Enders Game: A review and comparison of the new hit movie and the bestselling novel

             Enders Game:  A review and comparison of the new hit movie and the bestselling novel.

   I finally got time to see the movie version of my favorite book of all time, Enders Game.  Because of how important this film was to me, I am going to do this review in two parts.  First I will review the movie by itself and secondly I will do a comparison of the film to the book, its short comings and what I would have personally preferred to have seen.  The second portion will be  almost 100% spoilers both of the film and the movie so if you have read the book but not seen the movie, vice versa or not seen or read either you might want to avoid that section.

                The film Enders Game takes place in the future on an Earth that has survived an attack by an alien species know as the Formics.  Our victory was secured against all odds when a pilot named Mazor Rackham got off a lucky shot that destroyed their entire fleet.  With our victory being so narrow and the threat of a second invasion of the Formics looming, the governments of the world decided to start training the most elite commanders Earth has ever seen.  Recruiting children while they are young and controlling every aspect of their training in a battle school that orbits Earth in space, but time is running out.  Andrew Ender Wiggin is one such child who seems to be Earths best and maybe last hope in the battle to come but  in order to reach his full potential he must be pushed to his limits both physically and mentally. Every challenge he faces is a test designed to train him to be the leader our world needs him to be.

                The character Ender is played by Asa Butterfield, best known for his amazing performances  in Hugo and the Boy With the Striped Pajamas.  However his performance here is a little underwhelming. The pace at which the movie moves gives very little time for him to develop properly but he does a decent job at keeping up.  Making up for this however is the supporting cast which includes Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, and Nonso Anozie.  They provide a much needed sense of drama around the child actors balancing things out rather well.

                Enders direct commander is Col. Graff played by Ford.  He provides much of the depth in the movie as he is seen as the holder of secrets or maybe more of the puppet master of battle school.  He is the one that designs  all of the challenges for the students and secretly guides them to reach their potential.  The yin to his yang is Maj. Anderson played by Davis who plays a very stern yet caring teacher who is torn between the mission to create the future savior of the human race and the reality of what they are doing to children.

                The main fault to the film is that it seems to break down underneath  the weight of itself.  There seems to be a massive amount of story that they tried to fit into a mere hour and forty five minutes. This causes several really choppy transitions between scenes and character development as well as a lot of very underdeveloped characters and concepts.  The stunning eye candy provided by the special effects and the tone set by the cinematography is truly amazing at times and does a decent job of balancing out the rushed tone of the movie.

                Overall I think it’s a pretty decent movie.  Not the best I have seen lately but not horrible either.  I don’t think the depth of the book gets translated as well as other recent movies based on novels.  For example the solid cores of the Hunger Games were all well translated onto screen whereas most are missing in Enders Game.

                                                                *****SPOILERS AHEAD******

                Ok, you were warned so here it goes.  Compared to the book this movie is horrible.  All of the most amazing and compelling points from the book were removed or glossed over. There was no time taken to develop any one character correctly,  nor was there any time to really delve into the duality of Ender  growing into a cold calculating leader who is so isolated and afraid inside.

                The opening scene has a quote that is attributed to A.E. Wiggin.  Andrew Ender Wiggin.  Face meet palm.  Enders middle name is never mentioned in the book. Ender is the name given to him by his sister Valentine almost mistakenly because she couldn’t pronounce Andrew correctly as a child and the nick name stuck. So 10 seconds into the movie the readers of the book already know that story hatchet is probably going to be swinging heavily and often.  The rest of the opening shows the Formic invasion and the lone pilot Mazer Rackham saving the world, the only real differences is they are combining the two invasions that occur in the books into one which isn’t that bad. This leads to the first scene of Ender in school on Earth which is pretty close to the book. In fact the first 15 minutes or so are all really close to the book except for one thing.  Ender is 12 years old instead of 6.

                Now this is something I was aware of while the film was still in production and as someone who likes to write in both novel and screenplay form it was a decision that makes a lot of sense to me.  The logistics involved in getting an actor young enough to play an extremely mature 6 year old and carry almost half of a movie until transitioning to an actor who has to be able to look like the 12 year old version of the younger actor and carry the rest of the movie is way too much work for too little pay off.  So I agree with the decision to cut the age down and the length of actual time at battle school. However they didn’t really know where to stop.  Instead of listing everything that was different I’ll say that the director picked out specific things that he seemed to like and ignored other necessary story lines until they were absolutely necessary and then threw them on as an afterthought. Which kinda sounds familiar so I looked up the director Gavin Hood who just happens to be responsible for  X-men Origins: Wolverine. This is making a lot more sense now.

                The core of the novel was that Ender was just a child and you felt so much empathy for him.  In the first chapter you fall in love with him because he is just a scared young child with a fire deep inside of him.  He knows it’s there but he resents it because it makes him feel like he is turning into his tormenter Peter, his older brother.  The only thing he wants is to be normal and when he is hiding in his bed and crying you feel just like you did when you were a child who felt alone and bullied.  This theme caries for maybe half of the book as Graff uses this isolation to guide and fuel his training. Even at the end of the war he still feels alone and because of who he is must remain in isolation. In the movie as soon as Ender is on the shuttle he meets Bean and Alai and even though Graff tries to single him out, Ender is able to make friends with everyone in about 5 minutes.  So you never really get that sense of isolation with Ender.

                You also don’t get what makes him what he is. The movie never really shows that he is a better commander or how he wins. It just keeps setting up single challenges that once he completes them they graduate him to his next level. This gets really ridiculous when they rush the story so fast that suddenly he is in command of his own army and facing what looks like his first real battle. It’s a battle against two armies. One of his soldiers hurts his leg because…..well the script told him to that’s why.  When Ender gets to the battle room both of the other armies are already inside and ready for him and he is short handed but wait, Graff sent a substitute to be on his team, Petra. This is where the continuity director should have been shot because Petra was on one of the armies that is already in the battle room.  But this is part of a story line not in the book that the director really wanted to push which was a special relationship between Petra and Ender. The thing is at the time this battle takes place in the book Petra is a commander of her own army and no longer on team Salamander, in fact she even tires to help some of the bullies at the school attack Ender around this time in the book.  But in the movie they never progressed that story line so you have to assume she is still on Salamander. As soon as the battle is over they seem to have decided he is the best thing since Rackham and promote him out of school….after he turns his nemesis into a vegetable. This was the second battle shown but in the book Ender had maybe a hundred battles over the years and many of them were described.  Each battle was a lesson for him, he learned, grew and became a master commander.  All of that was thrown away. 

                In the book you see the world through Enders eyes.  You see the way he looks at things and how his thought pattern works.  You get to see him make plans to get what he wants and then follow through on them. Most importantly you see what truly makes him great and that is his ability to think like his enemy and do the exact thing that they would not be able to defend against.  His strategies change the entire way that every battle is played. But the stress that they put on him by making him battle every day rather than month crushes him and again you realize that he is still just a child who feels alone. His fight with Bonzo comes before he battles the two armies and is very significant because he tries to avoid it but gets caught off guard. Seeing he has no other choice his instincts kick in and he does what he does best which is finish the fight so there will not be another one.  He doesn’t know that Bonzo is dead, at least not consciously yet, but it breaks the last of his will and after the final battle he believes he has truly become his brother and loses the desire to go on. Since the movie cuts so much out you don’t get the same sense that these aren’t really kids, more like immature adults. They are so intelligent and being put through so much they mature faster. So when Bonzo goes to fight ender it really is a mortal feud.  In the movie it feels like more of a afterschool scuffle until Bonzo trips and hits his head. This is a first of a few cop outs the movie makes for Ender, not making him specifically responsible for the injury when in the book he very intentionally kills him.

                This is also where the huge difference between book Graff and movie Graff starts to show. Movie Graff seems hell bent on getting Ender to win at all costs, not caring about what will be left of him.  But in the book you know that Graff really cares for Ender and is conflicted about what he is doing but continuing regardless because it is his duty. He goes with Ender to command school in an unofficial capacity, knowing that once he goes there he might not leave do to secrecy concerns regarding the location of the school.  He does this willingly because he cannot force Ender to do it alone; he wants to be there to bear what he can for him.  His role does get a little deeper if you read Enders Shadow but that shouldn’t be considered here.

                The command school section of the movie is identical to the battle school portion only with even less time spent on it. He shows up and gets a new teacher, the legendary Rackham, and meets all his old friends and they start battling in simulations.  They vaguely make reference to there being a lot of battles but it’s not shown, Ender says the stress is hard and you have to go with him I guess. Then there is a simulation for graduation.  Ender seems almost more concerned that soon he will start real battles then with the upcoming battle but he soon has to put in everything he has to win one last battle. And it turns out that it really is the last battle as he has been in control of the real fleet the entire time and just destroyed an entire race.  He seems a bit offended for a minute or two but then the director remembered that he forgot there was a whole rest of an ending to tack on and has Ender run outside and grab a Formic queen egg and then literally just get in a ship and say he’s going to travel the universe. Because storylines, fuck them right, let’s just give this child sociopath we’ve created a ship and let him go wherever he wants.

                In the book command school is a whole different animal.  Ender is reenergized and more mature. He is out of his element but is taking on a new role where he only really answers to his teacher Rackham. He doesn’t seem to acknowledge anyone else as having authority over him. He studies strategy with Rackham for months and learns to use simulator to command what he thinks is a make believe fleet. Eventually he is given commanders to control the smaller armies in his fleet and it turns out they are his old friends. The main difference is he never sees them; he can only talk to them in the simulators, leaving him still isolated.  The battles start and they are covered with decent detail.  At the same time Ender starts having nightmares about the Formics leading him to become more exhausted and stressed.  But he keeps going and unlike in the movie it is Petra who breaks down not him. Eventually the lack of sleep and the stress of multiple gruelingly long battles each day catch up to him and he finds himself back where he was at battle school, not wanting to continue anymore. Barely able to walk he is put in his simulator and is told this battle will be his final test. The screen comes on and the entire Formic fleet is there in front of him and he has the smallest fleet he has ever used. He sees that also for the first time there is a planet in the field.  Deciding that he doesn’t care he makes a kamikaze run at the planet and destroys it, the entire Formic fleet as well as his own. Graff and Rackham then tell him what he has done.

                The realization almost kills ender.  The knowledge that he destroyed an entire species simply crushes him. That night there is a revolution on the base and Earth as the governments vie for control in a post war world. But Ender sleeps through it all in a quazi coma. When he comes through he finds all his friends are there with him.  With them and Graff and Rackham, who are now not his teachers so they can show feelings for Ender, he makes a recovery but he cannot go back to Earth because the governments want to use him because he is a hero and a threat now.  Valentine travels to him and convinces him to join her and go to the formerly colonized Formic planets to start human colonies. It is on this journey years later that Ender finally finds the last Formic egg and starts his new journey of finding a home for it to grow and reform the species he once destroyed.

                So what could have been done to improve the movie?  Obviously the chances of ever getting a movie to be as good as a book are slim but it has been proven time and time again that getting close enough can be good enough.  In my opinion the best way to have done it would have been a darkly lit anime.  It would have been infinitely easier to transition Ender from a 6 year old to a 15 year old like the book if you just had to augment the voice actor a little. Envisioning the Battles would have been smoother  and it would have added the drama needed to make it more tangible.  However that probably wouldn’t get a green light as a blockbuster which is what they wanted so the next logical and probably the best overall choice would be to split the movie into two parts. Make the first film 2 hours long and end it as Ender is finishing battle school.  This frees up so much time to really develop the secondary characters and add all of the nuances of Enders training that really defined his character.  Enders character would be beaten mentally and on a ship back to earth with Graff and you could end it either with the reveal to the audience that Bonzo is dead or with Graff commenting something along the lines of no matter what Ender decides to do it won’t change the fact that the war is coming and maybe cut away to the enormity of the Formic army.  Release this one at the end May or beginning of June and then in October you release the second film.  This one starts on the lake with Ender still in purgatory.  Now the same thing can be applied to the command school. Add a ton of detail to Enders training, include the ansible machine,  and move the story line regarding the governments getting ready for a war forward. This would give plenty of time for the real resolution to unfold in which Ender is able to find peace with what he has done which is way better than leaving him as a borderline sociopath with a mental breakdown, an alien egg and a space ship.  But as long as you don’t go all Peter Jackson and turn the 300 page book into a three part 12 hour movie it would be fine.

                So that’s my way over winded review of Enders Game.  I know it was drawn out but like I said it is one of my favorite books and I did have high hopes for it.  All in all I do still like it, it is just not what it could have been.  Those who are new to the story (shouldn’t be reading down here!!) will still like it as well as fans of the books.  My next piece I should be doing is going to be an “everything you need to know” for the upcoming comic book movies set for release in the next two years.  Pretty much it will be a fill in guide for those who have not read the comics or just want to know a little more back story about the upcoming films.  Also I plan to break ground on my novel any day now and will be posting it chapter by chapter as it is written and I would love any and all feedback readers have on it. Thanks for reading to the end!

Safety Not Guaranteed movie review

Time for a long overdue movie review! This time I’m reviewing a smaller film that was missed by a lot of people, Safety Not Guaranteed.

                Directed by Colin Trevorrow, a mainstream unknown who has found success making internet independent films as well as writing for SNL, Safety is his first big movie.  The unique plot is the story of a man who has posted a classified ad looking for a companion for a time traveling adventure.

“Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322, Oakview CA 93022.  You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this  once before.”

                Three magazine employees use the story as an excuse to get out of town and set out to find the person who posted the ad and find out his story.  In charge of the trip is Jeff, played by Jake Johnson (21 Jumpstreet), who is a full time writer for the magazine. Jeff is a quick tongued, confident ladies man who wants to use the trip as an excuse to get paid to go find the “one that got away” back home. He is accompanied by two interns, Darius and Arnau.  Arnau is played by relative newcomer Karan Soni and he is the polar opposite of Jeff.  Shy and ackward with virginity intact he seems to keep all of the other characters grounded with reality. Darius is played by Aubrey Plaza (Scott Pilgrim Vs the World) and she is an ambitious writer who is also on the trip to try and have a life experience. While all three have a good amount of screen time, majority of the story surrounds Darius and her journey. Plaza plays the role brilliantly and steals almost every scene with her charm and wit.

                They track down the P.O. box and find it belongs to Kenneth, played by Mark Duplass (The League).  He is a quirky grocery store employee who lives alone and has an obsession with how the universe works.  Jeff attempts to befriend Kenneth by trying to make him think he is responding to the ad and relies on his confidence to trick the clerk into revealing his details for time traveling.  However Kenneth proves to be too much for Jeff to handle and he is immediately wary of him.  Out of his element, Jeff convinces Darius to step in and try to use her female wiles on Kenneth.

                Darius befriends Kenneth and they embark on the training and preparations required for the “trip” while the two grow close.  Most of the story is drawn around Darius’s story of an emotionally lost or confused young woman however it is driven by Kenneth.  He tells Darius very little about how he plans to travel through time or how it works but as they get closer he starts to share why he wants to go back and how it will change or “save” his life. The chemistry between the two is excellent; they have an amazing way of making it seem really relatable. Meanwhile Jeff and Arnau keep the subplot going while Jeff searches for his lost girl and at the same time he helps Arnau out of his shell. The movie continues this way until about two thirds in when Jeff uncovers some of Kenneth’s past and reveals that he hasn’t been telling the truth and he is more than likely out of his mind. But when “agents” start to follow Kenneth, Darius gets torn between her growing feelings for Kenneth and his past, hurtling her into a tornado of emotions and leading to an amazing ending that has to be experienced.

                Cinematically the movie is clean and well edited.  For a director’s freshman project its good but what really stands out is how he can get emotion out of actors and onto the screen in a very real way.  The characters behave more closely to real people than to Hollywood characters yet still stay as engaging and entertaining as a viewer demands. It should also be noted that Trevorrow has been tapped to write and direct the upcoming Jurassic Park 4 movie. Aubrey Plaza steals the show breaking out of her usual I’m angry and funny persona to reveal a much more endearing and dynamic level of talent.  Mark Duplass plays Kenneth to a T. you spend the movie trying to decide if he is crazy, brilliant or tragic. The ending is amazing.  I cannot tell too much about the story itself because I wouldn’t want to spoil anything but all of the events start building up like a rollercoaster starting slowly up the first hill, building more and more suspense and then once it climaxes it’s like the movie ends right when the coaster flies down the drop but before the next hill leaving the viewer wanting more but still thrilled.  This is a must see for film fans. It has so many elements that keep it going, comedy, drama, suspense.  It makes an excellent date night or afternoon killer. Check it out.

Rapture Debunker

As a person who enjoys observing human psychology in action I have been having a blast this last week with all of the rapture tension in the air.  Religious groups have been doing their best to separate themselves from Family Radio, Atheists have been throwing parties, and Zealots have been preparing for the afterlife. However, after having a few of my kindest guests that patron my store tell me that it has been a pleasure knowing me and that no matter what happens I should remember that they loved me (note the past tense), I have been moved to blog my opinion on the subject. 

I've noticed that most people have little to real understanding of the possible event that is suggested will occur. Not that they should but I would think that if you where religious and the possibility of the end of days were to come up it would perk some more interest, perhaps tempt a few people to look into things a bit, I don't know maybe it's just me. I actually stand on the opposite side of the spectrum.  As an Atheist I didn't get interested in this because I want to argue or disprove religion I just found it interesting. And for the record when this is over and everything is OK I will see it as logic prevailing over insanity and in no way see that as a reflection against any real religion.  This is not about proving a religion wrong it is about debunking someone who has used religion to manipulate people.

I'll try to keep this brief and not long winded, who knows maybe I'm wrong and you don't have time to read and reflect.  Speaking of time, lets start there. The mastermind behind this theory is Harold Camping.  He is a Berkley grad who has been obsessed with the end of days since the late 80's and he has come up with what he calls the The Bibles Calendar of History.  This calendar theorizes that the earth from creation to present day is only 13023 years old.  Now, science has disputed these short ranged guesses that religion has come up with many times and I don't feel the need to argue this point so lets just remember that number. The next number you need to know is 1=1000. This one is pivotal. Now lets start putting this together.

These Zealots believe that god left clues in the bible that could reveal the exact date of the rapture. Most involve the story of Noah and the flood.  So after Noah built the arc god told him he would have 7 days to fill it before he flooded and thus destroyed the world. Now earlier in Genesis, there is a reference to one day on Earth being 1000 years with god. Now the scripture is vague but most have interpreted it to mean this to be a reference to what time will be like in heaven. Camping however believes this to mean something more literal. Specifically that god was telling Noah that in actuality the world had 7000 years to go instead of 7 days. One day equals one thousand years.  At first glance this seems plausible but if you actually look deeper this gets problematic. For starters, if one day equals 7000 years then technically the 40 days and 40 nights that it rained to cause the flood would have actually equaled 40,000 years making this one act in the bible taking longer than Camping guessed was the age of the entire existence of the planet. Camping counters this argument by stating that he is well versed in the study of the bible and that he understands when god intended to use this analogy of time and when he did not. Bullshit. This does nothing to prove a timeline for destruction since the very use of the deciphering tools renders the entire argument moot. This is the great mathematical proof that these people have sworn decodes the bibles facts about the rapture.

Now some more about time. Now even though the original testament can be dated back to being written within a relative span of human history it still predates all known forms of calendar dating and time itself as we know it. Yet Camping states clearly that the Rapture will begin at 6pm on May 21st 2011, begging the question of where. What location on the planet will be at 6pm when the rapture starts? You see they didn't have time zones back in the Jesus days. It's kind of a give away that he didn't think of this in the first place when he was later questioned about this and said that the zero latitude will decide the start point of the rapture. Basically meaning that the first point on the time zones that hit 6pm on May 21st will start the event and it will occur at every time zone accordingly until it's complete. So for example the Rapture will start at the first point but I will notice the effects at 11pm on the 20th of May , in a couple of hours. I've seen a ton of things in the bible that require a leap of faith to believe but to consider that god had predetermined the rapture around the Earth's time zones is simply to far of a stretch for even the Pope to buy.  Every single other event in the bible has clear reference of time relating to either days, moons or stars. Time itself is never really mentioned.

Now every time Camping is questioned by anyone on the subject of how he has decided how old the Earth is or how he deciphered the exact date of the Rapture he responds with the same thing.  He says that he has studied the bible for years. thus meaning he knows all about it. He says that he has studied the world for many years thus knows all about it. Not once will he give an answer that actually answers a question.  This is a common technique  used to distract people from gaining actual answers. For example, say I were to be selling soda and you questioned me on how I could charge so much for my soda and I replied that I have been training on soda production for years so I definitely know how much soda should cost.  You see I didn't give you a reason like you asked for I just gave you a reason for why you should believe me. This is a well know form of deception.

The best part is is that I got all of this within 20 minutes of research using only the websites related to Family Radio(the company that Camping uses to broadcast) and my prior knowledge of the bible and science. In my opinion there will be no Rapture nor will there be an end of days. Many times in history we have seen people who have been willing to die for what they think is signs of the end of days. Most recently you may remember the Heavens Gate cult that convinced a large mass of people to kill themselves off the huge long shot that aliens were hiding in a comet and waiting to take them to heaven.  Tomorrow let's all wake up and regardless of our beliefs be united in the reminder that we are still alive and have time to enjoy ourselves before we have to move on at our own pace and not a predetermined finish line.

Way Back Wednesday Review!

So I've been feeling nostalgic the past year or so.  So many things in my life are new and exciting that it's been so long since I've had a chance to sit back and enjoy things from times past and I guess that I've missed many of the things that I have enjoyed.  But then when I went out searching for a piece of my past I found a copy of a movie that I loved so much it easily made my to 20 of all time which is a very hard list to make.  I sat with my wife who had never seen it before and was so excited to share one of the things that I loved, something that I felt shaped my way of looking at and creating stories. It was a romantic action film with amazing actors and an epic storyline....and it sucked.

Everything I loved about it seemed childish, underdeveloped, and just plain stupid. I was sitting on the couch with my wife who was  shocked at how horrible of a movie we were watching that I had promised was an amazing movie in which to spend the night watching with popcorn and wine. Honestly, I felt like part of my youth had died.  Something that I loved had died in my eyes and I found myself fearing watching anything else that I loved watching before because I didn't want to ruin anything else.  Now, I have taken a vow of blindness when it comes to Star Wars because I don't want my son seeing it before he is old enough to remember that moment in which he was first  exposed to the most amazing piece of science fiction ever created.  But now I found myself happy that I wasn't watching those movies because I couldn't bear to loose them. This is when I realized that I had to do something.  I had to face my fears and start watching old movies and reading old books.  I had to do this and hope that my past would not be ruined.  And what better way to share this experience than with a blog!  But I won't share my experience with the first movie, at least not yet. I've been far to negative lately and I need to turn in a different direction. So my first Way Back Review will be of the second film I tired.  Blue Streak.

Blue Streak came out when Martin Lawrence was just coming into his own as a leading man in movies.  He had already dominated TV with his self titled show that let him flex as many comedic muscles as he could find, as well as played the comedic sidekick in a few movies.  But up until this movie he was always co staring with other actors as the leads. He stared in the very successful Bad Boys with Will Smith and the lesser known gem Nothing to Lose with Tim Robbins.  Both were hysterical but now it was time for him to stand on his own.

Basic plot is that professional thief Miles Logan steals a large diamond but is betrayed by his partner.  With the cops breathing down his neck and his partner trying to kill him, Logan hides the diamond in the air ducts of a building being constructed and gets caught by the police as opposed to his partner.  A few years later, Logan gets out of jail and finds that the building that he hid the diamond in has been completed and now is the police headquarters.  Logan must now go "undercover" as a police officer with forged paperwork in order to gain access to the building and try to find the diamond.

I couldn't tell you what makes this movie more hilarious, Martin Lawrence's performance as a thief who has to use all his skills to infiltrate a seemingly inept police precinct, all the while using all he knows about crime to solve crimes himself, or the outrageous cast of secondary characters played by Luke Wilsen and Dave Chappelle. The best gags are Logan's constant upgrading of his rank as a police officer from detective all the way to a Federali! Followed by Luke Wilsen's portrayal of a by the book rookie who learns how to be a "real" cop from Logan.  Then there's Chappelle as an out of work con who blunders himself into a shootout between a store clerk and himself that leads to a stand of with the police that only Logan can get him out of.  Regardless this movie will leave you quoting lines for weeks to come.

As far as the writing and directing go they are pretty solid.  Like every comedy thrown at comics at the time there were a few down times but Blue Streak seems to find a decent balance between story and laughs that keeps it moving.  One of the really good points is that after 80 minutes of set up gags the movie finishes with a pretty solid and oddly fitting serious action sequence that gets you to really rally behind Logan and cheer him on. I won't give it away  but the end is pretty funny and one of the most quotable scenes.

All in all this movie is a great watch that has held up very well. Maybe it is it's lack of dependency on current pop culture jokes or just one of those rare but really solid movies that can just stand the test of times.  My verdict is watch it if you haven't and watch it again if you already have.

The Racist and the Douche

In the world in which we live in today it's pretty difficult to stand out from the masses and be held high as the craziest bastard alive.  Lindsey Lohan is in jail...again.  Bristol Palin is making 5 times the wage of the average American by talking to teens about not having babies, while unmarried, and underage, and with people who pose in Playgirl. And of course Charlie Sheen has a successful live show.  Really he does.  I mean he doesn't do anything or tell jokes, he just talks about drugs and sex and about how good of a dad he still is and it is still a success. I'm not kidding.  But through this veritable cornucopia of Clockwork Orange cast members a few people have emerged to take a shot at the crown.

First up is Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns or as I will refer to him from here on out as Ignorant Failed Abortion (IFA). You see IFA decided that even though people like the victims of 9/11 or the hero's that rushed in to save lives at ground level and of course lets not forget those tireless workers who worked for months in unhealthy conditions just to bring some closure to the families left behind, actually deserved medical benefits and compensation. However first they must have their loyalties to our nation challenged.  It's true, before receiving a single benefit they must be investigated to see if they had at anytime been placed on the FBI's terrorist watch list. Now the only reason to tack this on to something is because you believe for some odd reason that anyone who would fall in the above mentioned Hero category would some how be an embedded terrorist agent set on destroying our nation. Now lets pause for a second and reflect on those who receive benefits from our government.

  Convicts!! Yep three square meals a day and full medical!  Drug addicts! Federal funding goes to several rehab facilities that provide heroin addicts with Methadone. Child Jails! Just like public schools, several juvenile facilities which are privately owned and profit oriented, get funding from the state and federal levels based upon how many kids they can pack in! Banks! They are well documented for plotting to use adjustable rate loans to literally steal property from citizens and single handily started the economic crisis, and we gave them MILLIONS!  But lets not forget my favorite, TERRORISTS!! That's right the terrorist suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay receive a level of health benefits so high if can only be compared to fortune 500 companies and politicians.

But hero's, those that fought to save lives in one of our darkest hours, have to justify their loyalty to our nation just to receive benefits directly related to the act in which they served. How dare IFA demand this level of degradation to the people who had the intestinal fortitude to do something he could never do himself.  This level of insult goes way beyond resorting to hurling jokes about Republicans or Floridians in comic outrage. This goes all the way to calling IFA out on lack of tact, intelligence, common sense, possible brain activity, and straight up acts of inhumanity against humanity. Hope he's happy with himself, I'll spit if I meet him.

Moving along we have the Donald.  Donald Trump has been outspoken in recent months in regards to his opinion of the job that Pres. Obama has been doing in his term thus far.  Now if he had stopped there I would have nothing to say. Everybody is entitled to their own opinions and I'm not going to say that he didn't make a good point or two.  However recently he started hinting at a run for the Republican nomination for president in 2012 and you can't call it a coincidence that at the same time he jumped on the Birther bandwagon stating that he knew for a fact that Obama was not born in America and that he was trying to hide that fact from the public.

Simply put, Obama submitted the short form of his birth certificate years ago.  That is good enough to be put into evidence in court or any situation that could occur that would require you to produce evidence of your citizenship. However, the Donald believes that Obama has somehow forged his birth certificate in order to run for president. Now lets all acknowledge the elephant in the corner.  Obama is the first ethnic president in the history of the United States and he is the first president in my generation to ever be accused of not being American.  You can spout that you are  proud to be an American as much as you want but if you believe that it is unfair for a black person to be legitimately elected to office and you have to make up a farce that he is in fact not a citizen they bottom line you are a racist. Donald has used the phrase " worst president in history" to describe every president since Carter yet this is the only one that he believes was not born naturally on our soil. Why question this one's citizenship and not any other? Why would you not accept the official declaration of his citizenship?  Now I have to ask, how stupid are you?

Does anyone really think that a man who is in the ethnic minority in this country and has promised mass "Change" could rise to the rank of President without a single group doing a credible background check on his status as a US citizen?  If the Republicans had any evidence that Obama was not a citizen then they would use it. Trust me they have the money and resources to make it happen.

Bottom line is the Donald is behaving like a racist.  Doesn't matter if he is or not he's acting like one.  He seems to be suffering from a condition that has made many celebrities crash and burn, he actually believes that he is who the public thinks he is.  He thinks he really is Donald Trump, a business man who is a world famous and everyone is fighting just to get a job with him.  This usually happens to stars that are completely surrounded by people who lack the ability to say no to them which leaves them with a really embarassing feeling that they can do no wrong and are always right.  Others that have fallen to this same condition incude Elvis, Madonna, Micheal Jackson, and of course Brittney Spears, although in her case she seems to have found a way back by leaving the public eye for a while so good on her.  I can only hope that Trumps down fall is as epic as some of theres.

Grammer Nazis! They R closer then U think.

So lets talk about writing, I love to write.  Ever since I was a kid I've always been fascinated with a writers ability to create new exciting worlds and then fill them with dynamic characters solely for the purpose of entertaining others.  You can use writing to express every range of emotion known to man as well as put your characters in every situation imaginable.  You can use writing to sway peoples opinions by telling stories designed to show people your side of an argument.  You can start wars, or stop them for that matter. Most notably you can save history for future generations, or if that's not your cup of tea you can change history to shift the course of this generation.

Now to get to the parts I don't like and that pretty much surrounds every rule created to control writing, I'm talking about grammar and the insane rules that it imposes on writing. Now lets break down writting to it's basic function.  At it's center, writing is basically the practice of taking your thoughts and making them into a visual image that is easy for others in your culture to translate and understand what you mean. This of course is an extension of speech which when you really break it down is just a form telepathy anyways. To quote Joe Rogan, "Words are just sounds made by my mouth so you can understand what I'm thinking."  So logically words are actually visual thoughts.

Now what happens when you create a system of rules to control a persons thoughts?  You guessed it, mind control.  In essence that's how I feel about grammar in general, they are an overcomplicated, often contradicted, and highly annoying system of rules designed solely to control the way in which you are forced to organize your own thoughts. I know this is true for a fact because I first thought of this in kindergarten and as we all know everything we ever needed to learn in life we learned in kindergarten.(by the way, kindergarten is a German word. Germans, grammar, nazis, seeing a pattern here!)

 Nothing would make me more irritated in school than when I would be writing out an opinion essay or something of the sort only to get it back a week later covered in red ink. Every misused verb, noun and punctuation mark circled, underlined, and commented on with such rich and enlightening quotes such as, "not needed", "Wrong use", and "Are you retarded?". Why the hell would you ask me to go home and not watch tv just to write an opinion essay in which you only plan on grading me on my grammar use if you are not trying to control my mind, really? Getting convinced yet? I thought so.

Really though, how can you assign rules to thought? One day will kids be in class with their heads jacked into computers and their teachers voice booming in their heads every time they're thoughts turn into run on sentences? Maybe receive an electric shock whenever the word ain't pops in their head or they forget to double space after the end of a sentence? I could probably give more sarcastic examples however I am limited due to the fact that these are the only rules that I can seem to remember at this point. So remember, if you want to break away from the control the Man has imposed on you, never use a comma correctly. Only use one form of the word their in all situations. Start all of your sentences with the word and.  And always use an exclamation point to end your sentences!

Operation Lose an Olsen Twin: My week on top of the wall.

So I'm three weeks into my diet and I just spent the last seven days weighing the exact same weight. My total weight loss so far stands at 14 pounds, most of which was lost in the first week. However, I have officially hit my first proverbial wall. That point in which your weight loss hits a stand still even though you are still counting your calories and making sure to adhere to all of your diet rules. All of my excess fat that hasn't been converted to solid fat already has left my body and the most that I can hope to lose now by continued dieting is maybe 3-5 pounds a month.

Now, even though I've spent the last week continuously hungry while staring at my scale daily as it flashes the same number over and over, I am not detoured.  This is the part of the diet that breaks most people. The first week you get on a high watching the pounds drop off all the while trying new foods that you are shocked to find that  they are good for you and taste so good as well.  But midway through the second week when your weight loss slows to a halt, and you become tired of eating your salads with oil and vinegar it all of a sudden doesn't seem morally incorrect to choke someone for a cheeseburger with extra crispy bacon and a side of seasoned curly fries. 

But like I said, I am not detoured.  I've know this would happen since before I started Operation Lose an Olsen Twin and frankly I'm proud of myself for reaching my first wall so fast. However now I feel like I'm standing at the bottom of a giant mountain.  I know that I've done everything I can to prepare myself to climb this mountain. I've studied it, I bought the right equipment, I've even practiced on smaller mountains to get ready but know I'm actually at Mt. Everest and it suddenly feels like such an enormous challenge that I begin to doubt myself.  You see now I have to add the last missing piece of my diet to the mix.  I have to exercise. 

Is it odd that I'd rather attempt to exercise a demon from a human than exercise my own body into shape?  It wasn't always this way.  When I was in high school I worked out constantly.  I wrested so it was a huge advantage to you if you were significantly stronger than your opponent and I loved to win. I got higher than any drug I had ever tried every time I pinned someone in the first period or reached a new high on my bench press (maxed at 255 btw!). However when I started this diet I was 100 pounds heavier then what I wrestled at and I'm pretty sure I'd have  a hard time even benching 100 pounds since I haven't had a full workout since the last time I walked off the mat my senior year so many years ago.

But there is no way around it, I am set on achieving my goal prior to my sons next birthday so I have less than 10 months to lose 50 more pounds of die hard fat. The only way to achieve this is to bust my flabby ass into shape. I plan on starting with really light aerobic sessions and heavy stretching to get ready. The last time I tried to lose weight I started with running. We ran three miles the first day and I blew out my knee before the week had ended. Needless to say, that set my spirit back. It would take 2 whole years before I could bring myself to make another run at getting into shape and I have no intention to set myself  back like that again. My goal is to join a MMA gym in a few months once I get my body strong enough to handle being pushed that hard and I've proven to myself that i am committed to this. 

So along with my random rants, movie reviews, and any of the other things that make me laugh that i will post on this blog, I will also try to keep my progress updated. I will probably post diet tips that I've learned if anyone wants to hear them. As all of my close friends and family know, my biggest hobby is cooking and I am very good at my hobby so I can share a ton of healthy cooking  tips that I learned prior to starting my diet and have found to be amazing at helping keep me on track.  A lot of people joined me at the beginning of the year on the road to a thinner them and if it keeps them going then I'd love to share my support.


So until my next post I will remain hungry and I hope you stay interested.