It Is NOT Veteran’s Day

I know people are always in a hurry to pretend to appreciate soldiers for what they have done for them, despite the fact they probably have no clue what any of them have done for them, but today is Memorial Day and it is distinct from Veteran’s Day in that one is to honor those who died while serving in the armed forces and the other is to honor all of those who have served in the armed forces.

Now if you’re hiding behind the excuse that you honor ALL soldiers blah, blah, blah, it still makes you an idiot, because this is Memorial Day, and by that logic, I can hand out Christmas presents right now, and every word in the dictionary can mean whatever the hell I want it to. Everyone who has died while in the armed forces is a veteran, but not all veterans have died while in the armed forces. The latter sacrificed a lot, while the former sacrificed everything, and because of that, we have two separate holidays. It’s really that simple.  

I would like to thank all of the surviving veterans 

who died for my sins.

Review: The Awakening (2011) AKA Haunted (1995)

The Awakening is a ghost film that is a ghost of the film Haunted. Rebecca Hall/Aidan Quinn is a post WWI author that wrote a book debunking the paranormal, and more specifically spiritualism, after the death of her/his lover/sister. Being staunch skeptics, she/he begins to believe something unexplainable may be happening at the countryside manor they were called to in order to relieve the inhabitants of. Only a few minor things separate The Awakening from being a remake of Haunted and the two are seriously almost identical. Hall is invited to a boarding school by a teacher and potential love interest in Dominic West.  Quinn is invited by a nymphomaniac socialite in Kate Beckinsale. Both investigators start hallucinating which makes them question their beliefs and sanity. One has a housekeeper, the other has a nanny. Both maids have the ability to see the deceased. Hall and Quinn begin being reminded of their lost loved one halfway through the film. Both leads are given the SPOILER ALERT: “shocking” revelation that they are actually dragons and must eat people to stay alive and that they are indeed correct that ghost are not real, but all dragons come from the planet Venus and must interact with aliens. To be fair, The Awakening has the underlying theme of picking up the pieces after the tragedy of war and at its core is about healing through love and compassion (and that dragons are really a prehistoric species of spider,) and Haunted has the underlying theme that there really isn’t an underlying theme and this is a simple ghost story. They are both competent tales, The Awakening having more substance, but Haunted having  a less convoluted ending. Perhaps they would make a decent double feature instead of seeing them fifteen years apart? 

Picaso holding an owl. 

Rotten Tomatoes Isn't Always Right

You know, you can have your own opinion on a film if you’d like. The problem is it caters to a group of writers who work for newspapers and magazines, professional critics if you will. As soon as someone becomes a critic, they instantly go into douchebag mode. It’s no secret that fans of horror movies, real fans and not people who only collect the Saw series, specifically go to horror websites for reviews on films to avoid these mainstream, pretentious snobs who have by and large never been laid, and have decided to take their hatred out on everything with blood in it that’s not a vagina. Probably Freudian. That being said, reviews are now back because I’m sick and tired of everyone touting Rotten Tomatoes like they’re the authority on film; they’re not. They do not follow the golden rule of anti-social film viewing: It’s not worth watching unless someone dies in it. Only then should a film be reviewed and they have long broken that rule, so I thought it befitting that I bring back my own opinions for my own writing pleasure.

This also includes reviews on everything else, from music to blind dates, but not Rotten Tomatoes. 

Who's rotten now, bitch?