Trapped in Underland

Last week I finally went to see the new Alice in Wonderland in 3D, directed by some douche who worked as an animator on Disney's The Fox and the Hound and starring his steady boyfriend and this little Australian chick who used to play this little American chick that was based on some little Israeli chick, and I did not like it one bit. I had to wait until Passover was over before I could go see it, because, you know, children are slimy little monsters who should be smothered in their sleep while they're young, but I didn't really mind waiting because I had a pretty good idea what it was going to be like. In this version Alice is this 19 year old blonde who lives in the Victorian age and has absolutely no sex appeal whatsoever. For some reason this dorky guy who likes to poop a lot (and don't we all?) wants to get into her pants, which means he's going to have to make an honest woman of her first, but she's obviously so terrified of a little cock that she'd rather jump into a big hole in the ground than let anyone jump into her own little one. Down below she gets gently molested by a bottle and a cookie (hehe... 'Eat me'!) and meets a whole bunch of painfully annoying characters who send her on a quest to chop the head off the only truly cool character in the entire movie, the adorable and awesome looking Jabberwocky. During this quest she is going to learn some stuff about herself (yawn) and eventually be allowed to wear pants like a normal person. Take THAT, 19th century society! My theory is that a film director is only as good as the hotness of the chick to which he is currently sticking it. Tim Burton met Lisa Marie in 1992 and was engaged to her until 2001, during which time he's directed Batman Returns, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks and Sleepy Hollow and produced The Nightmare Before Christmas. In 2001 he dumped Lisa Marie for Helena Bonham Carter, and since then he's directed the Planet of the Apes remake, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride and now this mess of an Alice adaptation. Lisa Marie, as you can clearly see below, is totally hot, and has played such roles as a big-boobed '50s goth chick and a crazy space alien disguised as a big-boobed chick whose mouth you wouldn't want to get any of your body parts into. Helena Bonham Carter, on the other hand, is only allowed to play nice characters under a thick layer of monkey makeup, and had to get a boob double for the legendary Fight Club sex scene, which means that her own pair must be seven different kinds of awful. I think that pretty much proves my point. What really bugged me about this movie, aside from the bad writing, boring character designs and the unimaginably awful dance sequence, is that the whole 'woman empowerment' thing was already totally pathetic like a decade ago. Do young women really need to be empowered in 2010? I don't know where and when the people who made this piece of dodo crap live, but in my world he who controls the boobies controls the universe, and by 'he' I mean 'she', and by 'boobies' I mean the silly lumps human females grow on their chests as front butts, and by 'universe' I mean us dudes. The last thing women need these days is more power, and any movie that takes a wonderfully imaginative and fun classic like the Alice books and turns it into Harry friggin' Potter on estrogen is nothing short of an abomination. For me it's simply yet another reminder that 3D can't turn garbage into gold. While Avatar took me out of the theater and into Pandora, a beautiful world of fun and excitement that I never wanted to leave, this version of Alice made me feel like I was trapped in this dark and oppressive little place where everybody seemed to try their best to annoy the poop out of me. Oh well. Tomorrow I'm going to see the new Clash of the Titans, and I really hope I'll get to see at least one or two really hot and scantly clad 3D chicks, or else I may be forced to get a little bit cranky.

The awesomest thing Tim Burton has ever done

I take back anything bad I've ever said about the new season of Doctor Who. Any season of Doctor Who is only as good as the current Doctor's companion, and this new one is so damn cute and Scottish that I find it extremely difficult to watch the episodes and wear pants at the same time. Keep up the good work BBC, and don't let last season's casting tragedy repeat itself ever again!

Look for Karen Gillan's drunken photos online. They're sexylarious!

Not just another douche in a wetsuit

Yesterday I went to see Kick-Ass, directed by the guy who made Stardust and based on the comics by Mark Millar, and I loved it so much that as soon as I got out of the theater I bought myself a shiny green leotard and a ski mask and started breaking into teenage girls' bedrooms! The movie is all about this dorky little high school geek who looks way too pretty to be a dorky little high school geek. He's really into comic books, he's got the two geeky best friends that every movie geek seems to have and he's so out of touch with the world around him that he actually thinks that MySpace is still cool, but apparently all that just isn't enough for him, because what he really wants to be when he finally decides to grow the hell up is a real-life superpowerless superhero, and so, disguised as a guy in a green wetsuit and armed with two big sticks, he sets out to fight crime in the streets of what I guess is supposed to be New York City. His first attempt to do battle with a couple of street thugs ends with a knife to the stomach and a whole bunch of broken bones, accompanied by a growing suspicion by his peers that he was also butt raped in the process, but hey, I'm pretty sure that's how Wolverine's origin story started out. Either way, it didn't kill him, so I guess it must have made him stronger, because his next attempt at superheroism turns him into Kick-Ass, a YouTube superstar and the man every high school girl would happily surrender her little cherry to, had she still possessed one. As he begins to learn about what it truly means to be a masked vigilante in a city that's named after a large piece of fruit, he finds out that there is already someone out there who is crazy enough to kill an maim for the American way in a silly outfit and a fake Fu Manchu mustache. And unlike the dork in green, this guy seems to actually know what he's doing, even though he fights crime along with a 12 year old girl in a purple wig who innocent bystanders can only hope is his own daughter and not just some random child with which he shares a dark, dank batcave. Big Daddy and Hit Girl are involved in some sort of war with a local crime lord, and as Kick-Ass gets sucked into it by mistake things get only more and more dangerous for everybody. Cool. Beans. Now, Wanted may have been an extremely enjoyable movie, if completely unfaithful to the original Mark Millar comics, but Kick-Ass here is the absolute real thing. The only thing I've ever read by Millar is the first issue of Wanted that came with the DVD of the movie version, but this seems to be as close to his style as a motion picture could ever get. It's bright and colorful yet completely honest, often brutally so, often hilariously so. At times it's very dark and extremely violent, and it's always, always, totally friggin' cool. The guy who plays Kick-Ass is pretty good, even though he's way too pretty for the part, but I've heard he's dating some chick who's like 30 years older than him, so I guess he has his share of issues. Even Nick Cage isn't too bad as Big Daddy, but the best performance here is delivered by little Chloë Mortez as the adorable purple-clad Hit Girl. I saw the trailer for Kick-Ass at the movies a bunch of times, but for some reason when I came to see it yesterday I was sure that Hit Girl was short and flat because she was Asian, not because she's too young to grow pubes. She kicks more ass in the movie than everybody else put together, and she does it with such style and grace and a delightfully cute potty mouth that, had I any assurances, I would have totally waited the five or six years it would take for her to become legal. The only lame thing about Kick-Ass is the stupid plotline that had the dorky guy pretending to be gay so he could become best girlfriends with some kind of hot chick. Sigh. And yet, as lame and stupid as this may be, it's easily forgotten once you realize just how hot the hot chick is. You even get to see her topless, with nothing but her hands to cover her boobs! Pretty classy stuff indeed. Kick-Ass is one of the awesomest movies I've seen lately, a film that sports such huge, hairy balls that no man or woman could ever resist, and I hope it does really well when it comes out in North America next week, because I would definitely pay money to see Kick-Ass 2: Hit Girl Gets Her First Training Bra.

I wish Lyndsy Fonseca had smaller hands

The tagline in this Israeli poster for Kick-Ass is "Superbad meets Kill Bill", and whoever coined it needs his ass kicked to a bloody pulp. As a wise man once said, everybody's an asshole.

*BARF*

In other news: I can't believe it's taken me like ten episodes of Important Things with Demetri Martin to realize that the guy with the beard used to be Ben Katz! It's so obvious now whenever I hear him talk. Oh well, it's like they say, you are what you eat, and vegetables are pretty dumb.

Fat losers named Ben are so cute!

The Camera Creep's Guide to the Boobaxy

We've all been there. You're taking part in some kind of social function, a public event of some sort, maybe a guided tour somewhere, when this one really cute chick catches your attention. You know the kind, there's one of these women in any medium sized gathering of semi-strangers, the kind of woman you can't take your eyes off of even though you know it's going to make them blind later that day. Now, obviously you're not going to come up and talk to her, because that would be insane, but if you happen to have a camera at hand, this may just be your lucky day. Assuming, that is, that you follow these five simple rules:

Rule #1: Own a decent camera
If you're serious about becoming a good camera creep you need to have a decent camera that can produce clear, high resolution photos. Under no circumstance are you going to be pointing your camera directly at your target, so it should be able to capture objects at the corner of the frame with adequate detail and sharpness. You may want to consider getting a good quality reflex camera, though it might cause people to mistake you for someone who has a really small penis. Also, camera phones are completely out of the question. Using decent equipment tells the people around you that you came there with the intention of taking good and interesting photographs, and that they are mostly just in your way. Using a camera phone tells the people around you that you're just another douche with a camera phone.

Rule #2: Choose your target carefully
Being a professional camera creep can be hard and dangerous work, so you need to make sure you select a target that is going to make it all worth it in the end. Just because a chick has good skin and an attractive hair color, or just because she's wearing shorts and a low cut top, it doesn't mean you should let your inner creep out right away. The last thing you want at the end of a long hard day is a memory card full of pictures of someone that looks like you could actually have a conversation with. What you're looking for here is that mild, instant crush self-aware creeps seem to be so good at, the kind that is made so much easier when you know for a fact that you're never going to see that person ever again. Trust your instincts, and remember: you can never go wrong with a really nice ass. And please, no minors. It reflects badly on the rest of us creeps.

Rule #3: Don't be obvious
As mentioned earlier, pointing your camera straight at your target is probably the biggest mistake a camera creep can make. Always try to appear to be trying to shoot a object that is located behind the target and a little to the side, so that the target is captured at the corner or far side of the image. Keep a moderate distance between you and the target at all times and never chase after her. Above all, be patient. Let the right shot come to you, not the other way around. Try to keep your hands steady, despite the raging battle ensuing within your underpants, because camera flashes are a dead giveaway and you are not to use them too often, even under less than perfect lighting conditions. And for gawd's sake, make sure you take lots of pictures of other stuff too, because once a target realizes that she keeps seeing only the front side of your camera it's pretty much over for you.

Rule #4: Diversify
Okay, so she has a nice ass, but it doesn't mean you have to keep pointing your camera at it. Once the day is over you're going to want to have photographic evidence of your target from several different angles, which may require a little planning, but is in fact much easier than it may sound. The simplest way of taking a good frontal picture is to wait for your target to ask someone to take her picture, perhaps with a friend or in a group. That someone isn't going to be you, because that would require you to actually interact with her, but all you have to do is pretend to be focusing your camera on the very object she's intending to be photographed with, and you got yourself a nice picture of your target with a big cheesy smile on her lovely little face. Another easy shot is to have someone you know pose for a photo. You simply position them between you and the target and a little to the side, and BAM, two birds, one stone, and no one has to know. When a person of interest starts talking to the entire group with most faces turned towards them, including that of the target's, this would be a good time to take a profile shot, while appearing to be pointing your camera and a tree or a big banner or something. Don't worry, there will always something to fake an interest in. Be attentive and keep your eyes discretely on the prize, because you never know when you're going to get that golden opportunity to shoot her playing with her hair or adjusting her fragrant little panties. Let yourself be creative, and just have fun with it.

Rule #5: Pray to the deity of your choice
Pray for good results, but also pray that the target never realizes what you're trying to accomplish. Pray that the people around you don't notice your efforts either, especially the ones you came there with. Most of all, pray that the target's boyfriend is too clueless to be able to tell what you're doing. Big scenes are to be avoided at all costs, even at the price of your own dignity, assuming you have any left. If push comes to shove, pretending you're mentally retarded never hurts anybody. It's not like it's that far from the truth anyway.

A crude drawing of the kind of result a good camera creep can achieve

If you followed these instruction carefully and managed not to get kicked in balls too hard, you should end up with at least a handful of good, usable photos. Enjoy them at home, enjoy them at your workplace, enjoy them pantslessly. Share them with your friends, if you still have any left, or post them at your favorite amature forum. Just try, if it's at all possible, not to paste the target's head on some naked chick's body, because that would be kinda weird. And never forget: just because you're a total weirdo creep, it doesn't mean you can't have fun with other people. It just means that they can't have any fun with you.


(update: the quest continues!)