Day: October 15, 2009

MasterChugs Theater: ‘The Grudge 2’

Low cost and high quality: Japan is king when it comes to assembly line production ethos and The Grudge 2 director Takashi Shimizu takes that manufacturing approach in constructing this latest edition in the Grudge series. Block by block, shock by shock, he builds a movie that runs fine and looks slick. It’s a solid product in terms of celluloid, but there is no soul, no artistry, in the merchandise. What went wrong? Enthusiasm. Shimizu seems to take pride only in the technical proficiency of his work. Actors be damned. Plot be damned. While there’s nothing wrong with a really well-made but vacuous art-horror film, there is no art in the The Grudge 2, just cleverly staged shock shots stapled on to the other like the reels of skin in Suicide Club.

Perhaps this calculating demeanor is because Shimizu’s essentially made the same film six times now. The first Ju-on in 2000. The second in 2000 as well. Then he did both of them again in 2003. Then the American remake in 2004. That makes The Grudge 2 the sixth version of the same film made in only six years-and none of them have been outstanding. It’s not surprising that the film feels mechanized, paint by numbers. Shimizu has either got it down so pat that he can operate on autopilot or he’s just bored senseless. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘The Grudge 2’

Ice measurements? Science? Math? Puh-lease

Cool people don't understand wind chill. GET IT?!So, apparently, a group of bleeding heart liberal pussies took a day hike up to the Arctic Circle to prove their religious beliefs about global warming.

They made a bunch of measurements and found that the majority of the ice is first year ice and, on average, only 1.8 meters thick. Well, now they’re having a hissy because, according to their “water knowledge,” most of that ice won’t survive the next several summers and the caps will be virtually ice-free within the next 20 years.

Pfft. Puh-lease. Other things an ’80s Valley Girl would say.

Look, this in no way proves that global warming is real. It just means that God forgot to refill the world’s ice trays. Just have the Pope leave a stern, but polite note on the barber pole next to Santa’s Village and let’s get back to pantsing Europeans.

This Week’s Poll
Polar bears are invading North American territory for unexplained reasons. Should we:

a) Send them back to their steamy Arctic bath? (You’re welcome, ingrates.)

b) Arrest them for suspected ties to Vladimir Putin?

c) Draft them and send them to Afghanistan?

Wormhole, meet satellite laser

A strange cloud formed above Moscow last Wednesday which scientists dismissed as something akin to an”optical illusion” – about one crappy excuse step below the “swamp gas reflected the light from Venus.” Some people are saying it’s a sign of the end times. Others are saying UFO.

The SG assumption? A fired up satellite laser that came this close to carving a big cut into Moscow. Oh please, like you’ve heard crazier.

Did the tower induce the incident? SG won’t say for sure just yet, as we tend to have a strict policy on speculating only on evidence that cannot be photoshopped, but the people of Moscow should head outside and check for odd buildings under the optical illusion … or run very far away. Which, honestly, isn’t exactly a bad option for the Russian people since the USSR went kaputski.

So easy a cave man could do it

Do you drive a car? Did you know that most of cars involved in fatal accidents are driven by humans? It’s true. We suck at driving because it’s so damn boring. We need to change the stereo setting from FM1 to AUX, we need to fix the GPS settings, and most importantly, we need to kill our arms holding up our cell phones for a half an hour talking and driving.

Some people find talking on the phone and driving as dangerous. California is one of those people. There, the first lady, Mariah Shriver was caught talking on her cell phone even though her husband made it illegal.

Ever the actor. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said during a speech that he couldn’t believe his wife was “holding that phone in her hand like in the Stone Age.” It should be noted that the governor of California is something of an amateur archaeologist.

He is totally right. Back in the Stone Age, cave women would drive around in their cars talking on their cell phones. This left them vulnerable to being bashed over the head by cave men and dragged off romantically.

Deer to the ground

You know, there is a reason we hunt these guys, then stuff their heads and place them on our mantles: because we are proud of killing something that tries to kill us. Just ask Joan Nutt of Colorado, who was attacked by a deer after she simply tried to pet it.

Needless to say, Colorado wildlife officials are on our side, and have euthanized the attacker. In related news we are looking deeper into the possibility of this being the same reason Bambi’s mom was dropped.