27 Dresses

I think I watched this movie in the right mood, though it’s actually the same mood as when I watched Wedding Crashers.  The difference is the style of the film.

They’re both romantic comedies but the way the comedy is derived is different.  In 27 Dresses, the characters were for the most part, realistic, and so the comedy was similar to funny things you might do or say in real life with friends.  In Wedding Crashers, the characters were exaggerated  and meant to be funny caricatures, so you were generally laughing at the characters, instead of with them.  This made it harder to care about the characters in Wedding Crashers and I think that’s ultimately why I enjoyed 27 Dresses more.

That said, like other romantic comedies, it follows a pretty formulaic pattern.  Girl meets boy.  Bad Stuff happens.  Boy and girl get back together and live happily ever after.  This brings me to a tangent.  It seems like the Bad Stuff is always inextricably linked to something the guy does.  Of course, most of the time, the guy will try to stop the Bad Stuff from happening, but will always fail so the audience can go through the “aww, how sad” moment.  Despite that, it’s interesting to note how much effort the guy will spend to stop the Bad Stuff.  I think in most romantic comedies, this effort is pretty much nil, with most guys failing before they even start.  That’s why I think the guy in this film is actually rather commendable, as he did actually try to stop it a few times.  It shows real consideration, which most of the other guys tend to lack.

So yeah, I found most of the characters likable as human beings.  The girl’s a near saint going through the things she does in the film, and the guy’s just a generally all-round cool person.  Maybe it helped that the guy was also rather cynical about weddings and marriages given the stuff I’ve been reading.  Another coincidental thing that made me like the movie was that I had recently joked about how it might be cool to have a wedding theme where guys and girls wore the opposite gender’s clothes (people gave me weird/disapproving looks and grunts), and guess what, something like that was mentioned in the film. :P

I think most people generally feel that Wedding Crashers is a better film and it’s certainly more fun and entertaining.  But 27 Dresses, while based on an unrealistic concept, is more realistic in its execution, which helps the audience connect better with the characters, if only for the duration of the film and that really helps for romantic comedies.  I think it really depends on your mood which you’d enjoy more as they’re still both just romantic comedies with a wedding theme.

Sukiyaki Western: Django

If the trailer doesn’t interest you, you aren’t going to like the film. It really is a love it or hate it film. I’m more in the love it side, because I like weird, unique stuff.

As you may notice from the title, this film is a parody of spaghetti westerns. The film itself is supposedly a remake of Sergio Corbucci’s Django, but the story more closely resembles Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, which itself was a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, which is based on the film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key, although the plot resembled his Red Harvest book more. Meanwhile, the setting for this film is based on the historical Genpei War. These people also references the War of the Roses (which, like the Genpei War, was divided into white and red factions) with a character even reading Shakespeare’s take on it. And from watching it, the film’s style felt a lot like the Kill Bill movies. Heck Quentin Tarantino even plays a character in the film. As you can tell, this film has a very mixed ancestry (if Japanese people speaking Engrish in a Western wasn’t obvious enough).

Speaking of the Engrish. This is one of the things you’ll either love or hate. The Engrish is intentional, because the spaghetti westerns of old were supposedly badly dubbed for whichever country it was being shown. Unfortunately, without English subtitles, it can be hard to understand what’s being said unless you’re used to Engrish and/or pay careful attention. If you can read Japanese, the Japanese subtitles certainly help. That said, if you can get past the first ten minutes, you’ll probably get used to it.

I’ve heard that the American version that’s coming out, which will most likely have the missing English subtitles, will also be cut by about 20 minutes. I already predict that they will release an “extended director’s cut” later that’s really just the full Japanese version with English subtitles. Cutting the film by 20 minutes may not be so bad, as some people did feel the film was too long and had unnecessary parts (I’m guessing probably the sheriff’s solo parts, which were a little overdone).

If you’re a fan of Miike’s films (Audition, One Missed Call, Ichi the Killer), weird Japanese films (Battle Royale, Suicide Club), Quentin Tarantino, any film in this film’s ancestry, or Westerns in general, you’ll probably like this film. Otherwise, you may want to save some money and watch it at a friend’s house instead.

Protect Marriage?

As you’ve probably heard by now, the California Supreme Court ruled today that gay marriage is legal.

Naturally, there are groups whining about it and attempting to put an amendment on the November ballots.

Of course, we all know they’re hypocrites.  Even assuming gay marriage really is some great evil that hurts “traditional marriage”, let’s be realistic.  The LGBT community is just slightly more than 1% of the Californian population.  It’s insignificant.

If these people truly cared about protecting the institution of marriage, they should be going after adultery and divorce.  The percentage of Californians who are married is 48.5%.  About 1/3 to 1/2 of those marriages will end in divorce.  From various figures I’ve seen, the adultery rate is about 50%.  There are some lower bounds on adultery rates based on paternity tests done, but they also vary, hence the 5-30% figure that I mentioned in my review of Wedding Crashers.  The book I got it from mentioned a specific study showed a 10% non-paternity rate in the 1940s.  There’s another study mentioned at the Canadian Children’s Rights Council from the 70s, where 30% of the students in a class discovered their dad was not their biological father, so 50% is probably a fair number to use for adultery rates (as not all adultery leads to children)

Since adultery also often leads to divorce, some of these numbers will overlap, but I think it’s a good estimate that at least 25% of the population will be in adulterous and/or divorced marriages.  That’s over 20 times greater than any possible “threat” that could be caused by allowing the LGBT community to marry each other.

Shouldn’t these “protect marriage” people be going after all these heterosexual people instead?  Much more bang for their buck after all.

Wedding Crashers

So, one of my friends really likes this movie and told me to watch it, and someone else joked about crashing the non-wedding party on the boat during the wedding last weekend and referenced this movie, so I thought I should probably watch it.

Hmm… I don’t think I was in the right mood to be watching this or something.

1) I got kinda annoyed by the wedding crashing actually.  Maybe it’s because I was just at a wedding recently that I found their behavior annoying.  I’m not sure what girls who watch this film think of how the film portrays them in this segment.

2) Why is the fiance always a douchebag?  It’s too easy and overdone.  Make the fiance actually a good person for once so the main character must choose to tear a perfectly fine relationship apart for his own selfish reasons.  The douchebag fiance thing also makes the girl just seem completely incompetent, and she’d be doomed to a horrible marriage if it wasn’t for this wonderful womanizer to bring her to her senses.  See Futurama for how to do this right.

3) The fairy tale story of how manchilds will magically grow up when they meet The Girl.  Sure, it does happen, and the right girl will be a big motivation for guys to shape up, but at the same time, most likely, you are not The Girl.  Odds are, you will be a part of a string of girls he meets before he meets The Girl, if he meets her.  That said, it’s also completely overdone, and as noted in #1, guys like those in the movie only exists because there are womenchilds for him to play with, something a lot of girls seem to miss as they whine about guys that don’t grow up.

4) How’d they even get in anyway.  The last two weddings I’ve been to, there are guest lists and assigned tables for each person during the reception.  Yes yes, suspension of disbelief, but argh.

5) Not directly related to the movie, but the theme of marriage.  One of the things brought up in The Third Chimpanzee (which I’ve been reading) is adultery.  Specifically extramarital sex.  Apparently, 5-30% of American and British children are not sired by the father, but by a different man.  And given the relatively low rate of conception in humans, that means the actual adultery rate is a lot higher!  A sobering thought and possibly related to why I didn’t enjoy the movie as much as I should have.

For the most part though, I liked the movie better once they got out of the wedding crashing part.

Obama, Endorsements, Abortion, and Elections

People like to point and say, oh look, Clinton gets all those working-class white voters that Obama has no chance of getting. That’s only when comparing Clinton vs. Obama. The problem is, when compared to McCain, she actually doesn’t fare that much better.

Among these voters, McCain beats Obama 46%-39%.

And McCain beats Hillary 48%-41%.

So basically, Clinton’s demographics may really be McCain’s demographics, which would already be factored into the general Obama or Clinton vs. McCain polls that are conducted regularly.

The Edwards endorsement tonight may also swing the numbers for this demographic a little towards Obama as well.

Obama also received the NARAL endorsement earlier today which will help him with Democrats but hurt him with Republicans and conservatives (who’re less likely to vote for him anyway). Also, LOL at EMILY’s List whining about it. If you truly think the equally pro-choice Obama isn’t pro-choice enough, then grow a pair and take your sexist all-women list and go vote for the anti-abortion McCain instead. Otherwise, shut up and keep your misandry to yourself.

Anyway, this year also isn’t like the others. Specifically, the increased Black, Youth, and Latino turnout (also check out the Q&A on it) will probably have a pretty big impact on the elections. Republicans can’t even win in Republican strongholds anymore.

Part of the reason McCain is even doing so well is that Clinton/Obama supporters basically hate each other right now. Once Clinton’s eliminated, there’ll be five or six months for them to remember what exactly McCain represents and realize that no matter how much they hate the rival Democratic candidate, McCain is even worse (heck, all I needed to do was go in the Politics forum of a major Christian forum to realize that)

And just to lighten things up, the current candidates as board gamers.

Mormon Church goes after Wikileaks over their Handbook

Because people need to learn to stop trying to censor stuff on the Internet, I’m gonna do my part to help spread it further because of the attempted censorship (the Streisand Effect)

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Mormon_Church_attempts_to_gag_Internet_over_handbook

http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Mormon_Church_Handbook_of_Instructions_(1999)

It’s actually pretty boring stuff.  :P

West Virginia, Education, Clinton, and Creationists

Here’s an interesting tidbit.

Census Bureau and other government data show nearly 18 percent of West Virginians live below the poverty line and roughly 74 percent of the state’s population makes less than $50,000 a year. Put another way, West Virginia ranked 50th among the states in household income and 48th in the percentage of adults with a high school diploma.

In addition to that, West Virginia ranks last for people with college degrees at 15.9%, a full 3.1% below the next lowest (Arkansas).

Also, someone on the Penny Arcade forums looked up some county statistics.

Starr County, Texas- highest % with no high school diploma- voted for Clinton 83-16.
Douglas County, Colorado- lowest %, same stat- voted Obama 63-37

I don’t think I can really say anything else without basically insulting the general Clinton demographic. :P

Though I will add that Clinton’s demographic also tends to be Creationists.

CARM’s guide to Internet Apologetics

When this was posted, a lot of us thought this couldn’t be real, this must be Poe’s Law.  But nope.  They really do encourage this.

1. Using the mouse to copy and paste
   1. It is easy to select the text with a mouse.   After selection the text by clicking and dragging, then right mouse click on the text.  A small window will open.  Click on “copy.”  Then go to your destination window, right mouse click and select “paste.”  The copied text will then be pasted where you need it.
2. Using the keyboard to select, copy, and paste.
   1. You can select text by putting the cursor where you want it, holding down the shift key and pressing the arrow key.  Your text will become selected as the cursor moves through the text.
   2. Copy the text by hitting CTRL C.
   3. Once in the window you desire, CTRL V will paste the material into the window.
      1. Note:  By having your left hand on the keyboard, and with your thumb and forefinger (thumb on the “alt” key and the finger on the “tab” key, you can move between windows.

They truly have no shame.

Great Eastern Restaurant

Had lunch here with Jenny today.  This was one of the places recommended by Cat yesterday.  I called to reserve last night after 11pm (they open till midnight), but they wouldn’t let me reserve with only two people, and said it’d only be a five minute wait.  True to his word, that was about how long we had to wait when we got there at about 12:30.  We had six dishes which came out to about $23 with tip.  Most expensive thing was the $1 tea.  Most of the other stuff was decent or good, especially the siu mai, which had fish eggs on it and juicy.  The shrimp rice noodles was probably the most disappointing since it wasn’t hot unlike everything else.  The place is actually kinda large, and appears to have three levels though we only saw the main level.  Maybe that’s why the wait wasn’t too long.

After that, we went over to the Golden Gate Bakery to have custard tarts.  At $1.10 they were expensive but tasty and better than most other ones I’ve had.  Mainly because it was hot and the crust was very flaky.  We had it at the redwood park that we passed by yesterday.  It’s a nice place, but too far to go to normally.

Fundies: Obama is the 11th plague

This is so stupid it’s hilarious.

Some U.S. Christians are not reconciled to McCain’s candidacy but instead regard the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a biblical plague visited upon a sinful people.

Now obviously, the interpretation they want is that the Obama Plague is God’s retribution on America for not picking Huckabee.

Well, he’s a plague all right.  He’s a plague on Republicans and conservatives for the sin of electing Bush twice.  :P