If anything goes wrong, make a sound like a dying giraffe.

Alright, news round-up time. Let's see. First, to explain the title, I went and bought the South Park movie yesterday. I'd never seen it before, but the show has been hilarious over the last few years (I saw a Lord of the Rings themed one the other day and nearly pissed my pants, I laughed so hard). So, I expected the movie to be extremely funny. In the end, it was almost extremely funny. The cursing was a bit over-the-top at times, and even though that's the point, it became distracting. Although, Cartman's last bit, "Fuck, shit, cock, ass, titties, boner, bitch, muff, pussy, cunt, butthole, Barbra Streisand!" was appropriate. In fact, I told myself that I had to figure out a way to put it in the blog, and so there you are. I laughed, but I also saw a bit of the satire that has really shown up in the later seasons, but I understand was missing from the early seasons. The movie really tackled the idea that extreme violence is fine for kids to watch, but cursing, to paraphrase Cartman, warp their fragile, little minds. That's why I hate the PG-13 rating: for years, the R-rated comedy was king, with Animal House, Porky's, and Caddyshack being the ones that jump instantly to my mind. Yet, now, most comedy's are PG-13, which leaves them severely lacking, as is the case of the remake of The Longest Yard, Meet the Fockers (come on), and Bewitched. Now, let's look at the reasons that Bewitched was labeled as PG-13, according to IMDB: "Rated PG-13 for some language, including sex and drug references, and partial nudity." Yeah, that's great. I hear that the only reason that The 40 Year-Old Virgin is getting rated R is for language, because the figured that it was a movie that talked about sex and they should be able to use the word fuck every now and then. Yet, in War of the Worlds, a billion people die, and there are some seriously disturbing images even for me (man, that horn the aliens use before they start zapping is just nightmarish, and very evoking of the horn heard before a cow is led to slaughter). Yet, it's PG-13. Batman Begins has some very violent scenes. PG-13. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, with all it's explosions, gunplay, and Angelina in her negligee? You guessed it: PG-13. (By the way, those are the top three movies in America right now, which I think says something) So, it's odd to say this, but there's a definite lesson that America could learn from South Park. After all, after a school shooting, how many people raise up against violent movies, only to forget about it when the next blockbuster comes out. And, as Stan or Kyle says about cursing in the movie, "What's wrong with it? It doesn't hurt anybody."
So, this past weekend, I borrowed a friend's DVD set of Firefly. I remember watching maybe half of the episodes when they were first airing on Fox, and remembered not really caring for the show. Yet my friends from back home just love the show. So, in an effort to see what the big deal was, and to see if it really deserved my devotion (after all, I loved Buffy, so the name Joss Whedon did have a little pull with me, despite my apathy toward Angel). After watching those 15 hours of show, all I can say is that I feel about the same way as I did before. The show had great one-liners, and some of the concepts were good, but it all felt like missed opportunities and ideas that really couldn't last. The show was aired out of order, which I figured was the cause of the mishandling of some of the plots. After watching the show in order, I've come to the conclusion that, no, that was just bad writing. One episode the whacked-out character of River is a total mess, the next she can kill people with her brain and be totally lucid, and then the next she's back to being crazy again. The last episode tried to say that her medication was erratic, but that's just bad cover for bad writing. I figure I'll see the movie, since it'll probably be the last hoorah for the gang and might actually answer some of the plot holes and intriguing ideas in the show, but I doubt it'll make me love the series. However, I have decided to try and mix Chinese curse words into my everyday speech, which was a really cool way for the show to get by with cursing on tv (see the above paragraph for reinforcement on my thoughts about that).
I got really pissed off yesterday because I read in the local college paper (first mistake) that Wedding Crashers was coming out this weekend. So, after driving to the local and really nice theater, I found out that, no, the only big film that was coming out this weekend was FF, which does not stand for Fucking Failures, as I'd hoped. If I really wanted to see a movie with Jessica Alba as nothing more than eye candy, I could watch Sin City, or even stoop so low as to watch Honey, both of which all she does is dance around and look really hot. So, I just left the theater and bought SP: the Movie instead. I almost picked up Rambo: First Blood Part 2 instead for the same price, since I'd recently bought the first one and it wasn't bad at all (and was actually a fairly smart movie, where only one person was killed. Yeah, just one. Yeah, I said Rambo. I know! I figured total bloodbath, too. I know! Stupid sequels ruining the originals). Yet, I figured the Rambo 2 and 3 would be renters to determine if it was worth of my money. I also was going to buy the South Park: Passion of the Jew DVD, which had two bonus episodes on it, as well. I thought, "Hey, three episodes, probably, what, $5.99? After all, the movie's only $10." Ha! The PofJ cost $15.99. I really didn't feel like getting ripped off that bad, so I passed on that one.
The SotP from last time was Kansas' "Carry On, My Wayward Son." The song really evokes Greek mythology ("I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high" is totally a Daedalus and Icarus line), but it's cool in its own right. Also, the line that I quoted, "Masquerading...I don't know." was what I used as my senior quote for the yearbook, but the person who typed it up put it down as "it surely means that I can't know," which totally fucked up the meaning. The thing that really burns me about that is that I was editor-in-chief on that damn book and the yearbook sponsor, God bless her, didn't think it was worth the hundred dollars to fix it once it went in. So, for all eternity, if I claim to be a wise man, according to that damn book, it surely means that I can't know, which doesn't even make sense. Damn.
By the way, speaking of Daedalus, I'm being forced to read [shudder] Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a book that I have avoided like the plague. I just happened to find a couple of copies of the book where I'm currently staying, so I hope that the owner doesn't mind if I borrow one for a few days until I can pick up a copy of my own from somewhere. Anyway, the prose of the book is odd. I'm sure I'll pick it up and learn to read it just fine, but, oh, the horror, the horror. Also, Joyce's tendency to name characters is a bit grating: Steven Dedalus, Rody Kickham, Cecil Thunder, Nasty Roche, etc. There's a difference between being sly and being so overty obvious that it's annoying. Anyway, moving on...
Song of the Post: "Well, I'm working my way back to you, babe, / With a burning love inside. / Yeah, I'm working my way back to you, babe, / With a happiness that died."