Movies That Will Probably Be Good But Have Yet to Come Out This Year Part 1

So I’ve been taking a look at all my recent posts and realized that despite being a cinephile, see this blog’s name, I haven’t written a post about a film that wasn’t a link to a movie review I wrote for SidewalkOnline Magazine (my latest, Dark Knight Rises, here) in like…hella days. I’ve been doing some pretty thought provoking and deep stuff lately and, while that’s nice, I thought I’d like to post something else. Something about movies. And since summer’s coming to a close and the blockbuster season with it, I thought I’d give you guys a couple examples of movies that are still coming that I think will be worth watching. So without further ado (which I really say too often, if you know of anything else I can say that means pretty much the same thing let me know in the comments, it’d be much appreciated. [Also when I say “without further ado” it’s almost always followed by more ado. Maybe I should try and work around that. But I digress]), welcome to my three installment article Movies That’ll Probably be Good That Have Yet to Come Out This Year (MTPbGTHYtCOTY-rolls right off the tongue doesn’t it?).

Lawless – August 29

This film about a depression-era bootlegging gang (moonshine, not pirated movies) who runs into trouble with a corrupt deputy (Guy Pearce) who wants a cut of the profits in return for his ‘ignorance’ of their operation stars Shia Lebouf and Tom Hardy as the brothers leading the gang and features Gary Oldman as the leader of a rival gang. With a round of such phenomenal actors and relatively new talents John Hillcoat and Nick Cave directing and writing respectively this movie promises to be at least an entertaining film if not one that will skillfully combine the thought-provoking quality of an independent film with the good-old fashioned gang warfare violence characteristic of older studio films, though this is a Weinstein Company film so very much in the indie realm. That image on the left is the poster and below is the redband trailer: please be aware the trailer does contain violence and nudity.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – September 21

Point 1: This film is written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, who also wrote the novel the film is based on. So if ever a film could be adapted into a book well, this is the way to do it. Point 2: This is Emma Watson’s second performance since the conclusion of the Harry Potter franchise. That in and of itself is enough to make it worth considering. Plus Paul Rudd is in it. Who doesn’t love Paul Rudd and his adorably-too-short-for-his-body arms? After the primary inclusion of point 1 combined with point 2 and Paul Rudd, the film adaptation of this beloved novel should be considered worth a viewing.

Looper – September 28

Honestly I can’t tell if this is an indie film or a studio pic so I’m just not gonna categorize it like that. Regardless, its stellar cast and intriguing plot make this film one to look forward to. It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an assassin who kills targets sent back in time to his location in order to effectively make the assassination untraceable. Until one day future JGL (played in this film by Bruce Willis) drops out of space as JGL’s next target, after which, for lack of a better term, shit goes down. The film looks like an interesting exploration of the sci-fi/action genre combo, and while it doesn’t appear like it will address much in the way of time travel conceptually, it should still prove an interesting and fun flick. It’s written and directed by Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed Brick, which, though I haven’t gotten to it myself, is supposed to be a phenomenal film.

Taken 2 – October 5

And now we come to the first studio film on the list (or possibly second again I’m really not sure about Looper). Taken 2 follows Taken’s plot pretty obviously. Liam Neeson killed tons of Albanian’s in order to save his daughter, and now the father of one the guys Neeson killed wants revenge. Now Liam Neeson and his wife Jean Grey (or Famke Jannsen, however you want to look at her) have been taken and Neeson has to enlist his daughter’s help in order to escape. Here’s what it boils down to: Neeson killed a bunch of people pretty awesomely in Taken. In Taken 2 that promises to happen again. Also the script is written By Luc Besson, who you probably know as the guy who wrote The Fifth Element and Leon:The Professional. I would mention the director, but it made me not want to see the movie when I looked him up. So see it for Liam Neeson being an old Irish badass.

Cloud Atlas – October 26

I can’t explain this film. The plot is way too confusing based on the trailer to glean anything. But regardless it looks cool. It has a stellar cast with so many famous actors in it that I’m just going to recommend you click the link in the subheading so that you can see them rather than me listing them and linking to each of their imdb profiles individually. Also it’s a Wachowskis film. And I love the Wachowskis. The Matrix, V for Vendetta, I even like Speed Racer pretty well. This movie looks neat. And if you watch any of the trailers in this installment, watch this one, because without it you won’t be able to comprehend why this movie looks so good. Though I’ve seen it twice now and I’m not sure I understand.

Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? Do you have movies you think I missed (keep in mind there's two more installments coming)? Am I completely moronic for including one of these? Do you have anyrequests for articles? Or movie reviews? Please tell me in the comments below so we can discuss it. I'd like to hear from my readers. 

Paper Towns-A Review in Progress

Hello! So I know my blog is Rmablingsofacinephile. Yeah that's right. didn't know you'd been reading my blog name wrong all this time hanh? Or maybe I'm a little dyslexic after typing for the last three hours. Probably that last one. Anyway, though I'm supposed to be a cinephile, I'm really more an all around nerd, and I've been drawing a blank on what to write lately. So I've decided to share my thoughts on John Green's book Paper Towns (which admittedly I'm a little late to be reviewing due to it having been published four years ago [2008 for those of you future readers! {Like anyone is going to read my blog in the future, no one really reads it now |Man that's a lot of brackets in brackets, so many I ran out of different kinds of brackets and had to resort to awkwardly placed lines|}] However I ordered it from Goodwill Books just last week and am extremely excited to read it.) as I read it. Woo! That was a fantastically complicated sentence/thought. Anyway, so I will share a post for every three chapters I read. However, I just checked to see how many chapters there are and the three-chapter-system may become problematic due to the categorization of the later parts of the book. [Edit: Yeah, the three chapter sequences system won't work because I'm reading the book too fast. Instead, I will write a post for each section of the book, there are three, for a grand total of five posts, including this one and the spoiler free review.] We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Please be warned, this will be a spoiler-filled journey through Paper Towns so if you're like me and hate having stuff spoiled for you, don't read these posts, after I have completed the journey through the book, I will post a spoiler-free review of the book as well. Without further ado, let's begin.

I lied. Here's some more ado. I have recently been watching an excessive amount of vlogbrothers videos, a vlogger series that John Green and his brother Hank do together. If you have not yet seen them then go watch them. They're good. And I have provided you a cleverly hidden link to their youtube channel in the third sentence of this paragraph. Anyway, having established that I am reading this book upon becoming familiar with John Green in a new media setting, we can begin our step by step journey through Paper Towns.

Leave any comments in My Pants. Actually don't.
I wont get them there. Leave them in the comments section

Just a reminder...there are spoilers below this sentence - either be prepared or avoid altogether.
The book begins with a prologue that introduces the characters of Quentin, our first-person narrator and protagonist, and Margo, the "miracle" that lives next door to Quentin, or Q as he is referred to in the novel and will be referred to in this blog. After sharing his philosophy that everyone gets one miracle, one incredibly unlikely event that happens to them, Q remarks that living next to Margo is his miracle. This sets up the whole tone of the story, allowing us readers to understand that the events of this novel will be fantastical. And  that tone is even further set up through the nine year old Q and Margo happening upon a dead body. As for this section of the story I found myself engaged quite effectively, however I was unsure as to the believability of John Green's provided narration of a nine-year old boy. I found myself thinking, "Really John? A nine year old thinking about the 'circumstances of his [the dead body's] demise?' That's a little advanced. Doncha think?" Then I felt stupid because it was obviously a story being told by Q as an older human being. Upon realizing this, I became aware of how absolutely fantastically John was able to create the mind of a teenage boy and welcome his readers into it. There are thoughts of sex and selfishness and development and concern. It is quite well done.

The first chapter after the prologue is concerned primarily with establishing the setting in which Q lives. We get a sense of his friends, all of whom are independently developed characters and rely in no ways on archetypes, and his school. He and Margo are no longer really friends. He's a band geek, and she's one of the hot popular kids. If I had one complaint at all with the novel thus far, it would be that Green made all of the teenagers witty. Which, though it makes for more interesting reading, is not the most realistic portrayal of teenagers in my experience. Usually they're a little slow and kinda dumb. No offense teenagers who are reading this. You'll get better, I promise. But hey, maybe teenagers are different in New York and Indianapolis.

Chapter 2 introduces us to what appears to be the main plot, but I will wager a guess is going to actually lead into a much more convoluted plot. Margo shows up at Q's house one night dressed in black and wearing black face paint. She requests his help in completing a mysterious 11 part plan since she needs a car and Q has access to one. At this point in the novel, we have not yet been introduced to Q's family, with the notable exception of him contemplating when his parents granted him mostly unlimited access to the family van, which I imagine will serve some thematic purpose concerning authority; though I am basing this entirely on conjecture and have no idea yet since the parents haven't been introduced.

A quick analysis and review of the first three chapters:
Q is highly representative of the nerd collective. He is a virgin who tends to stay where he is comfortable: in the band room. However, the nerd is being whisked off by the interesting hot chick on an adventure unlike anything he's experienced. What is in store for him is yet to be seen, but we can expect it to be the most exciting adventure he has ever encountered, with the exception of his stumbling upon the dead body. Despite this appearing to be a get-out-of-your-comfort-zone-and-enjoy-what-life-has-to-offer anti-introverted nerd story, anyone who is familiar with the vlogbrothers at all knows that John himself is an introverted nerd. So what twists will come to reveal what John Green has to say about life as a teenager is something I look forward to (sorry for ending in a preposition but I've been going back and correcting myself all day and I'd rather stop).
If you choose to read this book, which so far I would definitely recommend, it might help to familiarize yourself with nerdfighteria (the vlogbrother's online community), as the book reading experience is greatly enriched by being able to catch references to the stuff John says in his vlog as well as to a number of things John likely included just because he likes. Paper Towns has so far made me feel really smart since I get so many of Green's allusions. If you watch the videos, you'll get that feeling too.

I am going to end each segment of this series with my favorite quote from that section. Here is this one's:
"In every room, save Radar's, their home was awash in black Santadom-plaster and plastic and marble and clay and wood and resin and cloth. In total, Radar's parents owned more than twelve hundred black Santas of various sorts. As a plaque beside their front door proclaimed, Radar's house was an officially registered Santa Landmark according to the Society for Christmas."

The Best Burger I May Have Ever Had

So I have never reviewed food before so this will be a little difficult for me. But I think the deliciousness of this burger is so great that I must share it. So today my friends and I were chatting about where to grab dinner. We had a lot of vegetarians with us so we were thinking something veggie friendly like Thai or Chinese. Then my friend suggested Mick's Karma Bar. Which is a burger joint. We laughed at him then said, yeah ok. So we went to this burger joint (Mick's Karma Bar, I'm gonna plug this places name as many times as I can so you guys go there), which is located in the restaurant section of one of those blocks filled with big businesses like Wells Fargo in Irvine, CA. Anyway we get there, and first off, the environment is just awesome. There are some weird modern art benches around this giant pond and a whole bunch of outdoor seating cafe style.  It feels totally unlike Irvine; it's pretty; it smelled good; it felt like there was actual culture (in case you can't tell I really hate Irvine). But so after discussing and agreeing that the outdoor seating was quaint and attractive, we entered Mick's Karma Bar and took a look at the menu. 5 burgers.

They had some other stuff that I'll probably never try
cause I'll always want the burger

5 burgers. I got the Karma Burger, their staple, some steak fries and a strawberry lemonade, all for a little less than ten bucks. It only took about ten or so minutes for us to get our food, and when we did. Oh my gosh. Everyone at our table had some sort of food induced orgasm. Even my vegetarian friends (you can sub a veggie patty free of charge) demanded we come back. I have had a lot of good burgers in my day. I'm a bit of a burger enthusiast. But this burger. Something about this burger - No . EVERYTHING about this burger was perfect. Amazingly high quality meat. Not cooked till after I ordered it (I know I chatted with Mick a bit after my meal). Cooked to literal perfection. Not tough nor crunchy. All the vegetables were fresh (how did they get tomatoes so perfectly plump and easily bitten into?). Good bread. Even the fries and lemonade were phenomenal. My point is the food was damn good. And then on top of all that the staff was friendly and helpful. Mick was insanely passionate about his burger joint and how important quality was to him. All in all it was just a wonderful experience. The best burger I've ever had, with great surface, and a great environment. Next time you're in Irvine and you're craving a burger, search this up on google and find it. It's worth the little money it costs and definitely worth the effort you have to put in to finding this place. And this, is the burger:

The 3 a.m. Whistle: A Short Story by Scott Spears

So I didn’t sleep last night and thought writing this short story would be a better use of my time. It’s not like my usual content, but really this is my ninth post so I don’t even have a ‘usual content’ yet. Sorry it’s still not that review I keep promising you. I will get that to you guys eventually. In the meantime, please enjoy.

The following is a true story. 

Except for pretty much everything after tenth sentence.

The Man sat down in his usual spot. Nestled in his corner of the couch, he began to peruse the web that so entertained him. Cruising through thechive.com's early morning posts: daily morning awesomeness and a low, dirty good time. It was late, or early depending on whether you were waiting to sleep or just now welcoming the day. For the Man, it was neither. See he had been working on a television pilot lately and the invigoration of writing at night had left his sleep schedule as tattered remains. As a result he could not – no – must not sleep this night, if he had any hope of ever returning to a sleep schedule in which he could wake up before 2 p.m.

Thus he began his unwitting journey. For every night since the massacre of his sleep schedule he had begun to notice a reoccurring event. At 3 a.m. every night a sound so horrifying, so piercing, so grating that it can hardly be described within the English language as anything other than a whistle. Every night upon this sound assaulting his ears, the Man’s blood would begin to curdle within his veins so that he might serve as some sort of vegetable side dish for the health conscious vampire.  On any and indeed every other night the Man would have ignored this screech. Yet on this night he chose to act upon the sound, for on this night, he suffered from an incurable boredom and was unable to shake the thought “eh, why not?”

The Man’s search began at the apartment acrossed from his, as he was sure he thought the sound may have come from over there. Though not a stranger to the complex, the Man was unfamiliar with this apartment, so he was justly surprised by the horror he found upon his arrival at its front step. Now dear readers, to aptly give you a mental image of the horrors of this dwelling, if it could be described as such, we will need to pause in our hero’s quest. But fret not, for we will return to the Man’s gruesome tale. This hovel, for it is more accurate to describe it thusly than as the apartment it once was, appeared in a state of complete disrepair. Upon the door hung an advertisement posted by The Irvine Company dated three days old. The windows were coated in a thin layer of dirt as if they hadn’t been washed in what may have been as long as a week. The blinds were in shambles; one window even missed a blind. The welcome mat sat askew on the front step, a corner hanging off the edge, and this author can’t help but connect the symbolism of the collapse of this mat to the gradual collapse of the apartment. To the Man it seemed that this apartment could no longer possibly serve as a home, unless the sole inhabitants were insects and rodents of various unusual sizes. And yet, a light burst forth from one of the windows even while our hero was pondering this! Someone was inside the apartment! “Perhaps they knew the source of the whistle, perhaps they were in danger from whatever ghastly villain haunted this place,” the man thought to himself. He reached out his hand to the door. Slowly gripping the knocker attached to the door, his hand, quivering, as if acting of its own volition, lifted the piece of metal which despite its small size seemed to weigh 5 pounds.

He knocked.

He knocked again.

It was at this very moment that the blogger writing this piece finished his waffles and had to rinse off his plate. The door creaked open on hinges that had never been oiled. A chain caught the door inside stopping the door from opening more than six inches. But even this gap was enough to expose the horrors inside. The light fixture had a bulb flickering, as if screaming in pain and revolting against what its light had to reveal to the world. Mail was strewn about the counter. Shoes littered the floor just inside the door. A spider had begun the insect’s take-over of the apartment, setting up camp in a web near the doorway. Dust had settled on the kitchen floor. After the second it took for him to regain his sanity after being exposed to such horrors, the Man took stock of what little he could see of the person who suffered daily from the poesque environment. He was a middle aged man with brown hair and eyes to match. The same brown hair peppered his face in unshaven stubble. He had the sullen appearance of a man who’d given up, or perhaps had just woken up at 3:30 in the morning.

“What?” the man groaned.

“I was wondering sir, if perhaps you knew the source of that atrocious whistle that invades our humble community every evening at 3 a.m. sharp?” our hero, the Man, enquired.

“Oh yeah, sorry. My dog ran off and I whistle for her every morning around that time cause she’s normally awake around then. Am I bothering you?”

Relieved and overjoyed that the whistle was not some apparition sent to deprive our hero of his sanity, he whooped and ran off without additional response. He returned to his apartment with a renewal in the hope of safety within his life, secure in his apartment, where he nestled back into his corner of the couch and continued his sleepless night. 

Why You Shouldn't Freak Out About the Frame Rate for The Hobbit

So odds are if you’ve been on the internet at all today then you’ve heard that at CinemaCon, which is a convention put on by cinema owners, Peter Jackson recently revealed ten minutes of footage from The Hobbit, which he presented at 48 frames per second (The Hobbit will be the first Hollywood movie released in 48 fps). And if you’ve seen any of these posts about this footage, you’ve probably also read an article saying how everyone thinks the footage looks awful, like a soap opera or live broadcast. So before I get to why you really don’t need to freak out about this, I’m gonna go into a little detail on WHY Peter Jackson has committed this apparently atrocious sin and what it actual means as well as what the haters are hating on. 

Other than these guys:

History! For Fun!

So real quick for those of you who don’t know what 48 fps means, fps stands for frames per second and is the amount of images that flash on the screen each second so as to trick your eye into thinking it’s seeing one continuous image. The human eye blurs together images at about 16 fps and movies are traditionally shot and shown at 24 fps. So 48 fps second then is twice as much information for your brain to process while watching a film. Peter Jackson asserts that this increase in information results in a far more detailed experience in its higher quality footage and less strenuous 3D viewing experience, which many of us would be thankful for. However that’s not the reaction people seem to have had.

People Don't Like Revolution!

People are freaking out. Here, here, and all these here. No journalists seem to be happy with the footage they saw. People have been freaking out about this so much you’d think Peter Jackson added an aquatic elf that was a really bad parody of black stereotypes. Honestly based on some of these articles I’m surprised there wasn’t a sudden influx of journalists thrown in prison on charges of assaulting Peter Jackson by flinging their own feces. The basic agreement seems to be that it looked weird. A common argument also is that the quality of the picture is so high that things like sets and CGI (which, if it’s anything like The Lord of the Rings, are two things really heavily used in The Hobbit) are really obvious and look out of place.

Hold On to Your Feces!

I know there's a joke here about Andy Serkis
as a monkey flinging poo but I can't find it

Now I haven’t seen the footage, so I may be wrong about what I’m about to say and if so I’ll be the first to throw my poo in reaction to the destruction of my beloved Lord of the Rings series, but I honestly think people are overreacting and we really don’t have anything to worry about. Here are a few reasons why. One, before the footage, Peter Jackson said that it isn’t finished yet. It is partially completed footage. I’m gonna say that a third time just to make it clear; he’s not done editing the footage. That means that they could still have stuff to do like color correction, lighting correction, CG imaging and rendering, all of which would make the footage a whole lot more immersive and complete looking. Two, as some of the articles mention, people complained primarily about the little snippet scenes that they didn’t get to see extended footage of.The long clip featuring Gollum (Andy Serkis) and Bilbo (Martin Freeman [who I am really excited for in this role by the way]) having a riddle competition was fine and not as off-putting as the other footage was, which suggests that perhaps once our eyes have adjusted to the new frame rate it might not be as big a deal, especially considering we’ve only been experiencing 24 fps for the entire history of cinema. 

This doesn't even need a punchline.

Or maybe more complete footage such as this scene will look better and the only problem with the other footage was that it was incomplete. So in conclusion, let’s hold off judgment until a 48 fps trailer is released with some completed footage, keep our feces in toilets for now, and just not freak out. Again, I haven’t seen the footage yet but really, let Peter finish the film before you freak out.

P.S. Sorry this isn't a review of Starkid's Holy Musical B@tman! But I felt this article needed to be posted sooner. I'll post the review in the next week. As an apology please accept this random and hilarious picture I found while googling 'Andy Serkis Poo':

"I Wish I Could Understand": a poem

So I don't write poetry often. In fact this is the first thing I've written that wasn't a school assignment, but it was on my mind and I'm late on a post this week. So please enjoy this poem until I get up my review of Starkid's new play "Holy Musical B@man":

I don't understand how I can detest someone so much and miss them terribly at the same time.

I don't understand how I can mean it telling someone "I love you," and scream at them for destroying the person I love most.

I don't understand how someone can declare love for me and defile that which I hold most dear.

I wish I could understand.

Cause if I understood, maybe I could do something. Maybe I could escape somewhere. Maybe I could move on somehow.

I wish I could understand.
But I can't.

By - S.G. Spears

5 TV Shows You're not Watching That You Really Should Be

So I watch television sometimes. Ok many times… every day. Just today I watched an episode of Glee, an episode of Smash, an episode of How I Met Your Mother, an episode of Hey Ash Whatcha Playin (though granted that’s a web show and is only about 3 minutes long), and a ten minute clip of 30 Rock bloopers. So I realize that is an excessive amount of television for one day and if you’re at all like me you might be asking a fictional version of me in your head, “But Scott, don’t you have classes to attend and homework to do in your very busy college life?” Yes, yes I do. But also, I am a film major, so I tend not to do any of that. But regardless of how much I watch TV, there are pretty good odds that you also watch a lot of TV. A statistic I’m making up now for the purpose of this article says that Americans now spend roughly 55% of their waking hours watching TV. So in order to help support your addiction I have the top 5 TV shows you’re not watching that you really should be. Watching. Yeah. [Please note that with the exception of Smash and Thundercats, which are new shows this season, the ratings are pulled from the season-wide ratings from last season. As for the first two shows, these are the ratings of the most recent episode. For what rating actually are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings#Ratings.2Fshare_and_total_viewers]

5. Smash                                                                                                  Ratings: 2.1/5

Smash is the charming tale of Karen (Katherine McPhee) trying to make it in New York as an actress. And the less charming tale of the seedy reality she finds there when she joins the cast of a new musical about Marilyn Monroe. Joining her in the cast are Debra Messing and Christian Borle as the musical’s writers (both of whom play their characters phenomenally), the always wonderful and dickish Jack Davenport as the show’s director, and relative new comer Megan Hilty as Karen’s rival for the part of Marilyn. The show is sort of like Glee in that it is more or less a backstage musical, that is all the singing is in rehearsal or otherwise grounded in reality (again only mostly though). Unlike Glee however this show is not in the mode of comedy and mostly serves as a guilty pleasure cause, really, who doesn’t like a little melodrama now and then? Why else would General Hospital, ER, and House still be on TV?

It's lupus. (That's an over used joke)
Well that's not even a picture of Hugh Laurie
(Yeah I know that's sorta the point...nevermind)

4. Thundercats                                                                                     Ratings: 0.4/1.3

This show is the most lame-looking awesome show ever

OK so really the only reason the ratings on this reboot of the classic 80’s cartoon are so low is because it’s on Cartoon Network and not one of the major networks like everything else on this list, but still. This show is awesome. The voice cast features such great talent as Will Friedle (Kim Possible and Boy Meets World) and Emmanuelle Chriqui (Entourage and You Don’t Mess With the Zohan). And you get to watch a whole bunch of cat-human hybrids beat the crap out of some lizard-human hybrids, including Mumm-Ra (Robert Atkins-Downes, who just has a stupid amount of voice work under his belt). So whether you watched the original cartoon, or were like me and refused to watch the original cause you found the amount of kitten nudity a little disturbing, this show is for you. Cause it’s awesome.

3. Happy Endings                                                                                Ratings: 2.1/5

Image taken from some website that took it from Entertainment Weekly

Who here has seen Friends? Every one of you should be raising your hands. Who here now feels dumb for raising their hand at their computer? Now ever since Friends became basically the most successful sitcom ever, every network has tried to copy it. Every single one. Every new season a whole slew of Friends clones come out and most of them suck. However, occasionally a gem pops out. In 2005, that show was How I Met Your Mother. In 2011, that show was Happy Endings. This show is the most hilarious traditional sitcom I’ve seen since HIMYM’s second season. From Adam Pally’s slob of a gay man Max to Damon Wayans Jr.’s eccentric token black dude to Elisha Cuthbert’s – you know what I’m gonna stop there cause otherwise I’ll just go through the whole cast. Just trust me, it’s good; any show that throws out the joke “Even I think that’s gay and I had sex with a dude last night” in the first episode deserves to be watched.

Remember her? She's in this show. Watch it.

2. 30 Rock                                                                                               Ratings: 2.6/7

I assume you all know what 30 Rock is so I'm using
this as an excuse to share this lovely picture of Tina

To be fair you probably know what 30 Rock is. You probably know it has won more Emmy’s than any show should ever win. And you probably know that Tine Fey is the most awkward combination of hilarious, hot, and clumsy-librarian you’ve ever seen. That being said, why does this show have such low ratings? I am unsure why but I feel like it probably has something to do with reality TV…or medical dramas…or reality TV medical dramas. Regardless of the cause, a show like 30 Rock, which even when it sucks is funnier than some of the other (pardon my use of the word shit) shit that networks are trying to pass off as comedies.

Silly NBC, when you take a crap it goes in the toilet,
not all over Laura Prepon's career.

1. Community                                                                                         Ratings: 2.0/6

If you're thinking "Hey! that's that dude
from The Hangover 2," then get off my blog.

Hello internet. I realize I’m preaching to the choir. Cause the internet community is where Community thrives. But guys. This show is absolutely brilliant. Despite its attempts early on to shove a whole lot of content into way too little time, this show has consistently provided me with a huge set of laughs in every episode. It reference a million films a minute, it’s meta-humor rivals that of even 30 Rock, and it’s characters are vastly superior to any in any other sitcom currently on TV. So why internet, has NBC not yet decided on whether to keep the show for a fourth season or not? The answer, I think, is that you all are like how I was: just watching the show online wherever I could find it. But here’s the problem, NBC, doesn’t get money for that. And if they don’t get money from the show they won’t keep green-lighting new seasons. So I’m asking you, no I’m begging you. Help me. Watch this show on NBC. DVR it. Watch it on Hulu. Any of those will increase the show’s ratings and maybe guarantee us that fourth season. #sixseasonsandamovie

Final words

Please watch these shows. If not for your own enjoyment than do it for me so that I can keep watching them and have the motivation to continue my life and keep writing mediocre articles and internet lists like this one. And if you can only do one, please make it Community. Cause really, writing about that is pretty much the whole reason I wrote this article.

The Hunger Games Review

(An aside - so I know my posts till now have been very cavalier and mostly me just talking, which is what I want a lot of my blog to be. However, it is also important to me to get out some content that actually showcases my writing, so without further ado, my first thought out and revised piece.)

The Poster:

155 million dollars later and the tagline has become prophetic

The Summary:

We join our young heroine Katniss Everdeen (phenomenally portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence) in her home district of District 12 as she awakens to comfort her young sister, Primrose (Willow Shields), when she wakes up screaming after having a nightmare in which she is picked for the dreaded hunger games. This loving relationship is what propels Katniss through the games after she winds up as one of the participants known as ‘tributes.’ The hunger games are a spectator event in which a group of twenty-four children, two from each district, must fight to the death. The leader of the districts, President Snow (Donald Sutherland), holds these games annually in order to ensure the cooperation of the residents of the twelve districts. The rest of the film focuses on Katniss’ journey through the games and watching her desperately try to cling to survival in order to return to take care of her sister.

The Spoiler-free Assessment:

If you have read the book then there are two things you must know. 1) The original screenplay is written by Suzanne Collins, the author of the novel, as well as the final rewrite. So the script is hers. 2) This is by far one of the best book-to-film adaptations I have ever seen. The switch between mediums is honored by changing the manner in which a lot of the information about the characters and the world from description based to visual based. I will go into more detail in the spoiler-filled assessment below. For those of you have not read the book, there is a reason the film made 155 million dollars opening weekend (the third largest opening ever and the largest non-sequel): the film is fantastic, even if you have not read the book. All of the performances capture the characters incredibly; Lawrence is wonderfully devoted as Katniss and the supporting cast is just as dedicated to their roles. Woody Harrelson is particularly good as Katniss’ alcoholic mentor Haymitch Abernathy. The film’s editing works incredibly well with the cinematography to both add to the intensity of the film and the terror felt by Katniss as well as to take away from the most grotesque scenes in order to allow the film to get its PG-13 reading and thus its wide audience. This does not mean the film doesn’t suffer from a few problems. The cinematography relies so heavily on shaky handheld camera work during the opening scenes that it began to be a little annoying, though the film balances this out later during the excitement of the actual games. The film suffers from some filmmaking clichés, such as the exciting roar of the crowd drowning out all other sounds and comes off as corny occasionally, though the film's director Gary Ross does tend to make up for those scenes by following the clichés with sequences that contribute to the characterizations of Katniss and the other tributes. Despite the occasional flaws, the film is fantastic and more than worth whatever your local theater charges for admission. Go see it.

My rating: Four out of five.

The Trailer:

For the Fans:

This guy is too good

Alright. Now for those of you have read the book or just don’t care about spoilers here are some of the changes they made and greater detail on the specific performances. I read the book. It’s a great book. Not the best writing but highly entertaining. So here are the major differences. The origin story of the mocking jay pin is changed. However I like the change. In the film, Katniss finds the pin at one of the vendors at the market; she gives it to Prim, who gives it back to her just before Katniss goes to the Capitol. I like the change because I thought it provided a great addition to her relationship with Prim, which mostly gets cut out of the film because of how little time the film spends in District 12. Don’t worry though, Lawrence and Shield’s performances as sisters are wonderful and showcase how close the two are. Next change now. Throughout Katniss’ time at the games the film cuts away to the control room where we see the gamemaster making decisions regarding the game, to a commentary delivered by Caesar (who is played to perfection by Stanley Tucci), and to the president discussing the purpose of the games (to give a little hope to the masses so that they don’t rise up against him). These cuts move away from the action but they give a lot more coverage to the purpose and manipulations of the games, which helps to show the way the government manipulates and controls its people. 

And Lawrence gives such a solid performance as Katniss that these cut aways do little to take away from her portrayal of Katniss’ emotional state and our connection as an audience with her. And now for the last change, which wasn’t a particularly big change, but really irked me. When the hounds are released in the book, Collins took great care to describe their eyes in order to imply that the hounds were made from the dead tributes. The film does not do that at all. The result of this is a much less monstrous depiction of the gamemakers and is actually pretty detrimental to the characterization of the government I thought. That being said, I stand by my earlier statement that this is one of the best book adaptations I’ve ever seen and if you even SLIGHTLY enjoyed the book you should go see the film. 

Astronauts, Michael Cera, and Rapists (these are things I'm not)

Hello! And welcome to my page. So you must be asking yourself, "Scott? I think I've heard of a Scott before..." And the answer is you have. But probably we're not the same Scott. No I'm not Scott Glenn or Scott Pilgrim (if only!) or Scott Peterson (Thank god, me and jail would not get along well cause I'm not too big a fan of rape.) However if you thought of the Scott Spears who posted like eight blogs over at 1up about video games and poo under the username 'scootentaug' (edit: actually I was under the username 'sillypantsjackson' my bad, can't even keep track of all my personalities) then YES! That would be me and I'm happy to see you again. I will no longer be posting over at 1up because really, while video games are great and all I much prefer movies and other random crap, hence the uh....the title of...of my blog. Ahem. Anyway I'll hopefully be posting here about once a week with a whole bunch of posts varying from very scholarly thoughts on the latest Academy Award winners to posts of videos I just had to share with someone to whatever thoughts just randomly pop into my head that week. Some will be well thought out and creative, some will be funny, and some will probably make all you internet users wonder why I'm allowed to do stuff like go to college and be in public . It will all depend on how sane I feel that week, whether I'm having a bout of insomnia that night, or how much I've had to drink. Anyway I hope this post has been rightfully informative and makes you actually want to keep reading my rambling and if not I hope this video that I particularly enjoy changes your mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLGJ-LVCQrM
Scott out. (Edit: Sorry for the signing out thing, I just played Mass Effect 3 for like 4 days solid.)