Parks and Recreation

I am finishing up Parks and Recreation season 2. When the season 1 originally began airing I watched the first two episodes and stopped. Partially because I had other things to DVR at the time, but also the first season had a drastically different tone that the second. All the main characters are constantly mean to the main character, Leslie Knope. If you have already seen the show then you know Amy Poehler's character is rediculously adamant about her job, everyone else in the show is really horrible to her the 6 episodes. It was quite a turnoff to the whole project. The whole time I was watching season 1 I thought some moments were funny but it would never get LOL funny. But if you get through those first 6 episodes there is a golden nugget of awesomeness that happens called the second season.

I think the writers may have listened to the people or perhaps they just let the characters ad lib more (Amy Poehler is a great at improv) but immediately after the second season began the tone for the whole show is different. It seems as if Leslie Knope enthusiasm for her job has started to rub off on the other characters. Not to say that they are any happier about where they work but they do not try to counter everything Leslie says anymore. One thing I like to see in shows is growing friendships. This seasonm does that really well as you see the entire department become more like a disfunctional family. 

So, it you are a fan of the Office style mockumentary then I would highly recommend Parks and Recreation.

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8/10

Let the Right One In

There are certain things in movies that I always crack up to. One of those things is random, irrational, horrific animal attacks. My favorites include: The raccoon scene in Harold & Kumar, R.O.U.S. scene in The Princess Bride, and the monkey scene in RocketMan. Let the Right One In has another such scene. Be on the lookout for it.

Let the Right One In is a Swedish vampire film. In the movie the main character, Oskar (played by Kåre Hedebrant) gets terrorized by bullies (Beatings, whippings,  At one point they stole his pants and he had to walk home without them) to the point where he is stabbing a tree while saying: ‘Die pigs’ … kids got issues. One night while giving that poor tree a good working over he meets the new neighbor, Eli (played by Lina Leandersson) a twelve year old girl who seems to be just as jaded about life as he is. In the beginning they get into pseudo arguments mostly because Oskar is too busy being a tool to notice that a girl is talking to him. Eventually they become friends, he learns to have a backbone, the bullies get what is coming to them, and they ride off into the sunset; But not before everything goes to hell. It is revealed the Eli is in fact a vampire and her handler drains people of their blood to bring back for her to drink. It is not long before the towns people become paranoid as people go missing and bodies start to pile up.

The thing I like about this movie is its spin on the vampire genre. The vampire part of the story only serves as a secondary plot to the overall storyline of friendship. Eli helps Oskar gain more self confidence which in turn helps him stand up to the bullies. It doesn’t go over so well though and Eli has to step in and save him in a most grisly fashion. The movie also does not take itself too seriously. Many parts of the movie were shot in a way that makes them hilarious in an un-ironic way. Do not get me wrong though, this is a rather dark movie but it does have its levity. It was remade this year for American audiences under the title “Let Me In”. Maybe one day I will write a review on it but from what I hear it pretty much butchers the original. All in all I would recommend this to those who like a good monster movie (I specifically chose 'monster' over 'vampire')

My Weird Rating System
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7/10

Breathless

Man, I started this blog off on the wrong night. It does take some of the pressure off, but man, I would love to have talked about Beathless as my first commentary/review/whatever this is going to turn out to be. Jean-Luc Godard is one of my favorite directors and Breathless is one of his best films.

I love how it moves at a different pace compared to other movies of its time. The fast cuts throw you from one sentence to the next with little remorse as to if you are keeping up. It has an heir of 'fuck you' that only a Frenchman can compose. Even in the opening lines Michel Poiccard (Played by Jean-Paul Belmondo) basically says: 'If you don't like France then you can go to hell' blatantly looking into the camera and breaking the fourth wall for the first of many times. He then proceeds to blatantly objectify women, point a loaded gun at passing cars and fire the gun at the sun, then kill a cop. The whole time you watch the edit pace of the movie is at a rapid fire, essentially switching shots after every sentence. He flees to Paris to meet up with an American girl, Patricia (Played by Jean Seberg) apprenticing to be a journalist. I do not really feel like describing the whole movie to you so I am speeding up.

 A statement is made in the movie akin to “American women totally own men and French women have not quite figured out how to whip a man yet.” This is shown throughout the movie as Michel constantly dominates the women around him – yet he is completely wrapped around Patricia’s finger. I always get the feeling that Michel strongly believes he is in a movie but wrongly believes he is a hero. So he goes about his doing what he believes is what Bogart or Sinatra would do. But he is a pretty despicable when it comes down to it. But through his hijinks he is nonetheless endearing. He knows the police are after him yet he hangs around for a girl that only half-heartedly flirts with him. She does sleep with him – But this is France so there you go. Patricia does know exactly what she is doing the whole time as she reveals in the final lines of the film and stared intently into the audience. No, I meant to word it like that.

Like with any Godard film you get a great atmosphere. He plays with camera angles and always is mindful of the whole frame. The characters are stereotypical but fresh always mysterious, I believe that has something to do with the copious amount of cigarette smoke constantly being thrown into the air by Michele and Patricia. As I mentioned before the editing for this movie is rapid fire fast. While he throws jump cuts around like a pedophile throws candy at a park Godard also takes his time over various scenes and does entire scenes in one shot.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone who loves film. And if you liked this movie and would like to know more about Godard I also will suggest “Band of Outsiders”.

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10/10

The Futurama X-Mas Episode

Yes! I am so happy after their triumphant return to television Futurama gives us a [hopefully] good Christmas special. So far the episode has had Nixon, Tiny Timbot and Dick Cheney definitely off to a good start. Awesome! 

Seriously, I love Christmas specials. There is something that is so cheesy about them but it's a staple in shows that started to feel like it was dying out there for a little while. Lately though, it feels like there is a revival of shows that are still trying to make a holiday episode... But make it good. Good examples of this are Community and American Dad. Throughout this month I will probably be making more posts for various Christmas episodes I watch. I digress. 

 Ok, so now it is over. I liked it. It is set up much like a Tree House of Horrors episode where it is broken up into three separate non-storyline episodes. One for X-Mas, one for Robonukkah, and one for Kwanzaa. Yeah, Kwanzaa! I always like it when shows take an extra initiative and throw some love to the other holidays. But it is extremely rare to see a Kwanzaa episode anywhere. The only one I actually have ever seen is the Rugrats one; which is also one of the only shows to make a Hanukkah episode. Another series that had great holiday episodes was South Park. I say 'was' because they have not had a holiday episode in years. American Dad also deserves a mention as their Christmas episodes are more action packed than a Michael Bay circle jerk.

So... now that I completely diverged off topic... I guess I will end this. This blog is off to a great start.

...yeah...

My Weird Star System

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8/10