Why Wanted is my favourite film of 2008

It’s certainly been an interesting year for 2008 in terms of films. And by interesting, I mean not so great. There have been a couple of memorable films, such as The Dark Knight and WALL*E that are sure to stick in your mind and the IMDb Top 250 for years to come. But apart from those few, the rest of the films out last year have been rather forgettable and not worth revisiting. This year has been pretty mediocre. In fact, this year has been so mediocre, that there hasn’t been as many really crap films as usual. It’s like the fucking movie companies don’t care! Anyway, as you can tell, the film Wanted, directed by Night and Day-watch’s Timor Blezviekezsd, is my favourite film of yesteryear. Why? Well, because, in short, it kicks ass. In long, read on…

First of all, this is the only film of last year to feature Angelina Jolie’s ass. I know it’s not really a big thing, but it’s a very well proportioned thing. Her ass doesn’t get much screen time, but I’m sure that the single presence of her behind was enough to make this great film just a little better. Like, if I were to give this film a rating of 9.2 out of 10 if it didn’t have Jolie’s ass in it, I would give it a rating of 9.3 out of 10 with her ass, which is just what the film has. Many would say that the inclusion of her ass is simply gratuitous, and if it were taken out of the film it wouldn’t make a difference to the film. What a ludicrous thing to say! If it had been taken out from the film, I wouldn’t be talking about it right now. I would be talking about her back instead.
As I was saying, Angelina Jolie’s ass may be the best actor in the entire film, but even the best performance of this year. The way that is goes from left to right at the exact right time is a masterclass in subtle acting, and would make Heath Ledger’s ass roll in his grave. Don’t get me wrong, Wanted has it’s fair share of excellent performances from James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. What?! That’s right, he was in the film. He played Sisbez Laviekescg and was so great, he completely disappeared into his role. Get it! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. But, nah, seriously, he’s a very fine actor. Did you see him in The Assassination of Jesse James? Ah, got you again, ah-ha-ha-ha. Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Wait a minute, there’s no need to type this shit out. From now on, no more typing what I think. Anyway, Angelina Jolie’s ass is awesome in the film. It doesn’t do anything cool like bend the pathways of flying bullets, or shoot people from miles away, or drive a car into a motherfucking train. But man, if all those things were in a movie, that would be totally kick-ass.

Oh, wait a minizzle, they are! In Wanted. The film I’m talking about. Holy crap, this film actually has people bending bullets! You won’t see any of that shit in The Shawshank Redemption. Don’t want to spoilt anything or nothing, but there’s a scene where McAvoy’s character, Wesley, sends all these mice into a building and blows them all up. Holy ass! Then he storms into the building, and just as he kills everyone he takes their weapons as they fall to their death and uses those weapons on killing more people. Nah, just kidding, but that’d be pretty cool. Oh, hang on, he actually DOES do that. Damn!

I went to see this film with a bunch of friends and all of our film-making ideas which based our enthusiasm on making films were shattered in just 98 minutes. This film has someone bending backwards whilst shooting out of a car to avoid an oncoming truck (and who better than Jolie), bullets colliding with each other, and slow-mo of a bullet going through a guy’s head, emphasising heavily on the exit (supported by excellent Oscar-nominated sound design), all of which were awesome ideas of our blood-soaked minds and finally presented on screen. Holy ass! I bet you the pioneers of the invention of popular film like Eisenstein and Griffith used to think “one of these days, film we get so good that you could, like, show a guy flip his car over another guy’s limousine and, like, totally, shoot the guy through the open sun-roof. Man, that would be pretty cool. That’s why I do this shit, man.”

People often discard Wanted because it’s not thematically deep and is simply a forgettable action movie with no depth. This couldn’t be further away from the truth. Wanted is, in fact, the most thematically important movie of 2008. The Dark Knight is just a film about city in chaos due to vigilantes. How can I relate to that? I live in a giant marshmallow behind the moons of Jupiter, I would have no idea of the criminal happenings of Chicago…I mean Gotham City. And The Wrestler does not affect me either. I may have not loved my daughter when she was young which makes her estranged from me, I spend most of my time in a strip joint so I can see my best friend who is a stripper, I have a dead-end job at a grocery selling processed meat and gourmets and I have a heart condition which makes any strenuous activity very dangerous to my health, but I am a kick-boxer. Therefore, this makes The Wrestler invalid to me (though I am looking forward to Darron Aronofsky’s next film, The Fighter). And people go on about WALL*E because it’s about the laziness and environmentally apathy of humans in the future. For one, we do not live in the future, so what does it matter? Second of all, just about every movie these days is about the fucking environment. Did I give a shit? No, but I do give a shit to the forest, so I’m doing my part, in a way. I usually get arrested for doing this, which is ridiculous. I’m just trying to help. I was watching Step Brothers the other day and laughing my ass, but then at the end the characters of John C. Reilly and Will Farrell look at each other and say “well, haven’t we gone through some rough times. But you know what, we’ve been given so much during our times on this earth. It’s about time we did something nice back to it.” Then they got out their shovels and went around planting trees and shit and doing whatever they could to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It was really good. But why would I want to watch WALL*E? I should just instead watch The Happening and Short Circuit 2 at the same time. And get high. And eat a shit-load of jelly-beans.

Which brings me to the themes of Wanted. What makes Wanted a special movie, nay, FILM that should be cemented in space and time and given a nomination for the AFI’s Top 100 films. Well, because it’s about what everyone feels. Like shit. Wanted is about Wesley, who’s life sucks, and yet he’s too pussy-shit to do a god-damn thing about it. So what happens? He finds out he’s the son of an assassin and therefore has super-human skills which allow him to shoot the wings of a fly. Damn, why didn’t I think of that? Wanted is all about changing your suck-ass life and does it in a fashion that is cool, exploitive of film and visual effects and connects to many a exciting action sequences, kind of like The Matrix, except this film doesn’t promote pill abuse.

I’m rather appalled that this obviously great film has been mainly shunned by critics and viewers alike. Perhaps it’ll be like Fight Club or The Thing, where it is not so thought about now, but soon enough, the late future, people will talk about how great a film Wanted is and how they wished they could’ve seen Angelina Jolie’s ass in IMAX. However, people will still find solace and enjoyment in their purchase of the Fi-D (the successor to Blu-Ray) of Wanted, and generations will come back and back to this incredible film and start a religion based on it. Then several religions. Then wars. Many will perish, but it will be worth it, for this is one film to rule them all. I don’t know how to end a review to such a film. It’s like killing a baby; you can never get round to doing it. I guess I’m too much of a pussy. I’m going to go watch Wanted now and elevate my spirits so I can totally go and bang heads and bang chicks. Oh yeah!

I Am Batman- Leaked script

I personally am excited to have received an early script for Aaron Selter and Jason Friedman’s new comedy spoof movie, “I Am Batman”. It does seem strange that there is already a superhero spoof movie out at the moment, “Superhero Movie”, however whilst that focuses more on the Spider-man movies, Seltzer and Friedman state that their project is more focused on the Batman movies, especially the new one coming out mid-year, “The Dark Knight”. Seltzer and Friedman are the two writers and directors of “Date Movie”, “Epic Movie” and the more recent 300 spoof “Meet the Spartans” (which has so far made $70 million dollars at the box office. Awesome!!). I feel very grateful to have acquired a copy of this manuscript, which is now no longer available on any other website. Luckily I immediately saved the PDF file and now I have it here on Carpool. This is a special treat for you folks, so check out what’s sure to be the comedy movie of next summer.

Movies of 2007

2007 has been an interesting year for movies. The formula seemed to go that movies no-one really looked forward were awesome and movies that people were looking forward to turned out to be shit (or at least mediocre). So let’s have a look at the movies that either surprised or disappointed the hell out of us.

Sunshine: Director Danny Boyle is not the most well-known director, with only a few movies under his belt, all of which have been received adequately. Boyles previous films are of different variety (drama, comedy, horror), but he had never ventured into science fiction, possibly the most difficult genre of film to make.
Excitement level- 5/10.
In short, Sunshine is the greatest film ever made. Better than anything you’ve ever seen. If you have children, the day your children were born is going to be the second best day of your life if you watch this movie. This movie is better than having sex with an ice-cream sandwich. This movie is better than BASEketball. I suppose I could just point out one thing that is bad about the film and make you assume the rest is good, but I can’t. Nothing bad sticks out of this film, it’s flawless. The script is brilliant, the directing is adventurous, the acting is tops, and is possible the best sci-fi disaster flick ever, though I suppose that’s no real hard feat. Though it also happens to be the greatest movie ever.
Rating: 10/10

300: Following on the success of Sin City, 300 followed suit in a similar fashion. It was based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel (actually taken panel by panel, al a Sin City), was filmed entirely in front of a blue screen and featured comic book styles (note stylised blood and high doses of orange colours that made GTA: San Andreas look like an apple). Unlike Sin City however, 300 was not co-directed by Frank Miller and was directed by Zack Snyder, who had only made one commercial film, the Dawn of the Dead remake (one of the better remakes). There was excitement, but it was mainly coming from a small, cult-like crowd who were fans of the graphic novel, fans of Frank Miller or just liked the trailer.
Excitement level- 6/10.
When 300 came, it kicked ass. It kicked the ass so hard, we were wearing it on our heads and we were loving it. 300 was one of manliest films to be released in ages and one of the only decent fantasy films since Return of the King. The only bad thing about this film is that a spawned a movie quote that has squeezed it’s way into pop culture and ruined itself, but that’s not really the movie’s fault (just the fault of the dick-hole fanboys). If you haven’t seen 300 (and you most definitely have), watch it. You will grow twin Chinese maces between your legs.
Rating: 10/10

Transformers: After all these years and there was finally going to be a live-action transformers movie. We finally had the CGI abilities to make the transformers look un-fucking-believable. In the hands of executive producer Steven Spielberg, this was bound to be the greatest action movie ever, possibly the greatest movie ever.
Excitement level- 10/10.
In the hands of director Michael Bay, this turned out to be the worst movie ever. What confuses the hell out of me is that it was exactly what everyone hated, yet everyone loved it. To elaborate, the film is a dumb-dumb, fast action movie with shit blowing up and laden with CGI and cocky teen characters who eat up the first forty minutes of the film with character development ripped off from Spider-man. This is the sure ingredient to make a shit dinner film with diarrhoea dressing. Yet audiences ate up the shit like melted triple-chocolate ice-cream (okay, now I’m just making myself hungry). 10 minutes in, we know we were watching a Transformers movie. A further thirty minutes and we were watching a bad Disney Channel movies, written by the guy that directs all the sequels. So once I established the fact that this movie’s dialogue and storyline was a piece of shit, I decided that the action (which was still thirty minutes away) would be good. I was devastatingly wrong. Every shot in the movie last barely half a second, rendering the action useless. Hasn’t anyone told Michael Bay to slow the fuck down just a little? Don’t get me wrong, I love a good quick-cut, shaky-cam (if I didn’t, The Bourne Ultimatum would be on this list), but when you’re seeing two giant robots bash the shit out of each other, you want to see it. Yet when the camera is ogling Megan Fox’s asshole, the shot lasts for minutes. What a bunch of transformer-shit (oh by the way, a jive talking transformer pisses on a government person. While we’re at it, let’s make Goku an emo with his own Facebook in the up-coming Dragonball movie). You know a director cares about a movie when he refuses to do a sequel because the first film didn’t make it to Blu-Ray, but then changes his mind when he sees 300 on HD-DVD.
Rating: 3/10

Spider-man 3: Many were hoping that Spider-man 3 would follow on the success of the brilliant Spider-man and the even better Spider-man 2. And why wouldn’t it be? There were going to be three villains this time; the Green Goblin 2, the fan-favourite Sandman and even bigger fan-favourite Venom. On top of all them, Spider-man himself would also be a villain, under the control of the mysterious intergalactic dark gloop. Two trailers were released that made not only fans wet themselves with excitement and it was looking to be the greatest film ever, combining exciting action scenes with heart-warming conflicts.
Excitement level 10/10.
Spider-man 3 turned out to be good. In fact, a little too good for it’s own good. But the biggest problem with this movie was what the fuck was with the middle of it? I assumed Peter Parker getting taken over by the intergalactic shit would be the plot-line to the whole movie. Instead, it gets attached to him, he fights and then he takes it off. What? All in the space of half and hour? And the movie still has forty minutes to go? Oh man. They shouldn’t have even had the middle part in the first place, the gloop should’ve gone straight to and he becomes Venom, so the movie would finish 10 or 20 minutes earlier. Instead we get Peter Parker (literally) dancing around, which symbolises his evil-ness. I wish I was kidding. Parker convinces the audience he’s evil by donning an emo-Hitler haircut and eating cookies. Once we’ve gotten past that, there’s only twenty minutes of the film left and we’ve still got two enemies to kill, one friend turned enemy turned friend, and two dames in distress to fuck around with. Holy crap, perhaps a little too much of a good thing. It might’ve not been as good as what we’re expecting, but it was close to close.
Rating: 8/10

Beowulf: 3-D cinema is really something not that recent. It’s been around back when movies used to be fun. When they’d put on gimmicks and shit to make movie-going an unforgettable, thoroughly entertaining experience. A few film-makers tried to bring this excitement back to the cinemas with Grindhouse, but it commercially failed because audiences no longer go to see films to be entertained anymore. Anywho, another film tried a similar stunt at this. You may have guessed what movie it is. Yes, it was Beowulf and, yes, it did use 3-D. Why how clever of you. Go back to trading your Digimon cards online. No, come back, I’m so lonely.
Excitement level 9/10.
Anywho, many were suckered into seeing Beowulf for it’s 3-D gimmick which didn’t make everything come right the fuck out at you and totally make you shit from your dick, but stuck out of the screen a little as if “huh”. There were a few times when shit flew right out at you, but that was reserved for stuff like snow and daggers and NOT a fucking flying dragon fight. It makes sense that they didn’t overuse the 3-D (proper 3-D, that is), but it’s even worse when they underuse it. There may’ve been people out there (I’m really not sure, it doesn’t seem likely) that didn’t care about the 3-D and just wanted a good movie. But Beowulf failed at that as well.
Rating: 6/10

Well, that’s my recap on the weird and wonderful of movies for 2007. 2008 looks like a pretty good year as well, such as a live-adaptation of the children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are”, directed by Spike Jonze. That’s pretty much the only good-looking film of 2008. Oh well.

Real Meanings to Songs To Supposedly Crap Songs

Sometimes these songs come out and you just think “these lyrics suck. What were they on when they wrote this? Oooooh, burn!”. But I think that you didn’t look into the lyrics well enough. If the song’s lyrics have you thinking “this doesn’t make sense”, then maybe you should’ve been inspecting the lyrics figuratively, not literally. Lucky the intelligent, funny, smart, clever and handsome Neonman is here to bring you examined and annotated lyrics of songs you thought were crap. Or, used to think were crap.

 

Avril Lavigne- Girlfriend- Written by Avril Lavigne

This song has been subject to popular hate among pseudo-music analysts/experts, claiming that its lyrics are plain stupid. Obviously they are if you prematurely examine the lyrics. Did you ever think to realise that perhaps Lavigne was superiorly poetic and you numb-nuts didn’t notice? As she proves in this song, she is and you didn’t. From first hearing of this song, the lyrics appear to be about the first person (Lavigne) thinking that a guy should ditch his girlfriend and opt for her instead. It sounds stupid, if you don’t take the actual context of the song in. The basis of the song is that a character doesn’t like the things another character does and suggests that he/she should change the way he/she takes to this actions. Though since the way Lavigne has worded these lyrics makes the first person character sound like they are forcefully suggesting, the character is apparently doing quite fine, but the first person character is suggesting that the character need decide to change his/her life to add change. The first person character is suggesting the evil temptations to the character. Avril Lavigne has been rumoured to be the devil on more than one occasion by many, so who better to act as the darkness itself than her. So we’ve now scrutinized that Avril Lavigne plays the devil in the song, and she is proposing evil misdeeds to a life-healthy person. I believe, after much analysing of the song’s lyrics, that these misdeeds could be anything (drugs, wacky sex, excessive violence), but the main misdeed Lavigne has presented through the song is lack of commitment and divorce. I think so because it is quite evident through the lyric “in a second you’ll be wrapped around my finger”, which is symbolic for marital rings. The connotations between girlfriends and wives are also a clue. Lavigne spends the whole song teasing and tempting the poor character to be part of her side, trying to lure him/her to act anti-ethically in benefit so he/she can enjoy the pleasures of the dark side.

I think it is extremely clever that Lavigne has marketed this song towards teenagers. She has given them something to ponder on and if the rate of divorces decreases, I think we only have one person to thank. Although it’s not going to happen since teenagers among who listen to this song think of it as a happy go-getting song. It sickens me when I see them dancing to it or miming it, presenting it in a positive light. They don’t understand the subtle darkness behind the song and cannot unravel for themselves the real beauty and important meaning behind the song. It’s a shame. This talented artist is trying to help these teenagers with their up-coming problems with love and relationships, yet these teenagers are refusing the real meaning and instead replacing it with a vague, lifeless one that does not grant them any help and on the contrary, will most likely fuck themselves in later life, now because of their misinterpretation, they think it’s okay to be persuaded to be unfaithful. The shitwads get what hey deserve. The song not only applies to these sorts of relationships, but others as well. The song could be relating to drugs, money, sex, any sort of evil stimulation that Satan (Avril Lavigne) is trying to persuade to the audience.

 

Kelis- Milkshake- Written by Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo

Since Kelis had nothing to do with the actual song-writing, we’ll award the proverbial crown to the two master-minds of lyric-making; the amazing, talented Pharrell Williams, and marvellous, gifted Chad Hugo. These two fine men have finely crafted one of the best song lyrics of all time with Milkshake. At first, the song sounds demeaning and negatively flirtatious, though only to the untrained, unintelligent brain. No-one in their right mind would buy a song glorifying such degrading values and beliefs. That’s why this song sold squillions of copies, has been used in so much media and gained much popularity because the lyrics address a serious issue through the use of clever proverbs, metaphors and other poetic techniques. The lyric’s actual meaning is related to the Cold War and it couldn’t be more evident. It must surely occur to everyone that by Milkshake, it actually means missiles and nuclear warfare. Here are the original lyrics for the chorus.

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard,

And they’re like

It’s better than yours,

Damn right it’s better than yours,

I can teach you,

But I have to charge.

Makes absolutely no god-damn sense. But if we replace the lyrics like so:

My missiles and nuclear warfare brings all the boys to the yard,

And they’re like

It’s better than yours,

Damn right it’s better than yours,

I can teach you,

But I have to charge.

Now it makes a shit-load more sense. “Bring all the boys to the yard” actually means gaining interest of the opposing side. This sort of explaining of boys is referenced a lot in the song. It’s sad, but true to have the “they’re like it’s better than yours”, which is referencing to when Russia began admitting they were in defeat, so the time setting of this song would revolve around the early 1980s. Kelis sings the “damn right, it’s better than yours” like capitalism knows they are better than communism. This is all followed up with “I can teach you, but I have to charge”, which suggests that Kelis is acting as the general of the Cold War, the leading force of capitalism. She is instructing one more attack on Russia so they will be brought down forever.

It may seem like a stretch how Williams and Hugo have related milkshakes to nuclear warfare, but it does make more sense. This bridge to connect the two can be made because nuclear warfare is as American as milkshakes. And there are only two things evil, underground American scientists from the 1980s are interested in; nuclear warfare and women’s boobies.

Hats off to Williams and Hugo for scribing one of the most poetically intellectual lyrics referencing the Cold War and using it to perhaps educate its target audience (adolescents, horny men). This is most handy because it is this cleverly perceive target audience that will one day sit in the war room and ponder global decisions. If they are to have Milkshake as some sort of profoundly written synopsis of previous mistakes, maybe they won’t be made again. All thanks to Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, who deserve every medal there is.

 

Justin Timberlake- Sexyback- Written by Justin Timberlake, Timothy Mosley, Nate Hills

What I find strange is that although paedophilia is a popular topic among teenagers, songs targeted to them never seem to revolve around the particular issue. That was so, until now. Justin Timberlake returned to the music mainstream (solo) a second time and I wasn’t interested until I heard his first single of his second album, titled Sexyback. Upon first hearing it, I knew straight away that the song was about paedophilia. If you lack basic comprehension skills and still don’t understand how Sexyback can be linked to child molestation, then allow me, you dumbasses. The lyrics to who they are presented to suggest that the person is underage and does not state they are of over 18 years. This is most obvious in the lyrics examples “go ahead child”, “dirty babe” and “come here girl”. To elaborate on this more, Timberlake comments on how other men don’t have the same sexual preferences he does (“them other boys don’t know how to act”). Timberlake furthers this by suggesting that non-paedophilic men (and women?) should also take part in child molestation because it is easier and more guaranteed for sexual pleasure (“them other fuckers don’t know how to act”). 

Although Timberlake sings most of the lyrics, it’s Timberland that backs them up with ad-libs. It’s as if Timberlake is raping the young children and Timberland is watching with excitement, possibly even video-taping it all.

If you disagree with me, then I leave you with this final suggestion that the song is indeed about paedophilia. Justin Timberlake has been compared to Michael Jackson and Timberlake has noted he is influenced by Jackson, in terms of music style, lyrics and dancing. Whilst Jackson never wrote any songs about paedophilia (or are all his songs about paedophilia?) he was convicted about two years ago under the crime. I’m supposing this is Timberlake’s tribute to his hero and influence. Let’s hope it only goes this far.

 

Now, thanks to me, you have a better understanding of songs. When you thought they were about girlfriends, titties or lust, they were actually about divorce, the Cold War, or paedophilia. If you will, you can spread my intellectual dissections word-by-word to your peers, pretending that you are able to analyse such complex lyrics (note: you’ll get chicks!!). Not they are, but to the mainstream audience these songs are targeted to they are. Not only can people not perceive simple figurative songs, they then decide to take the literal meaning seriously. What would these clever song writers think about this?

Toughest Video-Game Characters

Out of all the entertainment mediums, video games surely have the most impressive array of tough motherfuckers. Almost all musicians and bands are pussies, television don’t have any manly shows anymore (I’m referring to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Biker Mice From Mars, Dragon Ball Z, Street Sharks, etc. Now we’ve got nothing but Yu-Gi-Oh and Duel Masters garbage), books and graphic novels have their fair share of tough guys, as does movies. But its video games where the most manly, tough, strong and smelly men are at.

 

Mario- <I>Super Mario series, Super Smash Bros series, the such</I>

Many fan-boys (of Sony and Microsoft) would say that Mario is targeted towards kids and is therefore a kid’s game, which should not be played by adult gamers who should spend their time jacking off to God of War 2. Although Mario is more correctly a family game, the actions and attitude in which Mario takes throughout his journey (in the Super Mario and Super Mario Land series) is very, very manly. Mario is pitted off against all sorts of dangerous enemies such as the goombas, koopas troopas, hammer bros., piranha plants, spinys, and so forth. But Mario doesn’t seem to mind to mind. There’s barely even any fear on his face.

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When Mario is finished off by one of the enemies, he doesn’t go down screaming like a little girl. He looks at the player as if to say “oh no, I’m dead” and then he jumps and comically falls off screen. Mario doesn’t give a fuck if he lives or dies. He thinks it’s a joke. It takes real balls to joke about your own death when you’re dying. And all this just to save one Princess he probably doesn’t care about. He just wants an excuse to kill. That is very manly.

<B>Toughness Rating:</B> 8.5/10

 

Marcus Fenix- <I>Gears of War</I>

Holy shit, this guy is ripped! Either they’ve got some damn good steroids in the year 2020* or that guy (and his fellow Gears) have been pressing, pushing, pulling and pounding triple their body weight (* Gears of War takes place 14 years after Emergence Day, which happened when Gears of War was released November 2006. Do the math). And it’s not just in looks. Marcus Fenix grunts everything he says, even when he shouts commands. What a hard-ass. If the Locust were real and you saw them, you’d piss and shit your pants. Even I’m willing to admit a little wee would linger out of the tip of my penis if I ever had an encounter with a Berserker. But no bodily excretement from Marcus Fenix and co. They just simply kick the Locust asses (or whatever they have) along with taunts such as “is that the best you can do?” and “I’m loving this shit” and “motherfucker, you ain’t got shit on me, nigga.”  These guys aren’t scared of anything. Not even the bogey-man! There are a couple of characters in the game that the Gears meet along the way who are total pussies and can’t stand living in fear with the Locust. The Gears try to get these guys do shut the fuck up, but they end up losing their cool and getting their shit ruined by the Locust. Not the Gears. They act cool, stay cool and they survive. Not only does Marcus Fenix sport bicep muscles twice the size of my thigh ones, kick the shit out of the Locust, and try to help out little wimps, but he also manages the time to remember the fallen and pick up COG tags of deceased Gears along his journey. What a gentleman. Anyone reading this might as well kill themselves, they’ll never be as manly as Marcus Fenix (unless of course you happen to be…)

<B>Toughness Rating:</B> 9.0/10

 

Matthew Kane- <I>Quake 4</I>

Beginning Quake 4, your first-person character, Matthew Kane, appears to be any average first-person-shooter character. He can take a lot hits without dying, he doesn’t cry like a girl despite the fact he’s in such a dreadful situation, he can handle any weapon given to him, he barely talks. Just like any other character in any id game. Still very manly to start off with, he’d probably make it into this list just by what I’ve stated about him so far. But Kane goes a lot further than that. About a third into the game, Kane is captured by a Makron and is taking to the strogg facilities. There we see his legs and arms cut off and replaced, drills go in all parts of his body and other nasty shit. Kane does scream a little when all this is happening, but that’s probably because he was so excited. So in the end of all this, Matthew Kane goes from human to strogg in what looked to be the most painful plastic surgery ever (no anaesthetics). The only thing left is to activate Kane’s mind to “Strogg”, but before that can happen his fellow team-mates come in to save Kane. If it were anyone else, even Steven Seagal, they would be crying uncontrollably, would be in incredible pain and would most certainly want to die (or probably even let their body die from the pain). As for Kane, he couldn’t give a crap less. In fact, he gets straight back into the battle without barely any traumas. He’s perfectly fine, because he’s Matthew Kane. Not only does he go straight into the battle after the strogg transformation, he goes on to defeat the strogg entirely, mainly by himself. And even after all that, he’s still prepared to kick some ass! He hasn’t even rested since getting his shit absolutely ruined. Killing things is what takes his mind off the minor unconformability he would be going through. Holy fuck! When the strogg decided to rip off all of Kane’s body parts and replace them with new, strogg ones, they must’ve forgot one very important body part; Matthew Kane’s legendary balls. I suppose no amount of wielding can remove that sort of steel.

<B>Toughness Rating:</B> 9.5/10

Why we Are Fat

Only just recently, the obesity epidemic…no, crisis has plagued many of the Western countries. By now, obese people are now the majority of these countries and account for twice as many non-obese people (literally). The cause of the most tragic disease since the super-AIDs is still not known. Doctors and practitioners (al a women’s magazines, Today Tonight) are suggesting that fatty foods make people fat and that fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s and Hungry Jack’s (Burger King) should be sued for making people eat a dozen shit-tastic burgers a day and that everyone should eat at a more pristine restaurant like Subway, which guarantees if you eat there instead of McDonald’s every day, you can lose 50kgs in two weeks without doing proper dieting like eating healthy or exercising. Though I believe that this horrific infection is due to the fact that we are lazy and we rely on useless inventions to do easy and near taskless jobs. Heres a few:

 

Escalator- Oh, woe is us, woes is us. How shall we ever manage to climb up all the way up those stairs to the electronics department in Myers? Oh, the stairs, the stairs! All those stairs, my poor feet cannot handle such vertical, but humanely accessibly walking. Be stairs the enemy of the fat. And along came the escalator. Ah, no longer do I have to perform the simple task of walking up stairs (besides, man was not made for walking upwards). I now have a machine I can stand on and it takes me up to the next floor, without me involving any effort. It’s like magic!

 

Scooter- There comes a point in life when even walking becomes a tiring job. Especially when you don’t know how much you weight because your scales broke. So it’s times like these when you decide that you’re better off with a machine doing one of the most humane tasks you need to do (as a human). When the simple act of walking becomes unbearable, people discovered that a motorized scooter not only gets the fattest of people around, but doesn’t complain about it and smells nice too. Fat people are better of not existing and we should have scooters instead. Imagine a world like that….

 

Segway- Some might say that the segway is a sport. Wrong! No-one ever says the segway is a sport. That’s just plain silly. The segway is much like the scooter, only it requires the user to stand up (shudder). The segway contains a lot of useless technology that allows it to stand upright. Why? Just add a third wheel to the front to keep it balanced. Or better yet, not have one at all and walk like a real man!

 

Automatic sliding doors- These sliding doors are always at major shopping centres. It’s just plain unnecessary to have these, I can open a door by myself, I’m that able. Fuck it, why not have a butler there as well to greet me politely as he opens the door for me, as well as offer to tie my shoelaces if they are undone (UPDATE: Holy shit, they have those!). There must be a reason why these were invented and are used(?) so often? You could say “they are good because with ordinary doors, drafts may be lead in if they are open”. True, but that can be rebutted with having hydraulic doors that automatically close when you let go of them. Huh. I guess automatic sliding doors are completely useless.

 

Automatic car windows- this takes the (literal) pie of laziness. It’s amazing to think that car companies thought that what the consumers really need is windows that can open with the push of a button, rather than the manual labour that is winding that thing around five times. Not only is it lazy, but it’s dangerous. My dad’s car has automatic windows and I’m always paranoid getting in it. Why? What if the car was to drive into a river or the ocean, have it’s power off, the car is filling up with water and I can’t get the doors opened. All I can do is open the window and get out of the doomed car, but I wouldn’t be able to because automatic car windows need power (or at least the key in the ignition) to be active. If I don’t have that, I’m fucked. And by the time the car’s filled up with water, I wouldn’t be able to smash the windows open. My mum’s car, or any other car that has ye olde manual windows, would be no worry in this most likely scenario because I could just wind down the window, swim out and be crushed to death by the water pressure. What we really need is flying cars! Oh wait, we’ve already got those, they’re called planes.

Carpool’s Election Watch 2007

With the 2007 Australian election on it’s way and countless media items are sprouting Election Watch’s, it’s now time for Carpool to do the same. You may not know, but we here at Carpool are a real political bunch. Talking and debating about politics is one of our favourite past-times and we spend a great deal doing it. So it is my duty to present to you with Carpool’s Election Watch 2007, a look at the on-going battle between current prime minister John Howard of the Liberal party and the opposing Kevin Rudd of the Labour party.

 

Sturdiness; this is where Howard fails and it could greatly affect his chance at another term. Howard is a barrel of clumsiness, tripping over all sorts of things in between his daily activities. There is a whole archive of footage of Howard from the past four years of him being unable and inept to perform simple tasks like catch a cricket ball or walk without tripping over. He also, like George Bush, sometimes comes into trouble with speech impediments, which skew his speeches, thus creating unpopularity and difficulty with listeners. This little factor affects Howard’s charisma badly. On the other hand, Rudd is a clean walker, well-spoken even when put on the spot, which just shows how much more efficient Rudd can be if elected prime minister.

 

Australians were shocked on the 2nd November when a video was shown of Question Time from Parliament House that depicted Kevin Rudd picking his ear and then putting the very finger in his mouth.

It was only 26 seconds of footage, but this 26 seconds could have Rudd’s popularity with Australia’s citizens going down a great deal. This sort of unhygienic and rather juvenile behaviour from the opposing Prime Minister is not only disgusting to see, but stagnates faith many might have with Rudd as being a leader of our country.

 

John Howard is notorious among cynics for his racist behaviour towards immigrants and has even gone so far to distribute new laws into Australia that are prejudice towards immigrants of many races. Kevin Rudd, on the other hand, proves he is much more open-minded when it comes to different races and is much more popular with them. This is evident through his ability to speak Chinese (Mandarin, to be precise), which he did so during a press conference when welcoming the Chinese president to APEC. This gimmick boosted Rudd’s popularity with, I would presume, many immigrants and Chinese citizens of Australia. I would strongly suggest that Howard quickly learn how to speak a language so he can gain some of his own popularity with immigrants living in Australia.

 

Another step in a puddle for Mr. Howard come the Australian Election Debate 2007. In between dealing with matters like global warming and water reservations, Howard delivered something no-one would expect during his time to talk; a choke, which resulted in him needing a glass of water. Australians were shocked to witness Howard halt the debate for about a minute while he got a drink of water and cleared his throat. Such requirements from Howard on such a debate, whilst the rest of Australia had to wait for him. This is totally unacceptable from the <I>current</I> Prime Minister of Australia, let alone if he were just the opposition leader. It would be unwise to vote a leader in who has to pause every speech to get a drink, so let’s hope Howard cleans up his act fast.

 

Many would say that a Prime Minister’s past is rather irrelevant to their current status, but I would most strongly disagree. A person in the present is decided by the past, wouldn’t that be correct? Whilst Mr. Howard’s history seems relatively clean, Mr. Rudd’s on the other hand isn’t. reports came back in September of this year that Kevin Rudd once attended a strip club last decade. Although it may seem like a disposable factor in Rudd’s campaign, Carpool thinks otherwise. Surely we don’t won’t a pervert running our country, so why are we so shooshed on this particular subject? I do not even recall any apology or regret from Rudd. This is the clear opposite of what politicians or future-possible-Prime Ministers should be up to. This declaration from Rudd had me shocked and I’m sure faith went down in many Rudd-supporters and until he apologises to Australia, his supporters, the strip-club and the Australian government, he may not get that faith back which will inevitably and thoroughly damage his chances at this election.  

 

So we’ve gone through all the important topics of this debate, which shall be concluded early next year when a Prime Minster for Australia is announced, and it can only be one of these two. Having a look through our unbiased observations, you may be thinking “who’s Carpool rooting for then?” Well, the honest answer is neither Kevin Rudd, nor John Howard. But then again, we are rooting for both. Sure, as we have just seen both competitors have a lot of their act to clean up if they are going to be a suitable Prime Minister, but we at Carpool are sure that whoever is elected is going to do a damn fine job. Carpool hopes that this informative guide has been a help to your opinions on who you will vote for who should be Australia’s next Prime Minister.

The Best Foods

Admit it, you love food. You can’t live without food because food is great. I’m sick of all these anorexics and bulimics who won’t eat because of some bullshit reason. I’m also sick of all these people prejudging food based on amounts of calories rather than deliciousness. Some people these days take food for granted. Not me and if you’re reading this, not you either. So I give you all my list on the best food available and even some of my own recipes (though don’t count on anything spectacular, I barely even know how to use the microwave).

Nachos with dip- Nachos and dip are pretty good by themselves, but when they come together is something extraordinary. It’s like that ad where those farmers found gold and they took it out and oil squirted out. Nachos and dip is just such an ingenious combination. I rock up to teen parties, which really sucks because everyone is either doing drugs, dancing or socialising. I do neither and only go for the inevitably promised nachos and dip.

Dirt Dessert- These are yogurts made by Yogo and I often have those particular yogurts from that brand. But nothing they’ve made comes close to the orgasmic entity that is Dirt Dessert. First of, you think you’re just eating Yogo chocolate flavoured yogurt, but you notice little marshmallows hidden in that chocolate goodness. The marshmallows have this perfect soft texture that goes well with the not-liquid, not-solid density of the yogurt. So you keep eating and it’s all very nice and then suddenly… the yogurt stops. It can’t be right because you know you’ve got another centimetre of that delicious yogurt and mini-marshmallows to go. So you keep eating and what hits your mouth is better than sex or masturbation. It’s this very soft, cookie taste. It’s what it is, it’s crumbled cookies. The yogurt has made them nice and soft. You’re eating something that was once great, and is now shit-loads better. Dirt Desserts are flawless.

Corn Bread- These things are awesome because they’re snack-like and don’t fill you up so you, like me, can have a whole bunch at once. I usually have them with Vegemite, but I’ve got my own recipe that I’ll show you all.
Ingredients: Two corn bread- thick crust, Vegemite (no bullshit substitutes, just Vegemite), Original flavoured potato chips, vintage cheese.
Smear Vegemite all over one side of each corn bread so you can only see black. Then grate a good amount of vintage cheese over one of the Vegemited corn bread. Crunch up half a dish of the potato chips into millimetre small pieces and sprinkle it all over the King corn bread. Put the other one on top of it all and you’ll end up with this.

Looks delicious, doesn’t it? Don’t try eating it, you’ll probably just get electrocuted or something. Just take my word for it and make one for yourself. Your stomach will thank you for it.

Sushi- Who would’ve thought cold rice and seaweed would go so well together. It seems like the most ridiculous food combination (if you count seaweed as food). I bet that when the guy who first suggested this delicious treat explained it to his friends, they all probably laughed at him. Well I reckon that guy’s laughing himself to the bank, whatever that means. The great thing about sushi is what to put in the middle. I’ve seen a whole range of things including pork, salmon, prawns, grated carrot and even wasabi (yummy!).

Cherry Bounty and Banana Milky Way- Two of the best chocolate bars in the universe just got a whole lot better (and I just earned myself 20 bucks). Seriously though, assuming my preferred choices and opinions are right (no need to assume, they are), two of the best flavours in the world are cherry and banana (note: it’s actually chocolate, but there’s not too much use having a chocolate flavoured chocolate bar). And two of the best chocolate bars in the world are Bounties and Milky Ways. So go figure. It’s like Grand Theft Auto: Marioworld; two great things come together and there’s no way they can fail. And they didn’t. Cherry flavoured Bounties and banana flavoured Milky Ways are the perfect combinations (not together, but that’d be pretty kick-ass). All we need now are Cookies and Cream flavoured Boosts and we’re fucking set. If we had that, the circle of perfection and awesomeness would be complete and thus would gain world peace, end poverty and cease all climate issues.

Now you know what to eat. Screw eating healthy foods, when they taste like sticks. You only live once and eating healthy will only make you live slightly longer. Ever wonder why I’m so god-damn happy despite the reason I hate everything and suck at video games? It’s because I eat healthy, and by healthy, I mean healthy for my happiness, not my body.

9/11 is Overrated

September 11 2001 is a day we’ll never forget. And why? Because two commercial planes went into the two largest sky-scrapers in America and brought them down. That’s pretty shitty, but not as shitty as people make it out to be. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking on 911 itself, I’m knocking on the over-dramatic effect it’s had on the masses. Give it a break.

I remember 911 like anybody else. I was in grade five and I woke up to find that instead of Cheez TV, there was just the news. This happened, but only rarely. So I put in a tape of Dragon Ball Z, ignoring the seriousness of the story. Over the following days, I learned about what happened and thought “huh, sucks for them”. That’s all I thought about it, and I still think that way. No bullshit about it being a turning point in the billions of years we’ve always been. I would’ve never thought that people would consider 911 a day that changed humankind forever. We might as well create a new eon and change our calendars all the way back. There was BC, AD and now 911. This year is actually 0006 911, and the month (August) is actually May.

Two aeroplanes went into two tall buildings, they both fell down, the end. But oh no. 911 has to be brought up every time people talking about fear in society. Get fucked! You’d think America was the most unsafe country to live in and that any time, anywhere, a terrorist might kill a few people (a threat that has been made only a few times since 911). Fucking hell, I hate Americans. They act all high and mighty when they mention 911, saying “these terrorist try to take whatever little, insey bit of freedom we have. But together, we are strong. We act together like we are a community. We help each other.” Yeah, like the way you helped increase the racism against Muslims by 1000 per cent after 911, yet they were still fourth behind Jews, blacks and gays. It may seem cruel and unfair to criticize a quote that I made up myself (something Germaine Geer is a fan of). But I can tell you the truth that Americans were (and still…fuck it’s been like 6 years) portray themselves in relation to 911 as a loving, caring, look-out-for-each-other society, yet are of the same country that is notorious for its level of hate crime and racism. Fuck off. 911 is just a shitty day, not a turning point in humankind. But from the reception it got from most of the Western world, you’d think an entire country got drown to death in diarrhoea. That’d be a lot more awesome, but world-changing, than two towers falling over.

One thing that really pissed me off is how movies are now in post-911. Both Men In Black 2 and Spiderman, which came out May 2002 and July 2002 respectively, had content of the twin towers removed. What a bunch of fucking shit? I thought America was suppose to be patriotic, not that it’s really a good thing. So the twin towersis no longer there, shouldn’t you keep in the movies anyway because it’s respectful and a homage to the towers and all the lives lost. Oh no, it’s not! Lets’ pretend it never fucking happened. Why stop there? Why not have anyone that’d died not ever be portrayed in a film? Any film that does will have them digital removed from the entire film. Now, it seems that Hollywood has pussied up a bit because it’s probably been since The Matrix (1999) came out that I’ve seen something large go into a building.

When you mention “history’s worst disaster”, most people would probably say 911. It’s a bunch of fuck given that there are tons worst things that have ever happened. There are countless of other disasters that are far worse than 911, in which a whole lot more people died. I don’t think anyone remembers, but about three years after 911 there was a tsunami that ruptured in parts of Asia and Indonesia and killed around 200,000 people, as opposed to a measly 3,000 killed in 911. Nobody gives a shit about the tsunami disaster because no-one important died. If I’m not mistaken and doing the math correctly, a Westerner (American, British, Australian, etc) is worth roughly 67 Asian/Indonesian people (note: correct answer is actually 66.6666 recurring. OMG! Numbr of da beest). So there you go. It took nearly 3 fucking years for one dumbass to line those dots together. Westerners don’t give a shit about Asians or Indonesians. In fact, Westerners don’t give a shit about Easterners at all. You imagine 911 drawn out across every month or even every week. Yeah, and that’s what it’s like to live in some shitty country in the Middle East. Yet you’ll never hear about it on CNN or MSNBC or some shitty news station. I hate Westerners. And I hate Easterners.

HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray vs. DVD

Although our current DVDs are flawless, a new generation of picture-and-sound-entertainment-portable-software-devices (term courtesy of Steve Jobs) is coming. Enter HD-DVD (High-Definition Digital Versatile Disc) from Toshiba and, the arguably better named, Blu-Ray, from Sony. Both these contenders are set to take over DVD once and for all, battling each other for supreme. Both have a High Definition (HD) picture and sound quality, which developers say is “a gazillion times better than regular, crappy, non-HD DVDs.” So which one do I think will win? Neither. DVD will keep going until electronic companies develop something that makes me and other consumers really want to buy all our DVDs again.

 

Electronic companies in need of a good cock sucking claim that “HD-DVD is to DVD what DVD is to VHS.” What a load of shit. DVD was a complete change from VHS and actually made people want to spend money to re-buy all their VHS. On top of a much higher picture and sound quality, DVDs also introduced selectable menus, extra material, numerous audio tracks and subtitles, and the film wouldn’t go all funny when you paused it (a dream come true for subliminal message geeks and Roger Rabbit enthusiasts). I didn’t know any of this until my family bought our very first DVD player back sometime in 2001. We bought it, I slipped in my very first DVD (Dragon Ball Z: History of Trunks, still a superior movie) and wet myself over everything that came next. What I’m trying to say is that the anticipation towards DVD was rather simple. People just said that it was like VHS, but on a disc. But the consumers got a lot more than what they expected when they started buying DVDs, because it was more than VHS on a disc. That is why DVDs became such a popular invention. With the amount of anticipation towards HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, they might as well cure cancer and poverty. This is the worst thing about HD-DVD and Blu-Ray (apart from the names). Whenever I want to know something about them, I get all this bullshit about 1080p and HDMI and other acronyms I’m unfamiliar with. If I can’t get my head around it, how are the general consumers going to?

 

Statistics show that only 14% of people even know what High-Definition is. So I suppose it’s important for Toshiba and Sony to remind us all the time what HD is every time we buy a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.

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Bombarded on every case is “The look and sound of perfect”, “Beyond high definition” or “The best in picture, sound and interactivity.” Not to mention the box in the corner that states the sound and picture quality. Why not just have that? People know that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is “the best picture and sound quality”, why have to fucking remind them all the time? The box in the corner on the back has all the info, not all around the whole damn cover.

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I don’t see any reason to now make a new format. DVDs are great, why make HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray? Why have to re-buy all our DVDs for more money, and have only a better picture and sound quality? Newly released DVDs are usually priced at round $AUS30, whereas newly released HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs cost $40-$50. I know that DVDs were pretty pricey when they first came out too, but at least there was a good fucking reason to re-buy your VHS. Besides, History of Trunks only cost me $25, so maybe DVDs weren’t so fucking expensive after all when they first came out.

 

In some cases, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are actually inferior to DVD. Not in my opinion, but in solid facts, bound with numbers and incomprehensive jargon that sounds impressive. First up, DVD has a much higher disc speed than Blu-Ray. DVD’s disc speed is 8x, pretty impressive, whereas Blu-Ray’s disc speed is a measly 2x. This means Blu-Ray discs can take over a minute to load. What a bunch of crap. The HD-DVD version of King Kong has only one special feature, which is where you can make your own scene or something. And it’s $30. I bought the Deluxe Extended edition of King Kong on DVD for $26 and that has over 6 hours of bonus material, most of which is pretty insightful and entertaining. So what I won’t have the 1080p version of the movie? According to reviews on Amazon.com, the high definition quality makes the visual effect scenes (that’s the whole movie) look shoddy, as you can see visual effect errors that wouldn’t be noticed in standard definition. This may not be the case with other movies with lavish special effects, but this is still bullshit. Though perhaps this is a mistake of the visual effects team on King Kong (WETA), but at least they made it look good for standard definition, which was most likely their intention.

 

Unlike any of my other rants and ravings, this is not something that I cannot become a part of if I don’t want to. I can just not buy HD-DVDs or Blu-Rays and continue to only buy DVDs. But I don’t think that is possible. HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays share support from all the major film distributing companies. In a few years, DVDs may become obsolete and movies will only become available on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I’ll be forced to buy HD-DVDs or Blu-Rays, despite them being total shit. Though there’s still hope. There’s a little glimmer of light and if my estimations are correct, we’ll always stay with good ol’ DVDs. I’m talking about porn.

 

No, I’m not kidding. Porn is actually a really important factor in all this. Any video you see on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray on some technology website will discard any information of HD movies by popular mainstream companies like Universal or Sony, they’ll want the chance to meet and interview hot porn-stars, because it’s as close as they’ll even get to a real woman (unless they’re a woman to begin with. But then they’re obviously a lesbian). So which format is porn going to take? Well, obviously DVD. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, both displaying top quality picture, will reveal the nasty blemishes and acne the porn-stars have, rendering their hotness much down. Porn will be ruined if it switches to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, so …. I guess we’ll be sticking with DVDs after all. Hooray!