Jonathan Goes to the Movies: Red Riding Hood

Since Roger Ebert and the Movies and At the Movies with Peter Travers are taken, i'll do the next best thing and call my newest segment for Banned and Dangerous, "Jonathan Goes to the Movies. And to kick off the inaugural post, i'm reviewing what may be the the worst film Hollywood has to offer us this year.

Red Riding Hood isn't just bad: director Catherine Hardwicke, who surprised me with her searing and brooding teen drama Thirteen in 2003, and screenwriter David Leslie Johnson (2008's slick horror flick, Orphan) have reached a new low in godawfulness I haven't seen since 2009's atrocious Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The story itself is reduced to a Twilight-styled premise: young Valerie (Amanda Seyfried, doing her best Bella Swan impersonation) has a decision to make - hook up with bad boy woodcutter Edward Cullen...uh, I mean, Peter (Shiloh Fernadez), or fall to her mother's wishes and marry the nice, rich blacksmith Jacob Black...sorry, I meant Henry (Max Irons) - all the while the sleepy village of Daggerhorn is being terrorized by a bloodthirsty werewolf and by demon hunter Father Solomon (Gary Oldman, WTF??) and his methods of finding the big, bad Wolf.

You know what happens next: neighbors turn on one another, the supposed "protectors" start torturing citizens, and our heroine thinks her true love is the one who changes into a frenzied killing machine. Did I forget to mention this charade of young lovers moping around, adults staring at the camera like they're the potential villain, and bloodless, cheesy violence goes on for two hours? You know this movie sucks when 30 minutes in, you're praying the Wolf shows up and rips everyone to bloody shreds. There's still 9 months left in the movie season, but i'll make a bold prediction and say that Red Riding Hood sweeps next year's Razzie awards. A movie devoid of thrills, whose real aim is to scam teen girls out of their weekly allowances, will win the prize every time.

1/2 stars out of ****

March Madness!

The full list for the NCAA Men's basketball Tournament can be found here. Feel free to talk about snubs, the seedings, and how the tournament will shake out.

Edit from the Count. Anybody that knows me knows I don't make a habit out of standing up for Colorado but they flat out got fucked here. After winning 2 games in the Big 12 tournament including a 3rd win over tourney bound Kansas State it no longer even seemed to be a question as to whether or not they would get in. But Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe was on the selection committee and it seems as if maybe he got one last laugh on CU. We'll find out soon if Nebraska is in the NIT. I suddenly don't feel so confident. Congrats to Jonathan's San Diego State.

Update by Jonathan: This is what my Bracket looks like.

The Teabagger Cycle

Going To See Willie Nelson

I have a love hate relation ship with Willie Nelson. Not the man he seems like a great dude but with his music. For 20 years he couldn't buy a hit (ok he had 1 top 10 hit in 1962, Touch Me) but then he became an "outlaw" got popular and his music IMHO has for the most part stunk ever since. Still I am excited to see him in concert. One kinda downside. I have to go with the Contessa and My Mother. She has wanted to see him in concert forever and I couldn't go see him and not take her. I just hope my Mom is filled with the stories and ideas on what I like to eat like she always is.

Anyway My message to all Union busters and opponents be they in Wisconsin, Michigan or in the NFL



PS. Hope everything is safe for friends and family on the Pacific coast.

Massive Earthquake Hits Japan

Tokyo (CNN) -- An 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit northern Japan on Friday, triggering tsunamis and sending a massive body of water filled with debris that included boats and houses inching toward highways.

The epicenter was 373 kilometers (231 miles) away from the capital, Tokyo, the United States Geological Survey said. But residents there felt the tremors.

The quake rattled buildings and toppled cars off bridges and into waters underneath. Waves of debris flowed like lava across farmland, pushing boats, houses and trailers toward highways.

...

There are Tsunami warnings for Hawaii as well as the Oregon and Washington coasts as well as Russia, Taiwan and Australia. 12 countries in all currently have tsunami warnings.

Shame on you, Peter King

During the 1950's, as America was under threat of the Red Scare, one elected official rode that wave and used it to shamelessly and carelessly exploit the fears Americans had about communism. His witch-hunt on "suspected" communists destroyed careers and ruined personal lives, and targeted those who had the courage of their convictions to show that the self-appointed emperor wears no clothes.

That man's name was Joseph McCarthy, the Senator from Wisconsin.

Decades later, one Congressman is shamelessly trying to follow in his disgraceful footsteps: Peter King, the chairman of Homeland Security Committee, of New York's 3rd District. Today was the first day of King holding hearings regarding the suspected radicalization of American Muslims, and it began with another Congressman, Keith Ellison of Minnesota's 5th District, recollecting the story of a Muslim-American firefighter who died trying to rescue other people on 9/11.



Not only is this hearing a waste of time, but this piece of political grandstanding by King is an insult to Muslim-Americans everywhere and a deeply cynical ploy used by King to further solidify himself in the eyes of many bigoted and paranoid lock-step members of the far-right as someone who's taking the fight to Al-Qaeda and keeping Americans safe. If you want to know why most Americans give Congress low approval ratings, stunts like the one Peter King pulled, are a shining example why.

Kidney Stones Must Be Hell On A 10 Pounder

This is Spud. I have posted his picture before. I got him in 2001 when he was a few months old from my ex sister in law because she couldn't sell him to somebody she didn't know (he was suppose to bring in $) and after he licked my feet. (now he's the Contessa's dog...turncoat) Now he's almost 10 had 3 Pilonidal cysts and Urolithiasis more times than I can count. In short this little 10 pound bundle of fur is more man than Mouse Limburg could ever hope to be. Oh and he's got a health card and single payer health care as well. Lucky little turd...Oh well he deserves it.

Christian fundie arrested for beating off near children

The story:

The Rev. Grant Storms, the Christian fundamentalist known for his bullhorn protests of the Southern Decadence festival in the French Quarter, was arrested on a charge of masturbating at a Metairie park Friday afternoon.

Storms, 53, of 2304 Green Acres Road in Metairie, was taken into custody at Lafreniere Park after two women reported seeing him masturbating in the driver's seat of his van, which was parked near the carousel and playground, a Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office report said.

The first woman told deputies she was taking her children to the playground and parked next to the van at about noon. As she was walking around her own vehicle, she noticed the van windows were down and the occupant was "looking at the playground area that contained children playing, with his zipper down...," the report said. The woman noted that he was masturbating and quickly ushered her children out of her car.

Here's the kicker: Grant Storms is best-known for his protests of the upcoming Southern Decadence festival a three-day gay festival that's held in the French Quarter every year. Yes, its another one of those self-righteous Christian moralists who feel it necessary to condemn someone's sexual orientation, yet gets his rocks off in other disturbing ways, like the one that was just mentioned.

In his defense, i'm certain sure Lucifer made him jerk his dick off to little Bobby and Suzie playing in the sandbox.

Yet Another Piece Of Ten Commandments Legislation...

...but this one comes with a declaration astonishing in its complete indefensibility.

Seems that for the past ten years, this one legislator in Alabama (where else?) has been repeatedly, but without success, introducing legislation that would allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed in schools and other public facilities, at the sole discretion of the administrators of those facilities - school principals, mayors, police chiefs, etc.

Bear in mind that this is the same legislature which has already faced adjudication and, effectively, knockdown of such legislation before...back when former State Supreme Court justice Roy Moore put a 2.5+ ton granite slab with said Commandments engraved thereupon in the rotunda of the State judicial building in 2001.

But, no, Senator Dial thinks it has a good chance of passing this time around. And why? Behold the breathtaking disconnect that is his rationale, as expressed by a member of the legal team of the organization promoting this bill:

But this bill might not be as clear-cut violation of the federal constitution as Lynn and Neal make it out to be, said John Eidsmoe, a member of the Foundation for Moral Law’s legal team. A number of different religions accept the Ten Commandments, he said.

Beyond that, Eidsmoe said, courts have cited it in opinions and laws are based on its guidelines.

“I think you’d have a hard time saying the Ten Commandments are distinctly religious,” Eidsmoe said. “They’re an expression of the basic precepts that just about every society has been built upon.”

Not distinctly religious?

You might argue that successfully for 6-10. Not killing, cheating on your partner, stealing, lying, or hankering for what belongs to your neighbor...all these are certainly good for civilization.

But the first five are all about religion and nothing but, beginning with the first, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." All the rest of 1-5 are couched in the form of marching orders from this very particular, self-described "jealous," God. Because they're - ya know - "commandments." Things that Sky Guy specifically wants you to do or not do.

It reminds me of the time my daughter's Brownie leaders wanted the girls to spend the bulk of their year on a unit called "God And Me" - an adjunct to traditional Scouting provided by some outfit called PRAY Publishing - and tried to sell me on the idea that it wasn't religious indoctrination because it was nondenominational. I held firm and said, no, you are going to offer an alternative activity so my kid isn't railroaded into this program (run by a male pastor of one of the leaders: there's role-modeling for young women's leadership, eh?), or I will go to the regional Girl Scout Council with a complaint that you are violating the core precept of Girl Scouting that there is no religious test or requirement (one of the things that is a differentiating factor from Boy Scouts).

Fortunately, at the end of the year, all the kids said their favorite activity was when I taught them how to make soap in the microwave. Score points for fun over sermonizing!

It's endorsement of religion or it isn't, Senator Dial. Just because you don't name whatever God you're referring to doesn't erase the meaning you hope to push on the public, any more than calling the garbage collector a "sanitation official" makes him something other than your garbage collector.

Random Photo Of Bill Walton

Why? No reason other than it's one of the funniest damn things I have ever seen. God Love ya Bill. BTW your kid blows.

The Definition Of Irony

This drug addled slob who contributes nothing to society and makes 28 million dollars a year thinks that teachers, some of the most important people in any society, are overpaid and greedy because they want to hold on to their health benefits and their $30,000 to $50,000 salary.