Vengeance Valley (1951)

This past week in EMS30 our class watched a Western film from 1951 starring Burt Lancaster, Robert Walker and Joanne Dru. As is typical for most Western's, it had very little plot line and was all about cowboys on horses with guns. Truly a boring movie. To be honest I read a book while we were supposed to be watching it most of the time. I really can't think of anybody who would enjoy watching this type of movie, I've seen quite a few of them in my time; all of which I've been forced to watch at school. I've hated them for as long as I can remember. They don't really have much of a plot line, and what plot line they do have is so garbled by their old fashioned way of speaking it's totally lost on the audience.

Honestly I can't think of any way to make these types of movies more interesting for the audience, not one way. Nobody cares about Westerns anymore. They're boring and kinda lame. The characters in these movies have no life story, they just go about hurting animals and being all 'tough' and 'manly'. The characters are all shallow and mean. And there are no effects because these types of movies have pretty much stopped being made because the directors finally realize how much EVERYBODY hates these movies. I wish teachers would realize nobody wants to watch them and stop forcing ME to watch them in school.

Se7en

In class this week everyone was told to read an article about the 1995 movie Se7en, the author in the article said that the movie was so offensive and gross it should be re-rated from it’s 14a status into an R movie.

I watched that movie on the weekend because Doug was so disgusted by the affects of the movie that it sounded right up my alley; and to be honest, it was a pretty lame movie. This guy must have been raised in a cave or something, it was barely even gory. Sure there was a lot of unnecessary swearing, thanks to Brad Pitt, but all of the supposed gore? I’ve seen worse on prime time CSI episodes. The worst you saw in that movie was a fat guy drowning in his spaghetti and some grotesque pictures in black and white from far away.

The appropriate age level for watching this movie is right where they rated it, 14a. Offensive language and mild violence.

fun fun fun fun...

I've recently stumbled upon a rising youtube star, her name is Rebecca Black. Many people have heard of her by now I'm sure, as her youtube video has over 13 MILLION views. In this song she sings a bad song with a bad singing voice and stars in a terrible music video in which 13 year olds party really hard and skip school. This video was not made in joke though, oh no. She is seriously trying to make a music career for herself. Her mother parted with $2,000 for this video to be made with vanity record label Ark Music Factory where they will write you a song and a video and all you have to do is star in it and record an audio track, which they will heavily auto-tune for you.

I wouldn't recommend this video to anyone who is seriously looking for a new song to listen to, but it is funny to torture your friends with. Some of the best lines from this song are 'fun, fun, fun, fun' and 'yesterday was thursday, today it is friday, we we we so excited, we so excited, tomorrow is saturday and sunday comes afterward." Lyrical Genius.

Several critics claimed that this was 'the worst song ever' and it has a 97% thumbs DOWN rate on youtube.

Some of the values shared in this wonderful video are that we should all skip school, stand up in the backseat of a convertable driving down the highway and party all night long. I fully agree with these values, they must be what everyone else is doing, Rebecca Black is doing it, right?

Pride and Prejudice and ZOMBIES

I've recently started reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies written in 2009 by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame - Smith. This book is a parody novel of the Jane Austen classic "Pride and Prejudice". It follows to the exact plot of the original book but theres zombies just thrown in there as well, keeping with the old style of writing he refers to them mostly as "unmentionables" and "satan's spawn". This book is much more tolerable and easier to read than the original, though I did enjoy that one as well. I would recommend reading this book if you are being forced to read the original for English class like I was. It's really a hilarious book. In the original they mostly talk about finding a girl who comes from money and a nice family. But in this book a man also looks for a woman who has been trained by the best of ninjas in the Japanese Dojos.

The characters relate to eachother exactly as they did in the original book published in 1813. They're all very snobby and they don't really discuss their feelings towards eachother. Murder is also a lot more acceptable in this book than it has ever been in real life, people will kill people on a whim, or if they dishonour their family.

There are many funny quotes so far in the book but the funniest one I have encountered so far is in a part in which Liza and Mr. Bingley are traveling by carriage towards Mr. Darcy's aunt's house, their carriage is swarmed with zombies and Liza, being the most skillful ninja in the cart, dashes out to attack the unmentionables. One of the zombies gets into the carriage where Mr. Bingley is hiding as he is not trained at all, and she slices the zombies throat very close to Mr. Bingley and he has never seen a zombie that close up before, in the book it says, "Liza made quick work of the unmentionable slicing it's throat with her katana, Mr. Bingley politely vomited into his hands.' This quote just made me laugh, I highly recommend this book to anybody willing to read it, it's a little rough to get through at times though as it is written in old english.

Melissa Leo does a No-No

During the 2011 Academy awards this actress accidentally swore at the crowd - she dropped the f-bomb in her acceptance speech, ‘it was just so f****** easy!" Of course the media was immediately in uproar. But who really cares? It’s not like we haven’t heard it before. Sure if it was the 30's and only sailors and criminals swore, but it’s not. Face it - I’ve heard nine year olds say worse things. So she said a little swear word in the heat of the moment - who cares?

The academy awards are a production aimed at congratulating people who already make millions of dollars a year on their movies. They all dress really fancy and we all talk about them for days afterwards. They’re geared towards people who can’t afford to wear such fancy clothes, and those who like movies. But they’re not important, it’s not like entire nations watch it when it’s on, most countries didn’t even have the program run live, so they could easily have edited it out if need be. So why was it pasted all over the headlines? People have written blogs about how offended they are that she would say such a thing. How could people really be so offended about this? I’m more shocked about how the media reacted to her little slip of the tongue than the fact that she actually did it.

V.C. Andrews - ?

Since I was a little kid, probably about eleven or twelve, I have been reading V.C. Andrews books. These books are all very good and I love the way they are written. The characters in her books are mostly young women between the ages of sixteen and twenty five. These women usually go through something traumatic and they end up falling in love with their brother. They are generally richer white women with daddy issues. I think V.C. Andrews was a very disturbed woman. All of the books have very easy to guess plot lines, but they’re a good read when you’re laying on the beach..


People who read the types of books Andrews writes are mostly women who like a good thriller that has a sexy edge. They’re very easy reading and a lot of them have quite a bit of suspense.



My only problem with her books, is that V.C. Andrews A.K.A. Cleo Virgina Andrews has been dead since December 19, 1986. So how is it that she has been writing books every year since then? I am currently reading one of her new releases. I just don’t understand. Her family is making all of the profits from her books still and she isn’t even writing these books. Nobody knows who has been writing these books - the author and writing style, even the plot lines are exactly how Andrews wrote for 15 years before her death. But no credit is ever given to the current author of these books. I don’t think it’s right that someone is using her name for their own fame - they’re probably not even making very much money off of it, because she is gaining all the credit. But that won’t stop this copy cat author from making more books and money off of her legacy. I suppose it doesn’t really matter though - her family has no complaints, they’re still making money. And the author clearly isn’t doing too bad, they’ve been faking it for over 20 years. So as long as everyone is happy it shouldn’t concern me or any other readers, because the books are still good, no loss of quality or frequency has occurred.

CSI and Cavemen.

Media is Constructed.

Well obviously, that's the whole point of media is it not? To escape our own lives temprarily and wish they were more like these clearly fake lives that the stars, even characters on our favourite tv shows. As long as it's not real; that's why we all enjoyed watching CSI over the real crime show, CSI has cool explosions, characters and most important - it isn't real. Taking the scary part - the murder and kidnapping, and putting it away and making it more about solving the crime.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjksUf4q2THZCiWPDCTnIcw-Pwdl94sjpDQ7VYaKT9PsJKDuYWqiCbp2DNaNePfc6dYIBXfLS2Kf2hAbLmKTqtY9OMrzUCdNGADEVUbkfx7H6pxBhIth1R0kafGEMxDHmqVgL4Zy4kEciy7/s1600/csi_las_vegas.jpg

But then, some people take it too far, they begin to think that it is real, that the world is actually like their favourite TV show. They're crazy. Society has been messing around with people's heads since birth, no wonder so many people in this world are so crazy. The media is completely influencing everything in their lives, from advertisements on the bus, to posters in the bathrooms, to billboards to TV commercials, there's no escaping it - unless you're a caveman. And nobody wants to be a caveman. Gross.