New Year, New Logo (Part 3)

As you can see, the logo at the top of the page has changed once again. It’s the fourth banner featured at Awesomely Shitty. This stunning artwork was brought to you by Chaz the Silencer, the same genius who created the site’s second banner. He’s obviously a rock star, a sex god, and a pillar of humanity. Be sure to check out his blog to pay the man some respect. I really like this logo for a few reasons. First, the colors are fantastic. Second, it is unique and funny. And third, it features an example of something awesome and something shitty (with the shitty thing getting destroyed): Conan the Barbarian and Lucky Star. Well, I hope you like it, too, because you’ll be looking at it for at least a year. Hopefully, Awesomely Shitty will continue to be your go-to place for the worst reviews on the Internet in 2013!

Lessons Learned from The Wicker Man (AKA Oh No, Not the Bees!)

A picture of Cage running with a blank stare on his face perfectly encapsulates this movie.

The 2006 instant classic The Wicker Man starring Nicolas Cage has quite a few valuable lessons to teach us. Here’s a list of the things I took away from this thought-provoking cinematic masterpiece.

1) You don’t need good acting when the dialog is this amazing - Seriously, the dialog is stellar. It’s so goddamn good, they could have filmed the pages of the script and it would have been just as exciting. For example, in the very first scene, a waitress asks how a customer is doing. He answers, “Sorry, my mind was wandering” to which she deftly replies, “If I ate one of those burgers, I’d totally be in a trance, too.” Hilarious! A few moments later, Cage’s cop character pulls someone over and he asks, “You know why I stopped you?” The driver says, “Yeah.” And – scene! Amazing! Are we sure this movie wasn’t directed by Hitchcock?

2) It’s best to be as literal as possible - Cage gets a letter from Willow stating her daughter Rowan has been missing for 2 weeks. He talks to another cop, we have no idea who he is, but presumably he’s Cage’s boss or something. He explains the letter and says he is going to the island of Summersisle to investigate. The friend asks, “Who is she? An ex-girlfriend?” Cage answers, “No, we were engaged.” That’s right. Not an ex-girlfriend, an ex-fiance. How can we expect to live in a functional society unless we are being as literal as possible? I, for one, applaud Cage for being completely specific. If we don’t abide by the rules, then we are living in anarchy.

3) Drinking is good for you - Cage drinks mead almost immediately after stepping onto the island. What we didn’t see were all the deleted scenes where he got hammered on mead. In fact, Cage was probably drunk on mead the entire time he was filming The Wicker Man. How else could he have turned in such an inspired performance? Substances must have helped him along the way. And to be completely honest, drunk on mead is the only way to watch The Wicker Man.

Take My Revolution, Please

Utena and Anthy

Revolutionary Girl Utena is a hard show to describe. It is so complex, so intricate, has so many moving parts, that capturing everything in a coherent review is almost impossible. So, instead of trying to do that, I’m just going to give you my thoughts on this anime’s various aspects.

As a brief synopsis, Utena tells the story of Utena Tenjou, a tomboyish teenage girl who is newly enrolled at Ohtori Academy. She wears a ring with a rose crest on it which was given to her by a prince when she was a child. Upon entering school, she quickly learns that several other people wear the same ring. People who wear the ring are allowed to fight in sword duels for the chance of winning the “Rose Bride.” The Rose Bride is Anthy Himemiya, a completely submissive woman who is essentially a slave to the current dueling champion. Utena is disgusted by this, and fights to save Anthy and treat her as a friend and human being. As the show progresses, more truths are revealed, and it is learned that whoever is the ultimate champion of dueling will be offered the chance to “revolutionize the world.”

That’s about as concrete a synopsis as you can get with this series. From that point on the audience is treated (or subjected, depending on your point of view) to a multitude of allusions, illusions, metaphors, and psycho-sexual imagery. Nearly every character, relationship, and duel contains far more depth than what is presented on the surface. To get a good handle on everything would require many repeated viewings. Utena is one of those series which is famously accused of not really being about anything, and just throwing weird shit at the viewer for the sake of being obtuse and weird. But if you pay attention, you’ll find this really isn’t the case at all. There is a lot of depth and meaning to be found. All you need to do is pay attention. Unfortunately, paying attention is something really difficult for moe-loving, mouth-breathing otaku.

So what is this anime about? That’s easy, lesbians. Yep, that’s it. Case closed. Oh wait. It’s not? OK, OK, let’s try this again.

Moneyball, Alias Season 3

Moneyball

Moneyball? More like money... um, sorry, no joke is coming to mind.

I thought this was going to be a porno. Look at the title. Money-ball. Anyway, this movie was actually pretty good even though it wasn’t a porno. It is based on the idea that you don’t need to waste a lot of money getting the biggest sports stars (usually the biggest assholes, too) in order to have a winning team. You hire the guys who have consistent stats, who aren’t flashy but have good fundamentals, and eventually you win games by sheer statistics. This appeals to me, because it means you don’t need those narcissistic fuckos who think they are King Shit of the sport. I hope those guys will eventually get paid less because of this. But probably not. We’ll continue to throw ourselves at the alter of sports celebrity. “LOL BUT BRIK TEHY ARE SUPAR TALENTED THEY TOTALY NEED TO MAKE $7.5 MILLION A YEAR TO THROW A BALL LOL!” *sigh*

So, the movie told an interesting story, and definitely a unique one in the vast field of derivative sports films. Brad Pitt turned in a strong performance. The directing was good. There was humor in the right places. The only thing that didn’t work was the treacly, forced “heartwarming” relationship between Pitt and his daughter. It was like some producer was yelling: “THERE ISN’T ENOUGH HEART IN THIS MOVIE! WE NEED TO HAVE HEART! SOMEONE GET A TWEEN AND HAVE HER PLAY A GUITAR! THAT WAY PEOPLE WILL KNOW THIS MOVIE HAS HEART!” Aside from that misstep, it was a good movie, and is worth checking out.

Verdict: Good

Alias season 3

Alias season 3 cast.

While seasons 1 and 2 delivered fairly consistent entertainment, season 3 took a nosedive into a giant pool of shit. The plot was nonsensical. Sydney goes missing for 2 years and has amnesia of only those two years she was gone. Yeah, cause that’s how amnesia works (not). The initial focus is to figure out where she was and what she was doing. Of course, the CIA unquestioningly welcomes her back (yeah, right), and immediately starts sending her out on dangerous missions (yeah, right). Eventually, the writers got bored/confused by this plotline, and just ended it halfway through the season when an old guest star shows up and says, “LOL SYDNEY I KNOW WHERE YOU’VE BEEN FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS AND NOW LET ME EXPLAIN EVERYTHING TO YOU IN THE MOST BORING WAY IMAGINABLE INSTEAD OF TREATING THE AUDIENCE TO SOMETHING INTERESTING AND THEN WE’LL ALL COMPLETELY FORGET ABOUT THIS STORYLINE LOL!”

The remainder of the season makes no sense. Vaughn’s wife Lauren turns out to be a double agent who isn’t field trained, and then suddenly is a bad-ass on par with James Bond. Lauren and Sark head up the bad guys’ U.S. field office (which apparently has no other members), but then suddenly they are both answering to Lauren’s mom who is also a villain (and kills her senator husband) for no discernible reason. Things get more and more ridiculous: Jack IM-chats with Irina and tells her he loves her even though she is an internationally wanted criminal and up until this point he wanted to kill her, Jack helps Sloane fake his own death, Sloane may be Sydney’s biological father but that plot point is dropped almost immediately, the Rambaldi stuff makes no sense, the Lazare stuff makes no sense, Senator Lindsey is good one moment and then bad the next, all of the Triad stuff from season 2 is never resolved, and worst of all, the primary focus of the season is a love triange between Sydney, Vaughn, and Lauren. Lame. This is one of the worst seasons of any TV series I have ever seen. In the first episode of season 4, Vaughn said, “Last year sucked!” Yes it did, Vaughn, yes it did. Apparently, the writers were well aware of the giant shit they took.

Verdict: Shitty

Classically Shitty: Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Hilarious? Were there jokes in this movie? I must have missed them.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of those “classic” movies you are supposed to like because film-fags said so. But it’s awful. I can’t think of a single redeeming aspect of this movie. Sure, it has George Peppard of A-Team fame, but that doesn’t enhance the movie. Maybe if halfway through Mr. T burst through a brick wall, gold chains glittering, a machine gun blasting, bullets ripping Holly Golightly’s flesh into threads, the movie could have been cool. But that didn’t happen, so it’s a piece of shit.

The actual breakfast at Tiffany’s is the first scene of the movie. But it’s so vague you have no idea what the fuck is happening. Holly stands outside the store some time before it opens and eats a pastry. That’s it. That was the breakfast at Tiffany’s. Well, the breakfast outside Tiffany’s at any rate. I guess you could end the movie right there. It would be preferable to the non-stop shitfest that follows. And believe me, it is a shitfest. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is boring, has shitty dialogue, a retarded protagonist, and it’s incredibly racist, too. It really has it all. 

New Year, New Logo

Everybody hates it when their favorite website changes. Whether it’s the background, the header, the formatting, or an entirely new theme. Change throws people into panic and rage. Fortunately, Awesomely Shitty is no one’s favorite website, so I don’t think anyone will mind if I change the logo. Many thanks go out to myself for the fantastic design this year. Feel free to leave your comments about how much I ruined the website by changing the logo. Or don’t.

Conan the Barbarian – Probably the Greatest Movie Ever Made

Conan the Barbarian is probably the greatest movie ever made. I recently rewatched it on Blu-Ray for the 11,000th time. The sheer bliss I experienced while watching all that cinematic sex and carnage led me to realize that this is probably the pinnacle of human creation. No one will ever make a piece of art more endearing, more inspiring than this film. So why is Conan the Barbarian the greatest movie ever made? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons.

1.) Sword Fighting – Whenever you include sword fighting, it ALWAYS improves the quality of your movie. Just try to think of one movie that wasn’t improved by sword fighting. You can’t. It doesn’t exist. A movie with sword fighting is going to be better than one without, every single time. Take a look at this picture from 500 Days of Summer.

JGL and Zooey: an indie match made in heaven.

It looks fine and all, but compare it to this picture from Conan the Barbarian.

Bloody swords improve everything 100 fold

The improvements are obvious. Clearly, the addition of the sword makes Conan the better film.

Awesomest/Shittiest Things of 2011

Last year I wrote a list of the Awesomest and Shittiest Things of 2010. I thought I would do it again for 2011. Last time it was a struggle to find just 10 things for the Awesome category. It was an even greater struggle to limit the Shitty category to a mere 10 entries. So it goes. I’m writing less this year, mostly because I don’t give a fuck. I guess 2011 was extra crappy, huh? Check it out:

Awesome

1. Occupy Wall Street – I like the idea of protesting those goddamn fuckos on Wall Street. Those fucking pigs take all our fucking money and the masses get fucking shit upon. It’s been that way since the dawn of civilization. The have-nots are always going to be jealous of the haves. At least some people are letting it be known that they’re pissed off about it. The U.S. population is usually so goddamn complacent, that Wall Street’s behavior is considered OK because nobody says anything about it. I congratulate this group for protesting, and I hope they are successful. Fuck Wall Street.
2. Harry Potter Ended – And it ended well. They somehow managed to film all seven books, over a period of 10 years, and they kept the entire cast. Well, the original Dumbledore died after movie #2, but the guy they replaced him with was a million times better. I’m completely amazed that one of the kids didn’t die from a heroin overdose or leave after movie #6 to pursue “more artistic endeavors.” The Harry Potter films were cool, and they did a phenomenal job creating them. I’m glad they all turned out so great. One of Hollywood’s few non-fuckups.
3. Lego Man Appears from the Sea – In Florida, an 8-foot tall Lego man rose from the sea. He sported a green shirt that read, “NO REAL THAN YOU ARE.” The Lego corporation denied any involvement in this. But that’s not the end of the story. He washed up on a beach in England in 2008, and on a Dutch beach the year before that. Are these all the same guy, or perhaps a race of Lego Supermen with terrible grammar who are hellbent on conquering Earth? Whichever it may be, all I know is that if we are conquered, it’s going to be hard to not have a good time. Legos are super fun.
4. Arab Spring - A wave of revolutions, both peaceful and violent, across the Middle East has toppled dictatorial regimes. It’s excellent that after decades of suppression, the people can rise up and take control of their countries. Better to have a free country than one that is ruled by fear. Right, U.S. Republican Party? Hello? Anybody there?
5. Several End of the World Predictions Fail – American Christian radio-show host and lunatic Harold Camping predicted several times that the world would end in 2011. He prophesied that Judgment Day would occur on May 21 and The Rapture on October 21. Neither of which happened. He changed the dates to later in the year, and again they didn’t happen. He’s not exactly an expert on this kind of stuff because he predicted the exact same shit in 1994 and that didn’t happen either. I guess you could argue that the film debut of Chris Tucker in House Party 3 in 1994 was the apocalypse, but most people aren’t going to agree with you. (I would, though.) Anyway, now that it’s 2012, get ready for a boatload more failed End of the World predictions!
6. Cobra Goes Missing from the Bronx Zoo – In New York City, an Egyptian Cobra escaped from the Reptile House. Everyone promptly went apeshit, afraid of the imminent reptilian uprising. Snakes on a Plane no longer seemed like a far-fetched disaster movie. This was the real deal, man! Eventually, they found the snake, still in the zoo. All that worrying was for nothing. I hope that snake enjoyed his day off. Those zoo animals work really hard.
7. Charlie Sheen’s Meltdown – He’s got Tiger Blood in his veins. He’s not bipolar, he’s bi-winning. He’s an F-18. The only drug he’s high on is himself, which will melt your face off and your children will weep over your exploded body. Charlie’s my kind of guy. With quotes like that (and a million others just as good), how could he not be one of the awesomest things this year?
8. Colbert Super PAC – “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.” Once again, Stephen Colbert proved that the U.S. government is completely out of touch with reality. A PAC (Political Action Committee) is a private group organized to elect officials or to influence public policy. Super PACs can raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, individuals, unions, etc. Members of the media are not allowed to participate, as their influence is too far reaching. Well, Colbert, who is a member of the media, successfully lobbied the FEC (Federal Election Commission) to allow him to form a Super PAC. He appealed to them in character, in the most smug, satirical manner possible. He stated he wanted to have a Super PAC so he could raise money for political ads and “normal administrative expenses, including but not limited to, luxury hotel stays, private jet travel, and PAC mementos from Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.” And they gave it to him. Bravo, Mr. Colbert.

Shitty

1. Occupy Wall Street – Even though the concept of protesting Wall Street Fuckos is totally awesome, the ways these dumbass hippies are going about it are all wrong. For example, Occupy Denver elected Shelby, a three year old border collie, to be its leader. The Colbert Report interviewed members of OWS, and (of course) Colbert picked the two biggest weirdos from OWS to be on his show. If they are any representation of the rest of the group, then I’m about to side with the corporations. Come on guys, you need to come up with at least one concrete demand. Otherwise, you’re just a bunch of homeless people sleeping in a park.
2. Royal Wedding – Prince Baldhead and Princess Whatsherface got married this summer. Everyone around the world was super pumped about it. Who gives a fuck? I’ve been to plenty of weddings, and 99 times out of 100 they are trashy, and waste a perfectly good Saturday. Why would anyone want to waste a Saturday watching a fucking wedding on TV? You don’t even know them. Get a life, people.
3. Japanese Tsunami – Japan got pummeled early this year with a massive tsunami which led to a near-nuclear meltdown. Japan is like a magnet for nuclear disasters. I guess that’s why Godzilla keeps attacking it. At least people recognized this as a major issues, and did something about it. If Japan got obliterated, then who would create all the shitty moe anime? Korea?
4. Arab Spring - Kind of like OWS, the Arab Spring turned out to be not so great in the long run. A lot of the peaceful protests turned violent, there was a civil war (perhaps more on the way), and now there is all sorts of religious persecution in the fledgling governments. Violent revolutions have a greater tendency to lead to violent regimes as opposed to peaceful ones. Who can really say what the end result of all this will be? But I do know that the Middle East remains completely fucked.
5. Republican Presidential Race – “OBAMA IS DESTROYING AMERICA! ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE DESTROYING AMERICA! GAY MARRIAGE IS DESTROYING AMERICA! PROSTESTORS ARE DESTROYING AMERICA! ONLY PRIVATE MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS CAN SAVE AMERICA! LET’S ELECT THE RICHEST CANDIDATE BECAUSE THEY’LL BE MOST IN TOUCH WITH THE AVERAGE AMERICAN! NO CANDIDATE WITH LESS THAN TWO MARITAL AFFAIRS WILL BE CONSIDERED FOR OFFICE! FLIP-FLOP ON THE ISSUES! LIE! THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY IS STIFLING BUSINESSES AND KILLING THE ECONOMY! DOWN WITH THE EPA! FUCK THE ENVIRONMENT! GRRRRR!”
6. Black Friday Now on Thanksgiving – Apparently, starting the sales at 4:00 AM isn’t early enough for some people. Over the years, as the sales inched earlier and earlier, I used to joke that eventually they’d start having Black Friday on Thanksgiving. Well, guess what? Black Friday now starts on Thursday. Now all the greed and blood-lust associated with the holiday season can get going one day sooner.
7. NASA Ends the Shuttle Program – How will I meet hot alien babes like on Star Trek if you guys shut down the shuttle program?
8. People Upset About Steve Jobs’ Death – Boo fucking hoo. This guy was a world-class asshole. He was a dick to his customers, and he treated his employees like shit. Yet people were crying in the streets over his death. I saw about a million fucking Facebook posts from my “friends” mourning him (they were all promptly removed from my friend-list). The dude was a complete dick. He made it onto the Shitty List from 2010. He ran his company like a fucker, and most of his employees hated him. Don’t go around acting like he’s the Jesus of computers, some martyr who should be worshipped now that he’s dead. Get over it. Go and be sad about the death of someone important, like Kim Jong-Il. *sniff* What will we do without our glorious leader? How can we go on? *cries*

Well, the year 2011 has given us plenty of awesome things, but way more shitty things. I suppose every year is like that. Let’s see what happens in 2012. I’m sure there will be no shortage of shit that will piss me off.

Devil May Cry, Fantastic Children, Canaan

Devil May Cry

Dante from Devil May Cry

What do you get when you take a popular action video game franchise, that is heavy on button mashing and light on plot, and turn it into an anime TV series? Well, you get… this. Devil May Cry features the exploits of demon hunter Dante as he travels through a world with a paper-thin plot, copious amounts of bloodshed, pizza, ice cream sundaes, and shoddy animation. Oh wait, I guess my thoughts on the series bled into the show’s description. But you get the picture, right? Fortunately, for action junkies, this series has tons of shootouts and swordplay. Dante always infuses plenty of charm and style into his fights, and usually doesn’t break a sweat doing it. By the way, why is it that Dante is always broke, despite completing job after job (kind of like the characters in Cowboy Bebop)?

Pros: Cool main character, tons of action, great music.

Cons: Noticeable drops in animation quality during fight sequences, extremely repetitive, too many filler episodes, main character is invincible, at times it is mind numbingly stupid.

You don’t need to have ever played the video games in order to watch this anime. It’s light fare meant to give an adrenaline rush while the main character beats the crap out of demons. If that’s all you’re looking for in an anime, then look no further. This show had a great first episode and then fell into a slump, but fortunately recovered and had a pretty good ending. Overall, Devil May Cry is far from a masterpiece, but it was a fun diversion for a few hours.

Verdict: Average

Fantastic Children

The fantastic children of Fantastic Children.

Fantastic Children was quite, ahem, fantastic. This is certainly a more cerebral show that requires patience and attention. The first half of the series moved slowly, and at times was extremely confusing. The second half made a lot more sense as they started to give us some answers. It’s always nice to have things explained. In most anime they set up an intriguing premise and have a lot of mysterious things going on, then they suddenly get to the end of the series and don’t have time to explain shit. The unexplained shit gets relegated to LOLARTISTIC. Anyway, the pacing in the second half sped up a bit as the answers came and there was a bit more action and backstory. Once all the revelations had been made, I looked back and thought they told a cool story. I had read on a number of websites that this series has the best plot twist EVER. Well, I wouldn’t say the best ever, but it was interesting. If you have the time, don’t mind waiting a while for some answers, and prefer a good plot to moeblob lolis, you should check out this series.

Verdict: Good

Canaan

Canaan's cast of douches.

A typical “girls with guns” anime, with a typical amnesiac protagonist. There was some action, but overall the series was boring. The male characters looked extremely similar to one another and were difficult to tell apart. This show was a waste of time. But the necrophilia at the end was badass.

Verdict: Shitty

A New Awesome (ly Shitty) Writer

After writing this blog solo for three and a half years, it looks like a newcomer is stepping up to the plate to lend me a hand. Mrs. Brik is going to be contributing some posts every so often. Having a woman around should class this joint up a bit, don’t you think? But don’t let her gender fool you. She’s every bit as sarcastic as me, and hates pretty much everything, too. We are really a match made in heaven. On second thought, she’s even more hardcore than I am. If you thought I hated everything, well, her cynicism puts me to shame. I look like Pollyanna in comparison. Anyway, expect a post from Mrs. Brik soon, and enjoy.