Ooops-Wrong Again!

As the hub-bub dies down around Mr. Campings' silly prediction of the end of the world today, I figure I'd point out a few things.

First, the word rapture doesn't appear in the bible as its always bandied about. There are allusions to something like what's been termed "The Rapture" but that word just doesn't appear.

The logical problems brought about by the idea are many. First, a goodly percentage of the bodies of Christians are dust, their atoms now constituting living people. Is it merely going to be souls going to heaven? If so, then you're back to the Platonic idea of duality of the body and soul.

Second, the Bible specifically states NO ONE, but the Lord knows the day or the hour of the end. That would mean, not Mr. Camping. Not Mr. Koresh. Not Jimbob Two-Toothed. Nobody. So, you can come up with some hilarious crackpot mathematical code to the Bible, but in doing so you have to ignore a fairly pointed statement warning against what Mr. Camping (and many others) have tried to do.

Third, this goes back to the rapture problem. As so lovely illustrated in the awful Left Behind books (ok, I saw the first movie and have never even opened one of the books, nor will I) if "the Rapture" would happen chaos would be unleashed upon the earth. Thousands, if not millions would die as planes crash, cars crash, accidents of all sorts occur at jobs.

Now, those in support of the idea say this is all part of the awful things that will happen during "The Tribulation."

I say, it doesn't seem a very loving God who would bring this upon those who He wants to bring into his fold. It might be because I'm a stubborn contrarian, but I sure wouldn't be turning to the God who is unleashing chaos upon the earth. I'd be pissed. But, again, that's just me.

A final issue that ties more into the general problems of reading Revelations in any sort of literal sense is the idea of the final battles between "Good" and "Evil."

In the immortal words of Star Trek V, "Why does God need a starship?" In this instance a starship being an army. I'm pretty sure the slaughter of millions isn't "good" and that God isn't too keen on the death of innocents at the hands of his "holy army."

I could be wrong and I know people would point to the OT to prove me wrong. I'd say that its because the Jews were specifically interpreting God's commands to benefit themselves....but hey, what can ya do?

Inception- Was it really 12 hours long?

Continuing a recent trend of ripping into movies, here is my take on Inception starring Leo DeCaprio and written/directed by Chris Nolan.

I don't know where to begin with this movie. Tons of people loved it, but I'm not sure why. It drags on for 2 hours and 28 minutes that feels much longer than that. The plot doesn't make a ton of sense and wastes tons of time on things that don't actually matter.

Character development is non-existent except for Leo's character to a degree. But, since from the start of the movie you realize the "development" about him you end up wondering how his partner hasn't noticed it before.

A good 3 hours (ok, maybe 20 minutes? it seemed like forever) is spent explaining how they develop the "dream" they are going to be using to go into someone's head. The problem is, they more they explain it, the less sense it makes. This whole process needed to be skipped as it didn't add anything but confusion to a plot that was already hanging by a thread.

Basically, this movie could have been great, it just tried too hard. If Nolan had cut 45 minutes from it, cut out plot development that went nowhere interesting, and focused on making a movie that actually moved faster than molasses, it could have been wonderful. Instead....you got what you got.

The CGI special effects were gorgeous and I give their team full credit for that.

Also, why Ellen Page was cast for her role I don't understand. I liked her in Juno and I think she can do certain roles well, but she seemed horribly miscast for this role. Especially since her character was sort of "forced" in my mind. Of course, most of the plot seemed to exist only to justify other points of the plot existing. You might think that's how all plots are, but...if you watch this movie, it feels very very very contrived and not cohesive or flowing in the least.

I'll give it a 2.5/5 as it wasn't awful, but man, it sure wasn't good.

Salt- WTF?

So, I remembered seeing previews for this movie and then hearing how most of the critics hated it. Ok, I thought, that must mean its a decent action movie. They usually hate those.

Well......

If you go into it wanting to watch an action movie with a nonsensical plot, this is it. To fully enjoy the movie, don't read the box/netflix blurb as it isn't really what the movie is about exactly.

I won't spoil it for you, but prepare to say "what the heck is going on" and "why did they do that?" and "this makes no sense at all" and "come on, really?" a lot.

The action is, well, modern action. Its enjoyable enough. The normal hilarity of 120lb Angelina Jolie (hun, get back up to Tomb Raider size please) being able to go toe to toe with 200lb men. The regular "everyone can hit a bullseye with a pistol while sprinting/leaping through the air" gunplay. Just normal action movie fare. The plot is what did this movie in for me.

Honestly, the movie had lots of potential to be a fun action movie. Instead, someone decided they needed to make the plot ridiculously convoluted and bad instead. Why? I don't know. Its like Hollywood has decided that action movies need lots of plot. No, they don't. More plot just gives a higher probability the movie will suck as the inherent plot problems of action movies come more and more to the forefront.

By the end, the movie I could most compare it to plot-wise was Mission Impossible II. Now, it wasn't as bad as that travesty of a movie (seriously, few movies are) but if you watch Salt and have seen MI II, you'll know exactly what I mean.

So, I'll give it a 2/5, but say that for 99 minutes of your time, there are far worse movies you could waste it on.

Inspired Play?

Really. The Memphis Grizzlies (which is about as stupid a name as you can have) are playing such good basketball because they are inspired that Memphis is underwater.

WHAT!? I know idiocy like this makes for a nice article, but think about the implication: They wouldn't be playing as well if Memphis wasn't flooded.

Whether its the Saints doing well for the city of New Orleans, something good happening in Detroit, or whatever woebegotten city has a sports franchise that is succeeding, the plight of the city has nothing, hear me, NOTHING, to do with how well the team is playing.

Sure, the players might think it does, but realistically, they're playing good basketball because they are peaking and playing together as a team at the perfect time.

So, please. "Real" journalists out there. Next time a struggling city has a sports team doing well, don't say the city's plight (or blight) is inspiring the team to succceed. Its just stupid.

It ain't college anymore Mark

I have no idea if Mark Z approved of this hairbrained scheme, or even had any knowledge of it, but..this is hilarious.

So, Facebook, that bastion of user privacy (I laughed as I read that) was trying to plant stories about Google? All because they're pissed off that Google's social networking was using FB contacts as secondary connections?

Man, this is funny stuff.

The Alternative?

So, I've been mulling this over for a bit and while its not the hot button topic at the moment, it will be again soon.

The Republicans want to pull all funding for Planned Parenthood (even though none of the Federal dollars go to providing abortions, which account for approximately 3-7% of provided services). However, since PP's services are directed mostly at the poor, what is the Republican plan to step up services for those who would be effected by this change?

PP gets ~1/3 of its funding from the Federal gov't. Any group losing 1/3 of its funding would necessarily have to cut back services significantly. And who would this affect? The same people that are normally affected whenever social services are cut, the poor.

Now, if we had an actual national health insurance system (not this abomination that we ended up with) I wouldn't be as upset by this. The poor would still be covered with insurance that would be accepted at any clinic (oh yeah, didn't you realize not everyone accepts Medicaid? And lets not get into the quality of care....).

But, we don't have that and nothing like that is suggested in any way shape or form.

I'm sure this is coming across as I'm "pro-abortion." I'm not. I'm ideally pro-life, but am realistic that life isn't as simple as I'd like it to be. I'd love to get the number of abortions lowered. However, I don't see how this would happen by essentially cutting back by 1/3 an organization that helps PREVENT many surprise pregnancies by giving out low cost contraception.

The gist of my argument comes back to this. Outside of a couple of radical ideas (attempting to cut trillions off in one year..good luck with that) the Republican budget ideas have essentially been attacks on social services. Those are not what are bleeding us dry as a nation and the handful of billions saved are truly meaningless as anything except "moral" victories. Which is what the Republicans are back to trying to do: legislate their version of morality.

Funny how it doesn't apply to how corporations act, how banks act, how our nation acts in respect to military spending. In their interesting view of correct morality, well, those darn gays and abortion rights people are the lowest of low. Odd.

Black Swan

So, Katrina and I watched Black Swan this weekend. Since it won best picture I had certain prejudices against it from the get go. (To me, about 50% of "best picture" movies are utterly and completely crap, even if well made.)

I'd love to say that Black Swan transcended that, but really it didn't. It was a well made movie with good acting and phenomenal dancing by Portman who purportedly did about 85% of her own dance scenes.

PSEUDO-SPOILER ALERT:

The problem was if you've seen any movie, EVER, involving someone with paranoid schizophrenia, A Beautiful Mind, American Psycho, then you've seen this movie. Oh sure, it had its own unique aspects, but ultimately, you knew what was going on and the movie lost any real suspense for you.

Also, reflecting on the movie, the plot just sort of happens. You never get stuff fleshed out, which is sort of annoying because I, personally, LIKE things fleshed out more.

So, ultimately, it was an ok movie, that was well acted and directed but the plot was the weak point. I'd give it a 3.75 out of 5 I guess. Definately not "Best Picture" quality in my mind.

Edit: Upon reading this "review" I realize I will never be a critic.