST fucking weapon in the house” deal. There’s a fireplace, grab a fucking poker. Heat up the end. Stick ‘em. Don’t go down without a fight at least. They even have a GUN for a part of the movie. You know what you do? Grab the gun, grab the firepoker/knife/whatever else, and BARRICADE YOURSELF IN THE BATHROOM. No windows, only one way to get in or out. You just have to keep reloading and shoot. While reloading, stab them with the poker, or the knife. There are 2 of you against 3 of them. You SHOULD be able to take them. (And besides, the one guy is wheezing and out of shape, and the other two are girls. One of the girls is a model. Throw some food at her or something, scare her off!)

But of course, they fail. Their friend comes to save them, and they end up shooting him in the face. And after doing that, they leave their cozy hiding place out of despair. In short, the two main characters are fucking retarded.

Note that no one actually DIES until about the last 30 minutes of the movie.

The end is amazingly anticlimactic as well. There’s a whole lotta screaming and running, and finally, they get tied up and stabbed to death. When Kristen tearfully asks “Why are you doing this to us?”, the answer we get is hardly satisfactory.

“Because you were home.”

Chilling, to a certain degree, yes. Until you remember that here in the REAL world, people with silly, half-ass motives like that end up shooting accomplices by accident.

At the VERY end, there’s a cheap shock where Liv Tyler suddenly jumps at the little boy who just wanted to check her pulse, screaming her head off. What. The. Fuck.

I have no idea what that ending was supposed to make you feel like, but…any horror movie buff will have expected some jump at the end. So it not only failed to shock, it (probably) didn’t even measure up to what we were all expecting.

Oh well.

The movie gets 5/10 for being decently jumpy in the middle, but not having much else going for it. It’s not really that enjoyable either, so I dunno. I…can’t really say I recommend it.

Unless, you know, you have a thing for killer models.

In case you missed Episode 1, you can read it here.

The House on Sorority Row

Horror Movie Humor Episode 1
Shitting Ourselves So You Don’t Have To

Ahh, horror movies. I have a love/hate relationship with them. I’m afraid of everything that moves, but I…kind of like it. Except for when I’m trying to sleep, but you know. It’s good, wholesome fun, shatting your pants every time you see a shadow. I have a lot of good memories of stalking down the hallway at 2 in the morning, music stand in hand, my friend poised behind me with a chair too big for her to carry, and an ominous knock…knock…knock coming from our front door, as good ol’ Freddy cackled away on our tv set.

…Ok, so really only one memory of that particular experience, but you get the picture. Horror movies are great in that they provide you with that adrenaline rush associated with intense fear (the children’s version of drugs). But there’s another reason that they’re great – no matter how scary they are, you can bet that somewhere in the movie, there’s something funny. Not intentionally funny mind you, but if you look hard enough, the humor is definitely there. Hopefully this will help take some of the sting out of those DEAD EYES staring back at you from your television screen. Learn to love it, even.

And personally, I think that you really, truly need to love something before you can properly make fun of it. **

The House On Sorority Row

The beginning of this movie is really what shines. Everything after the first half hour or so can be easily summed up in a few paragraphs, but the beginning…well. Here we go.

The movie starts off in a random house, on a dark and stormy June evening. The first scene seems hilariously inappropriate at first, with what seems to be a…moaning woman under the covers. Oh my. Scandal.

Turns out she’s like 50 years old, and giving birth, but that’s just as sexy, right? A mysterious doctor comes tramping up the stairs, and after a bit of dramatic dialogue, performs a C-section on the woman. We don’t see the surgery, and are spared the imagery of a baby being yanked out of some lady’s womb. I know some of you guys are into that, but…

The woman wakes up, apparently not in any sort of pain or discomfort, despite the fact that the doctor just cut her open, in a dimly lit room, with a dirty scalpel. Wait, excuse me, he ran the scalpel through a candle flame first, so it’s ok. She asks how her baby is doing, and the doctor gives an ambiguous response of “…I’m sorry.” Those of you who watch a lot of horror movies are already starting to see the foreshadowing by now, what, 5 minutes in? The camera rapidly cuts away and out of the house as we hear an echoing “Nooooooo….! (noooooo!…noooooooo!).” Insert a “Do Not Want “ joke here. Luckily, I was watching the movie with people who are NOT FROM THE INTERNET, and so there was none of that kind of sass during the movie.

Fast forward to some 20+ years later, and we suddenly see a bunch of sorority girls taking graduation pictures. And…wow. This is going to be horrifying shallow, but Jesus, they seriously must have put out an ad for the least attractive girls they could find for this (aside from the one girl who looks EXACTLY like Mischa Barton). Yes, yes, it’s 80’s makeup and hair, but good god. And one of the girls (the redhead) seems really…creepy. Actually, I think what I mean is that she looks overly eager in every scene. You might be able to get away with overacting in other situations, but she just comes off as totally in love with the First Class Bitch of the movie, and in some scenes, it seems like she’s giving her these “I’m undressing you with my eyes” looks. It was a little awkward.

Long story made short, the woman who we saw giving birth at the beginning of the movie turns out to be Mrs. Slater, the House Mother for the sorority. She’s uptight and strict, and it’s pretty obvious she’s probably batshit insane. There’s a doctor who warns her about an x-ray that depicts a head with what appears to be a lot of curly shit in the brain. We’re lead to believe it’s an x-ray of Mrs. Slater, but horror movie veterans will know better.

In any case, she manages to get on Vicki’s (AKA First Class Bitch) bad side when she interrupts her having rowdy sex on a waterbed. She slashes open the bed and soaks both FCB and her boyfriend with her STABBIN’ CANE. It’s great. FCB decides to prank Mrs. Slater, in which our main character, Katy, shows exactly what a goody-two-shoes she is by heatedly disagreeing with the plan. A window in the attic mysteriously slides shut, as though someone’s been WATCHING THEM. My spidey sense is a-tingling right about now.

The plan is a secret from us, the audience, until Mrs. Slater wakes up to find her cane gone. Yes, that’s right. The girls stole her cane. …In case you missed that, they stole an old lady’s cane. They proceed to put it in the middle of the dirty, dirty pool outside, at which point FCB makes the old lady get in the pool at gunpoint. I can already see what a fantastic idea that is.

Needless details aside, they basically end up shooting her, and decide to shove her in the pool to hide the body. This is the best part of the movie, fyi. As they’re trying to shove her in the pool, realizing that her body will float, FCB tells another girl to “Go get some towels!” I thought I must have heard wrong, because surely, they don’t think that a few towels will weigh down a dead body, do they?

Nah, they meant towels. And to make things even worse, morbidly cheerful and pink towels. And after wrapping her in a sheet, they put a maximum of one towel on her dead body, before rolling her into the water. Lo and behold. The body stays down. Clearly these girls are using fucking lead towels.

I don’t think I even need to say this, but our protagonist is indeed very unhappy with this turn of events. SHE never wanted to play the prank in the first place, dammit. She just wanted to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life. And now she has to deal with a dead body, what a drag. =/

The heartless little whores have the giant graduation party at their place anyway, despite the fact that they just killed a woman and dumped her body in the pool just outside. They have the nerve to look mildly stricken, but nonetheless, not TOO bothered. As the party rages on, you see SOMEONE come out of the pool, ring out clothes, and pick up the cane.

YEAAAAH. Showtime.

At this point, we can basically fast forward through the rest of the movie. Usual party stuff happens, yadda yadda, some random drunk guy gets impaled out in the woods, people want to throw other people in the pool, oh god, the pool lights, we have to disconnect the power before anyone tries to turn them on so we’ll send ONE girl on her own down to the boiler room to do so. Into the dark, creepy boiler room/basement thing with only a bare bulb over by the entrance. Nice.

I bet you already know what happens next. The girls start to get killed, one by one. And honestly, most of these scenes are hilarious. For one thing, the cane that they all get killed with has two ends. One is the blunt end that you put on the ground. The other is a sharp handle that looks like it could scalp someone. Guess how everyone dies?

They all get stabbed with the blunt end, lmfao.

If I ever tried to stab anyone with that thing, I’d be lucky to give them a bruise. Maybe a broken rib if I took a running start. How the killer manages to impale people with just the thrust of an arm, I have no idea. It’s amazing.

There is only really ONE scene here that freaked everyone out, which involves a decapitated head in a toilet. It’s so out of nowhere and graphic compared to the rest of the movie, I have to admit we all jumped a little.

In the end, it turns out it was THE SON THE WHOLE TIME. HOLY SHIT, WHAT A CURVEBALL. He lives in the attic and has a really weird clown fetish. Everyone dies (Mrs. Slater is still dead, all the sorority girls minus one, and the doctor), and the movie ends on a note that leads you to suspect that the main girl is pretty much going to die as well. The only notable bit about the end of the movie is that at one point, you see WHY the son was kept in the attic. He has “certain deformities”. And those certain deformities translate to meaning, “He has a really gimpy face. Wow. A super gimpy face, even.” We get barely a glimpse, but it’s enough to keep you laughing for like 5 straight minutes.

So, to finish this off: If you like cheesy horror movies filled with girls too poor to invest in a good bra (or really, any bra at all), and gimpy faced killers who have curly shit growing in their brain (which causes a “propensity for VIOLENCE”), this is the movie for you. If you’re not really into that stuff, rent it anyway just for the one line in the middle of the movie where one of the girls says “What do we do?” as they all sit contemplating their eternal damnation in the kitchen. She sounds like a man, and a drugged up one at that. It’s perfect.

But I’m giving you a warning now: that head in the toilet scene is unexpected. Be prepared.

I say this was probably a 3.5 on the on the scary scale of 1-10, and maybe a fun rating of 13 if watched with a group of people.

Have a happy Friday the 13th tomorrow, and see you NEXT WEEK.

PEACE OUT HOMIE G SLICES OF TOAST etcetc.

**God, that article is hilarious. Um, oh, we’re in no way affiliated with cracked.com, etc etc. I just…really like it.