The Old School Lunch

[DNF = Did not finish. DNA = Did not attempt to watch. Ratings: Out of a possible best four **** stars.]

[Disclaimer. Yes, I realize I rent some stupid shit. Employee of the Month? Aeon Flux? What?]

[UPDATE: Disclaimer #2: Yes, Christina, I do seriously rent some awful movies. I know.]

Nobody’s Life - A drama of absurdity but pretty good.
30 Days: Season 1: Disc 2 - Spurlock has good intentions, but so many of the episodes are problematic. At one point, he says “The Costa is one of the most notoriously gay cities in America.” Notoriously?
Monster - Brutal. Absolutely brutal. ****
30 Days: Season 1: Disc 1 - Nickel and Dimed.
Speak - I posted about this a few days ago.
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not - DNF
Shooter - Not bad.
The Treatment - **
Dark Angel: Season 1: Disc 1 - I watched several episodes when it was on TV but I saw about 3 minutes of the first episode and had to turn it off.
Drugstore Cowboy - ****
Shanghai Kiss - Saw this on AngryAsianMan. **
Escape from L.A. - **
Grindhouse: Death Proof - I saw this first at the theater and it was hilarious when right as the one character is about to do the lapdance, there’s a “film error of lost footage” to which the audience erupted in laughter. They added the lapdance scene in the DVD, however.
Spider-Man 3 - The infamous “emo” spidey.
Kickin It Old Skool - *
Mouth to Mouth - DNA.
Notes on a Scandal - ****
Weeds: Season 2: Disc 2 - I’ve wrote about this series before a bit. Overall good, funny but some issues here and there.
Weeds: Season 2: Disc 1
Weeds: Season 1: Disc 2
28 Weeks Later - There is one scene in this movie that I will always just fast-forward every time but otherwise i’m a big fan of this franchise.
Transformers - In all ways this is an American fourth of July sort of movie. And by that I mean sexist and racist.
The Corporation - The “Animatrix” voice narration was funny. But great documentary.
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 3: Disc 3 - DNF. Sandra Oh and that Meredith character are the two single most annoying personalities on TV.
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 3: Disc 4
Heroes: Season 1: Disc 6 - Season two is all over the place.
Heroes: Season 1: Disc 7
But I’m a Cheerleader - ****
Heroes: Season 1: Disc 5
Weeds: Season 1: Disc 1
Heroes: Season 1: Disc 4
Heroes: Season 1: Disc 3
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 3: Disc 2
Heroes: Season 1: Disc 2
Click - I broke my “No Adam Sandler/Jim Carey movies” rule and actually rented it. ***
Gilmore Girls: Season 6: Disc 6 - Hands down the funniest show i’ve seen. ****
Heroes: Season 1: Disc 1
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 3: Disc 1
This Film Is Not Yet Rated - Kevin Smith saves the day. A must see.
Gilmore Girls: Season 6: Disc 5
Running Scared - Surprisingly good. From what I remember.
Avenue Montaigne - DNF.
Gilmore Girls: Season 6: Disc 4
300 - Where to start?
Gilmore Girls: Season 6: Disc 3
Pan’s Labyrinth - DNA.
Gilmore Girls: Season 6: Disc 2
Gilmore Girls: Season 6: Disc 1
Gilmore Girls: Season 5: Disc 6
Gilmore Girls: Season 5: Disc 5
Gilmore Girls: Season 5: Disc 3
Gilmore Girls: Season 5: Disc 4
Me and You and Everyone We Know - ****
Y Tu Mama Tambien - Ebert had a good point about this movie and the MPAA.
Gilmore Girls: Season 5: Disc 2
Gilmore Girls: Season 5: Disc 1
Gilmore Girls: Season 4: Disc 6
Gilmore Girls: Season 4: Disc 4
Gilmore Girls: Season 4: Disc 5
Kingpin - Bill Murray at his best.
Gilmore Girls: Season 4: Disc 3
Gilmore Girls: Season 4: Disc 2
Thank You for Smoking - ***
Million Dollar Baby - Got all the praise for a reason, I see.
Jesus Camp - ****
Gilmore Girls: Season 4: Disc 1
Gilmore Girls: Season 3: Disc 6
11:14 - I had to think for a while what this movie was. OK now I remember. *
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price - ****
Gilmore Girls: Season 3: Disc 5
Gilmore Girls: Season 3: Disc 4
Gilmore Girls: Season 3: Disc 3
Devil’s Playground - ***
Maxed Out - ***
Gilmore Girls: Season 3: Disc 2
An Inconvenient Truth - One of the only people to see it for the first time on DVD.
Gilmore Girls: Season 3: Disc 1
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 2: Disc 3
Gilmore Girls: Season 2: Disc 2
Gilmore Girls: Season 2: Disc 3
Gilmore Girls: Season 2: Disc 1
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 2: Disc 2
Gilmore Girls: Season 1: Disc 5
Gilmore Girls: Season 1: Disc 6
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 2: Disc 1
The Fountain - This would be amazing to see in IMAX. Amazing.
Blood Diamond - ***
Gilmore Girls: Season 1: Disc 3
Gilmore Girls: Season 1: Disc 4
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 1: Disc 2
Fifty Pills -
Gilmore Girls: Season 1: Disc 2
Batman Beyond: Season 1: Disc 1
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 1: Disc 1
Gilmore Girls: Season 1: Disc 1
Half Nelson - ****
Crime and Punishment in Suburbia - Don’t really remember. Bad sign probably.
Employee of the Month - **
Confetti - ***
Elektra - *
Dave Chappelle’s Block Party - ****
10 Items or Less - Glad to see films like this still being made.
Kissing Jessica Stein - Annoying characters.
Fast Food Nation - This is what Super Size Me had the potential to be. ****
Cake - Don’t remember.
Hard Candy - Brutal. But good.
The Prestige - ****
Red Planet - ***
Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman - **
Ghosts of Mars - Ebert gave it a good review. *
Harsh Times - Christian Bale is out of his goddamn mind.
Blade: Trinity - Not bad!
The Departed - ***
Rocky Balboa - Mason “The Line” Dixon. Right.
Ghost World - ****
13 Going on 30 - This movie single handedly brought back the Thriller dance at weddings.
Flags of Our Fathers - I seriously don’t remember renting this so I was surprised to see this on the rental history.
The Quiet - Brutal. **
Jarhead - ***
The Descent - **
Aeon Flux - DNF.
Everything Is Illuminated - **

Bruce Lee lives on through…Breeze Loo?

I would also check out their main movie webpage where you can see Anson Ho’s making of documentary “Building A Journey” which talks about Justin Lin and going from Better Luck tomorrow to Tokyo Drift to FTG. Who woulda thunk that MC Hammer saved the day for FTG? Also a must see moment with Roger Ebert at Sundance in the documentary.

[Cross posted at Shrub.com blog]

The backstory: Assassin’s Creed is one of the most anticipated games of the year. When Yahoo! is talking about your game on the front-page, you know the buzz is pretty significant. The producer for this game is Jade Raymond who, like the lead-producer of every other game created in the modern age, gives a good portion of the interviews with the press. That is, if you’re a producer of a game and you’re noticeably articulate, you’re the one talking about it, you don’t tell the advertising executive or the intern to do that. As the game is being released, a comic/drawing surfaces, most infamously on the Something Awful forums depicting Jade performing fellatio on male fanboys (not to be confused with the photoshopped nude photos of Jade that are floating around). This comic is seen and shared by members of the SA forums at which point Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka of SA receives a cease and desist/threat of lawsuit letter from the legal representation of Ubisoft telling them to shut it all down and to let them know everything about where they get the image, who drew it, etc. At this point, the story becomes popular outside of SA and other blogs start picking it up, forming their own opinions (yes, just like me and just like this one). The story appears on digg and with it a rash of the most sexist comments (and some countering the sexist comments) appear.

The fact that someone felt the need to draw a pornographic comic of Jade Raymond is in itself is pretty disturbing. But what’s also mind-numbing is the consequent backlash you read from the blogosphere because Ubisoft dropped the hammer on SA. Reading some of the comments on SA, on digg and you start to see a trend. Most notably, the criticisms of Jade and Ubisoft go something like this:

1. It’s just a drawing. You made it a bigger deal than it was. By you making the lawsuit you just drew more attention to it so now more people know about it.
-Actually, no, I think it was SA who posted it on Digg saying that they were being contacted the attorney from Ubisoft so in fact they brought it to the public. It seems like Ubisoft wanted to keep this matter under wraps but Kyanka wanted to appeal to the public and get sympathy from the digg community (which, sadly enough, he actually seems to be getting). But getting back to the larger point, if someone draws something unbelievably offensive about you, you’re supposed to just ignore it? Brush it under the rug? Isn’t this what we tell women who get sexually harassed at work? “You don’t want to cause a fuss, it’s just going to take forever to fix it anyways to better to just ignore it.” If you ignore it then it implies that they don’t think it’s offensive. Ubisoft is doing what any employer should do when one of their own gets attacked like this: you stick up for your staff. Ubisoft is doing the right thing.

2. She’s just a pretty face who Ubisoft is using to “pimp” the product. She deserves what she’s getting because she’s just a show model for the game.
-Now, I didn’t think anyone would really be this stupid to actually say this publicly but alas, I am proven wrong again.

Quick history lesson. In prehistoric times, pretty cavegirls with cleavage hanging out sold rocks and sticks to horny cavemen. Sex sells. It’s always been that way and will never change. Everyone knows that. So when Ubisoft started pimping Assassin’s Creed, released this week for Xbox360 and PS3, they made pretty girl/producer Jade Raymond the poster child for the game. Whether or not she’s qualified to represent the game, or really had any involvement with its development is besides the point. To the jaded videogame nerd, she’s a set of breasts saying “Buy my game!”

It’s “besides the point”? Really? How is that besides the point? I think it very much is the point. If Ubisoft hired Jade Raymond and sold her as the “producer” and she has no experience or education whatsoever, then of course she’s there as a spokesperson, but Jesus H. Christ, look up her biography, she actually studied this shit as some people have figured out already. How are you going to dismiss the fact that this is what she does for a living? Have you seen one single interview of her talking about the game? There’s an obvious difference between a producer talking about a game and a spokesperson talking about a game and she very obviously is the former.

3. “That a surprise..Jade will act slutty to sell her game but can’t deal with the consequences of that.”
-Now, I haven’t been following this game obsessively since conception to release but since the story of this comic broke out i’ve been watching clips, interviews, reading stories, etc and i’m really struggling to see where this person gets where Jade acts “slutty.” She doesn’t pose for Playboy or Maxim, she doesn’t take “sexy” photographs (I mention these things becase they’re usually seen as indicators of one being “slutty”). I honestly think that his perception of “slutty” is Jade merely being in a stereotypically male-dominated space and simply being a woman, being attractive and having pictures of herself online where she’s smiling and looking happy and actually being confident, intelligent and articulate.

I can’t begin to imagine how something like this has to make a person feel after all the hard work they’ve put into something like this. After all the crap that she’s probably already gotten on the daily as a woman in the video game industry, to have this incredible achievement in her career marked by a select few idiots who decided to try and reduce her to a sex-object. Let’s make no mistake here, the men who do this are uncomfortable at the idea of women in power and women being in spaces where they see it being male-dominated. The men who do shit like this draw comics of women professionals performing oral sex on their “male fanbase” because it’s their literal attempt at inverting the actual reality: a woman producer is at the helm of an innovative game that is getting a lot of buzz and people are buying up in hordes. I don’t think these men can accept the fact that Jade is a success, I really don’t. I don’t think they can accept the fact that she did this without posing in Playboy or pandering to their ideas of what those Game Expos say women should look like and do to sell a product: wear practically nothing, smile, pose for pictures and just look pretty.

3 steps on how to fix this mess:
1. If the comic is still around somewhere, delete the image of the comic, delete links to it, delete posts to it.
2. Apologize. To Jade. Whether you created the comic or spread the image or posted it on a forum.
3. Shut up about the game being some advertising ploy with Jade as the sex-tool. You’re going to make judgements about someone’s credibility as a professional when you don’t even know them? You’re going to base everything on her being a woman and you believing that she doesn’t belong in what you see as a “man’s space”? Really?

Speak is a film based on a book and, well, this was some interesting shit. Part of I think a film or book’s impact or how it comes across to the reader is just looking at the sort of questions we pose in discussions, in classrooms, to ourselves. In the DVD of speak, in the bonus features, there is a “Penguin Books Study Guide” Provided by Associate Professor Grant T. Smith of Viterbo University. He asks the question,

Is this book about making intelligent decisions? List three decisions that Melinda makes and tell why tou think she made the decisions. What are the consequences of these decisions and were there any consequences of her decisions that she could not have reasonably expected?

Now what the fuck is that shit? What the fuck kind of question is that especially considering this is a book for teens? Excuse the massive spoilers here, but this is a story about a teen girl who is raped by a teen boy. She meets this boy at a party where they’re both sorta drinking alcohol and he convinces her to go off to his car and then the rape occurs in his jeep. For some time, she does not tell anyone and a chunk of the story is her being a “selective mute” and not telling those around her about the rape. At the end of the story, when she is attacked and nearly raped again by the same rapist but this time she wounds the rapist with some paint thinner or some shit, has him by the throat with some sharp glass and then has a dozen girls come to her aid when they hear the commotion, she realizes that she is ready to “speak” and tell someone, namely, her mother.

So what, I ask you, is the guy trying to get at when he asks about “intelligent decisions”? What, that Melinda shouldn’t have been drinking? That she shouldn’t have gotten in that car with the rapist? That she shouldn’t have even been at that party or started to make out with the guy? That she should’ve told someone immediately after the rape? His entire question is completely pointed in such a way that leads the person answering the question to blame Melinda and see a billion reasons for why she was raped and how she could’ve gotten help, gotten justice, gotten revenge, or gotten out of the situation (read: it must be all her fault).

And then there’s this gem of a study guide question:

Melinda demonstrates many of the symptoms of clinical depression. What behaviors does she manifest that would cause you concern if you were her friend or teacher? What would you do to help her?

I don’t know how you write a study guide with questions about a book where the central character is raped by a man and then you don’t have a question talking specifically about the actual rape but instead chalk it up to “clinical depression.” You think kids are going to just forget those hundreds of pages of the story? Why ask this ridiculous question to kids? Kids aren’t equipped to deal with this. I don’t know what I would have said if a female friend told me in high school that she’d been raped. I would like to hope that i’d have been smart enough to have listened to her, provided an ear and then helped her figure out where she wanted to go from there, maybe helped her find different resources but I was a pretty stupid kid. I’m afraid that when kids hear “clinical” they’re going to think that it’s something wrong with them in their heads…that they need mental help because they’re the problem. Of course, there are always benefits to counseling and such but when you say “clinical” that has a very medical and sort of prescriptive, drug connotation to it, doesn’t it?

On Global TV National, a Canadian station, there was a news special report on bullying in schools. It was an interesting piece by a young woman who was interviewed years ago because she was bullied and now she was going back to her school and seeing if the laws put into effect to make bullying illegal and the press attention has made any difference. She went back to her school and found a girl just like her and it was one of the most depressing things i’ve seen in a while.

But the thing that really pissed the shit out of me was the way that the report–by this woman who I don’t think is a professional reporter–(and bullying reporting and conversations in general) fail to distinguish between bullying and sexual harassment and sexual assault in schools. Let me say that again: there is a huge fucking difference between a kid of one gender bullying another kid of the same gender for being overweight, for being a “nerd” and a boy constantly grabbing a girl’s ass at school, lifting up her skirt and calling her a “whore” (all of which happened to this girl. When she told her teacher, principle, everyone said “boys will be boys”). These should never ever be seen as the same thing. Doing any of the latter is not “bullying” or some shit. It’s sexual harassment and sexual assault, plain and simple. When your school and law enforcement fails do to anything when that happens and reacts to it as “bullying” what does that tell young women today? It tells them that the place they’re supposed to feel safe in, the place where they’re supposed to go to learn and socialize is also a place where their bodies are no longer theirs. It also teaches girls and women that this is what they should expect if school is any representation of society and teachers and principals or any examples of leadership and discipline. What the fuck.

Is the phrase that creator, writer and executor producer of David Eick used when describing the new show Bionic Woman. I just watched the first three episodes on NBC’s website (i’ve just about had my fill of Charles Schwab and Navy commercials but compared to paying 2 bucks a pop on iTunes…) and immediately I do like the show and i’ll watch the next episodes but it just made me think when he said it like that.

It reminded me of when Kate Beckinsale, after Underworld was released, said that if anything, she just thought it’d be cool to have a movie out there where a female lead was kicking ass and she, of course, was right. The movie isn’t as simple as that because she (spoiler alert) doesn’t do all the ass-kicking herself and whatnot but the point is she’s the main character. With Bionic Woman, Eick really seems to want to portray this as the “everywoman” sort of struggle which always conveniently goes into how “emotional” and “vulnerable” the character also is at the same time of being strong. It’s almost as if we’re still on these sort of tentative training wheels when it comes to female power and representations of strong women. We’d like to think that we’re OK with seeing the Beckinsales and Michelle Ryans, but we only see them after we throw a kitchen sink’s worth of “emotional grounding” in there which of course is good for the story but just interesting to see because you never see that to that extent with other lead male characters of similar situations.

She dates three baseball players in a row and she’s known as the woman who dates athletes. Derek Jeter dates “starlets” again and again and he’s just known as the playboy.

For the past two Saturdays i’ve gone to the same Chinese buffet with a friend. It’s not that bad and it’s 15 bucks. Big fan of the seafood but not of the kids who run around without supervision making a general mess of the place while their parents sit and eat…

My friend works for Cingular and he was telling me that Sprint/Nextel recently reviewed thousands of their customer service records, looked at thousands more of their customers in their database and terminated the contracts of 1000+ customers for basically being shitty, verbally abusive customers and wasting Sprint’s time by constantly calling to complain with issues of little substance. “A first in the customer service industry” my friend calls it…

Heroes is surprisingly good. I was pretty skeptical but i’m hooked probably even more so than Lost. It’s nice to hear an Asian language on TV being spoken at the actual pace the actors would naturally speak it unlike Lost where everyone is speaking Korean 5x slower to make it less obvious that Daniel Dae isn’t a native speaker…

And Weeds is pretty good. Though they really put it on thick the first few episodes with the whole “Oriental whore bitch from Thailand” bit. At least Nancy corrects her…

Saw But I’m A Cheerleader after I heard the writer/director talk about it in This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Both are pretty awesome, the latter moreso than anything i’ve seen in a long time. In my hyperbole I may have called Jack Valenti a “nazi” when talking about the documentary to a friend. His response: (gasp) “I believe the man was there was president Kennedy was shot!”…

The two co-workers I am probably most buddy-buddy with at work both told me recently that when they first saw me, they both thought, “What a nerd, i’m not going to talk to that guy at all” and “that guy doesn’t look cool, i’m not going get to know him.” Oh, it’s like that?…

A female co-worker was talking to us at the lunchroom about how she couldn’t decide what to wear at the upcoming auction that she is basically running. She has an outfit that is she looks better in but she doesn’t want old farts who are donating money to hit on her or to stare at her all night. As she was talking about this dress conflict, she stopped herself and apologized to me saying that she felt bad that I as the only man in the room at the time had to endure this conversation because, of course, I just naturally wouldn’t be able to understand any of it. “No, I get what you’re saying. There’s a different between what you’d wear as a guest coming to donate money and socialize and there’s what you’d wear if you’re board member or something and then there’s what you’d wear if you’re working at the function up on stage, etc.”…

The 10th issue (and the 3rd Anniversary Issue!) of Shameless was released and it has a column by your 3rd favorite blogger who abruptly quit blogging then came back to blog but doesn’t really blog that much. Big shoutout to Editor Megan for giving me this tremendous opportunity, for all of her thoughtful advice and words of encouragement, big shoutout to Founder Nicole for putting my name in the running to even be a columnist, big shoutout to Renée because I wouldn’t have known about Shameless otherwise, and a big shoutout to the Shameless community for just simply getting it.

[tell me he’s not being serious]

You know, on a whim, I searched “Lundy Bancroft” on YouTube because I had recently listened to a radio/podcast interview of him. I bought his book about a year or so ago and if paying about $2 bucks to download a 30 minute radio interview with someone is any indication, I liked what he had to say and I liked his delivery. He is what the movement to end men’s violence against women exactly needs: men in various fields who are willing to do the actual work. In his case, he works with abusive men who enroll in court appointed domestic violence classes. Now, imagine my surprise when I stumble across this video of two people having a sort of not-quite-a-regular-conversation somewhat-interview about Why Does He Do That? and the guy “CharlieChan007″ (anyone who pays any sort of homage to James Bond with a username arouses my suspicion, but anyways..) proceeds to try and tear apart the book and take shot after shot at Bancroft for what he perceives to be blatant ignorance for not acknoledging that women are abusive to other women in lesbian relationship and to a lesser extent that women can be abusive to other men. I wouldn’t watch the entire thing, he goes on and on (and on and on) about how Bancroft doesn’t do this and he tries to slam him for…wait for it…using “He” in the title of Why Does He Do That? Now this right here is a good example of just how ridiculous this entire video (and person’s) criticism is. His point is simple: Bancroft isn’t acknowledging that there is abuse in gay relationships and he isn’t saying that women can be abusive. He must be only saying that men can be abusive and thus Bancroft is a sexist and tunnel visioned asshole who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Which is fine if you want to think that way, after all, you titled the damn video “Toni and John talk about gender abuse” but if you actually read the damn book and if you actually take a look at the real world statistics of violence against women, make that men’s violence against women, Bancroft isn’t going to waste his book* and his efforts pandering to you and the fraction of a fraction of the US audience who shits themselves when every single population isn’t specfically addressed. I hate how there are men like this who are so afraid to sound as if they’re going to somehow be homophobic as if they’re going to offend the GLBTQ community if they don’t rise up in arms every single time there’s any instance of male-female relations. I honestly believe men like this are actually a heavy burden on the movement because they do nothing to actually call out (i’ll say it three times now) men’s violence against women. He won’t say it because he’s afraid by saying it, it somehow makes him homophobic because he’s not acknowledging the fraction of the gay population that is in an abusive relationship. Did anyone hear him in this entire video talk about any of the real issues that Bancroft brings up in the book?

*By “waste his book” I mean making it seem like “gender violence” was somehow even across the board. You know it, I know it, Lundy knows it, our friend Charlie doesn’t know it: men commit the vast majority of domestic violence against women and devoting a large part of the conversation to men’s domestic violence against women is just a natural extension of that.