#I like evil Butters and the game show subplot

[methinmycoffee]

Season 6 rankings!

From Best to Worst:

A Ladder To Heaven (Ep. 12)

Free Hat (Ep. 9)

Professor Chaos (Ep. 6)

The Simpsons Already Did It (Ep. 7)

Child Abduction is Not Funny (Ep. 11)

Red Hot Catholic Love (Ep. 8)

Bebe’s Boobs Destroy Society (Ep. 10)

The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers (Ep. 13)

The Death Camp of Tolerance (Ep. 14)

My Future Self ‘N’ Me (Ep. 16)

Fun With Veal (Ep. 4)

The Biggest Douche in the Universe (Ep. 15)

Red Sleigh Down (Ep. 17)

Freak Strike (Ep. 3)

Asspen (Ep. 2)

The New Terrance and Phillip Movie Trailer (Ep. 5)

Jared has Aides (Ep. 1)

[beevean]

I offer another angle to explain why I hate the Lenector subplot: Lenore and N!Hector drag each other down.

And not in that fun "they make each other worse" way, not as people - as characters. The ways they're both badly written influence each other. And it's hard to see where the problem starts: I don't care about Lenore being a manipulative #girlboss because I don't care about N!Hector's fate in S3, and I don't care about N!Hector in S3 because he was watered down to make Lenore look good (as in, a hot #girlboss to masturbate on).

N!Hector is not a character one can root for in S3. And it's not because he's "evil": after all, fans are quick to cheer for N!Isaac when he kills innocents and defiles their corpses for petty reasons. It's because not only N!Isaac is forcibly made to be the coolest strongest most powerful character in the show, but because the dude has at least solid motivations and reacts to events around him. <- writing so peak i'm forced to appreciate the very basics of writing

N!Hector has lost all of that. In S2, there was a conflict between his morbid goal of turning humans into livestock for vampires, and his principles that made him recoil at N!Dracula's actual plan of mass slaughter. He was evil, but he was also lied to by N!Dracula through no fault of his own, and there was an unique dissonance between his terrible goals and his complete lack of malice. It at least made sense that he'd listen to Carmilla, up to a certain point. By then, I still wanted to follow his journey. I wanted to see him grow, I wanted to see him challenged, I wanted to see him learn empathy for humans. (well, I would have wanted to, if I wasn't spoiled lol. you get what I mean)

In S3? What's the point? What does he want? What does he fear? What does he feel?

Characters going through hell and coming out reshaped, for better or for worse, is the bread and butter of fiction. The CV games themselves have put some of their protagonists through the ringer: Leon lost everyone he held dear in one night in LoI, Shanoa discovered she had been groomed to resurrect Dracula in OoE, and Hector himself suffered a lifetime of abuse, watched Rosaly die in front of him, and then discovered that all of that pain was so that he could become Dracula's vessel in CoD. The thing is that, I care about these characters. They have personalities, a past, relationships, and I want them to succeed. I want them to be happy. Their suffering is a tool through which they show what they're made of.

Hell, it's not just the heroes: Isaac in CoD also has gone through hell. I don't want him to succeed because his happiness is tied to Hector's suffering, but at least I feel bad for what he had to endure, and I feel bad that he died even though it was partially due to his actions: he is both a cruel antagonist and a tragic victim whose tragedy is believable but not a full excuse. He's a compelling, fleshed out character, not to mention charismatic because he has one hell of a personality lol.

N!Hector has nothing. The story itself is just making this character suffer, in a humiliated, undignified way... but not to break him and reshape him into something different. It's just torture for the sake of torture. It's to laugh at him, because he's stupid and that's what he gets for being stupid. It's to find him pathetic when Lenore puts him on a leash: the point is not how disgusting she is, the point is that he's a cute puppy, who barely reacts to this humiliation so that you viewer are not distracted from the kink. It's to shake your head when he can barely have an edge in the interrogation with Lenore, even when he could give some more personal answers like "I followed Dracula because he accepted me and gave me a reason to live", because the point is to make him look dumb and easily malleable. It's to facepalm when Lenore tricks him into having sex so that he can be coaxed into pledging loyalty to her, because he can't even see the very blatant way she lies to him - and it's his fault for being so impossibly dumb.

What does he want? He mentions that he wants to be free, but in the same breath he says that he wouldn't be able to survive on his own, so it's not a goal he fully believes in. He still says that he wants to put humans in cages, to which Lenore says "oh it's what we want to do too", so... N!Hector's goal matches with Lenore's? Then where is the conflict? As I said in the past, Lenore didn't need to resort to rape by deception to tie him down: N!Hector already trusted Lenore and would have worked for her, at the very least, especially if she kept pretending to care about him and improving his life conditions gradually. Morally, he hasn't even begun the process of changing - and, of course, he never does. He is stagnating. He's not interesting.

(this isn't even negative character development. For N!Hector, it would have been, for example, convincing himself that everyone deserves to die, and him becoming more violent and bitter towards the people who hurt him. This could have been one of his developments in S4, even if tragic. We don't even get that. The "development" he has is that he let Lenore kill herself instead of forcing her to live like he did with his pets, which is. so fucked up i can't even put it into words.)

Hell, I even realized recently: the fucking ring would have made much more sense if N!Hector actually showed signs of rebellion, because the way she described it, the ring's only purpose is to prevent rebellion, not to force him to work! If the issue was that Striga was considering hiring mercenaries and that would have made N!Hector useless, the ring doesn't solve jackshit about it, because if he wanted to he could have starved himself to death and the ring wouldn't have hurt him! The ring only solves the issue of N!Hector potentially using his Night Creatures to harm or kill the sisters! Which it's a moot point because he has been shown to be nothing but docile after Lenore beat him into submission precisely to make him docile, and he clearly was on his way to be convinced to peacefully work for the council! If he got convinced that he would be living the best life as Styria's Forgemaster, taken care of by Lenore who at least treated him well, not lied to like Dracula did, and doing what he wanted to do which is forging and working to enslave mankind (remember, he shows no growth in this), he wouldn't have hurt anyone! Lenore saw with her eyes how pliant he is, and in S4 she even calls his ill-thought attempt to threaten her "half-hearted at best"! She got the idea to butter N!Hector up to make him trust her and work with them willingly, and not through torture, and it was going all too smoothly - and then she broke that trust by deceiving him and playing with his feelings in a much worse way than Carmilla did, and realistically, N!Hector shouldn't have wanted nothing more to do with her in S4, let alone work for her! But if he was shown having at least signs of aggression, defiancy or doubts, vulnerable to Lenore's "kind" acts but still wary enough of his situation taking too long to be convinced, then the ring would have been a good solution to "tame" him! Lenore raping N!Hector into slavery would have been more justified and not come off as a vile gratuitous OOC act if he had showed a personality!!

i'm calm.

Anyway. My point is, there is no conflict between these two characters, even though Lenore is clearly the real antagonist. The conflict of Styria's story in S3 is watching this snake deliberately play with N!Hector's feelings for no reason other than sadism and a power trip. And the conclusion we're meant to reach is "wow he sure is a dumbass, he deserved to be enslaved".

Unlike in CoD, N!Hector's life is so miserable, and his conditions so suffocating, that I wouldn't have felt anything if N!Isaac actually killed him. Who cares? No one cares about this character. Least of all the writer. I don't care if he succeeds or not, because he has nothing to succeed in; and I don't care if he suffers, because he doesn't even care, and has nothing to live for. It's literary bullying.

So this brings me to Lenore. If Lenore's whole thing in S3 is that she's such an amazing manipulative bitch who gets her way through deceit and subtle abuse, but she's effectively deceiving a bag of meat... I'm not impressed.

Oh, I hate her, because her actions are disgusting and poorly match what she's supposed to be, which is the selfishly kind diplomat who finds power in taking care of lesser creatures. She doesn't come off as her own archetype, because she is too smug, too happy to force herself on N!Hector in a sexual way (the collar, the ring), and her first scene shows she's just like Carmilla in that she easily resorts to excessive violence to prove she's not weak. So, while this is yet another instance of bad writing, in-universe she also comes off a a raging hypocrite (further proved in S4 where the writing and voice acting imply that Lenore sunned herself because she didn't like the idea of being in the same gilded cage she had put N!Hector in, which makes her look cowardly and pathetic). But she's not fun to hate in the same way Isaac is when he forces Hector to watch Rosaly's execution in PtR. She's bullying a shell of a person. She is weaving uncomfortable lies to a manchild who is not even trying to put up a mental protest to her manipulations. Why should I care? She is getting her way so easily, not because she's that good (she's really no better than Carmilla, who in-universe failed) but because N!Hector doesn't have enough personality to challenge her; and if she succeeds, N!Hector would either be okay with it, or if he's not... well, he'd deserve it for being stupid, according to the show's logic.

Lenore in S3 exists solely to further prove the general message of that season: trust is for fools, and fools deserve to be punished. She is a plot device moved around like a puppet to serve that general message, and on top of that her creepy actions are painted as titillating... well, as long as you either want to be dominated by a pretty woman (which explains the great amount of male fans simping for her) or you want to dominate a pretty failure of a man. Which I don't. Because I have no reason to care about N!Hector, let alone find his sexual humiliation hot.

Do you see the problem here? Lenore cannot shine of her own because N!Hector is not written well; but since she only exists to bully him, she doesn't come off well either, despite her concept being brilliant and actually interesting and deserving of being fleshed out more organically without turning her into four characters clumsily stitched together.

And of course, as you have noticed, I have only talked about S3 so far. What's the point of even talking about S4? It completely destroyed everything S3 set up. Lenore has lost everything that made her allegedly cool in that season, being reduced to a whiny brat who feels so alone and unwanted and cries about it to the man she raped by deception. N!Hector mildly sasses her back and listens to her woes, but doesn't seem to care at all about what Lenore did to him, both positive (being put in a giant gilded cage where he can't be killed and being given some sort of authority) and negative (the mocking, deception and rape). They have chemistry now, a positive chemistry made of mutual respect, but it comes out of nowhere and it clashes with their past.

I don't care that now Lenore feels sorry about her life, because she crossed the moral event horizon and now she doesn't get to regress into being a poor little girl who only wanted to do diplomacy 🥺. I don't care that N!Hector freed himself and tricked everyone in the castle, because his "badass" actions were all for the purpose of bringing Dracula back, which is proof that all the suffering he went through was for nothing - he didn't learn that putting humans in a cage was bad, and now he seems to want back the madman who planned to kill everyone out of personal atonement (plus, he only freed himself from working for Carmilla, Striga and Morana: he still chooses to live with Lenore, so effectively still tying himself to the woman who forcibly tied him to her). He's even worse now, he has regressed for no sensible reason: I still don't want him to succeed. And I don't care that N!Hector has found the strength to let Lenore go, a contrast with how he used to resurrect animals to have loyal companions, because I don't even know why he'd grow to love her. The story wants me to believe his love for Lenore is pure and organic, and not the result of breaking from horrible abuse and accepting the scraps of something barely resembling kindness. As if S3 never happened.

And if S3 never happened... why should I care about these characters and that story?

(funnily enough, I could make a similar post about N!Alucard in S3 and S4. I also don't care about his grief, because he was a cunt to N!Trevor and his own similar trauma. I don't care about the Japanese not-twins raping him, because it's so out of nowhere that it only feels like gratuituous shock factor. I don't care about N!Alucard apparently falling down the same path as Dracula, because he gets better after one episode. His story in S3 - well, what little can be considered a story - is also "trust is for fools, and fools gets punished", although at least N!Alucard isn't painted as a dumbass for trusting these two plot devices, and at least he kills them before he can forgive them. but basically my point is that this writing is bad.)

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream - South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

Ah, good old South Park, the most famous creation of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and one of the great candidates for “show that maybe has gone on too long but sometimes it’s still great so I tolerate it.” South Park has a long, checkered history, filled with genuinely great humor and insightful political commentary as well as obnoxious centrism and really unfunny jokes. To this day it’s a very polarizing show, with people having strong opinions on it from every direction. But I think there’s one thing we can all agree on:

The movie was really freaking cool.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is a movie where, from the title alone, you know what you’re getting into – a raunchy trip down to South Park (for those who don’t get it, think about what else might be big, long, and uncut). But surprisingly it ends up being more deep than all that, though yes, there is still a lot more raunchiness than most other animated films of the time. But if it were just raunchy humor it would probably end up deflating and not be well-remembered or well-liked even today – as much as I personally find movies like Sausage Party entertaining, they’re more novelties than anything and I kind of doubt they’ll be looked back on fondly nearly two decades down the line. What did this film do different?

I think one thing that helps the film is it’s odd style. You see, this movie is a musical. A beautiful, foul-mouthed Disney Renaissance parody musical. And I’m going to be honest here, just about every song in this is amazing. You’ve got the Oscar-nominated smash “Blame Canada,” you’ve got the seedy little villain song “I Can Change,” you have the beautiful “Up There” which will make you feel sorry for Satan, and you have Terrence and Phillip’s song in which they accuse each other of fornicating with their uncles, wuth a title a bit too spicy for Michael in the Mainstream. Oh, and this movie also has the definitive version of “Kyle’s Mom’s a Bitch.” I honestly feel like there’s not a single weak song on the soundtrack, and most of them are pretty hilarious. I’d say the songs are good enough not to lose to Phil Collins at the Oscars, but also not good enough to justify a petty episode-length tirade about Phil Collins.

The general themes of this movie are good as well. The main plot is that the kids sneak into a Terrence and Phillip movie which is R-rated and filled with profanity, they mimic what they see in the film, and so then they go and try and ban the movie and, well, blame Canada, to the point where Kyle’s mom starts a war with Canada via her protesting. The parodying of the strictness of censorship, the hypocrisy of regulations, and of course the blatant hypocrisy on how graphic violence is okay for general audiences but naughty words are not is still relevant even today in a climate where some people think that movies like Joker are too “dangerous” and “controversial” and might incite copycats. You have to understand, it is the responsibility of the viewer to ethically consume the art, and it is the responsibility of parents or guardians to moderate what sort of content their children are consuming, and that if your kids are sneaking into R-rated movies, cussing up a storm, or lighting their farts on fire, the blame isn’t something that can just be put on the media they consume, because there are obviously other factors that lead to this. This movie’s argument was given around the same time as the whole “violence in video games” debate was gathering speed, and it’s kind of sad that these conversations still need to be had today. Still, I think this has aged better than most of their other messages, and the fact it’s still relevant only helps strengthen their message and make up for some of the more obviously dated jokes, like the references to Windows ‘98 or Jar-Jar Binks.

I think the best part of this movie, though, is Satan and his relationship with Saddam Hussein. I think it was a very interesting choice to reimagine Satan, a traditionally evil figure, as a sad, lonely homosexual man in a toxic relationship who merely wishes to find the freedom, happiness, and true companionship he believes he truly deserves. In fact, while Satan is ostensibly supposed to be the vicious conqueror of Earth after all the seals are broken, he expresses distate in the idea, and it is Saddam, his toxic lover, who pushes him. I honestly love Satan’s character arc in this film, where he discovers his self-worth and gains the confidence to rid himself of Saddam, stop being a doormat, and stand up for himself. Honestly, he really fits the sort of character arc Disney princesses of the time went through, a comparison I’m sure he’d be satisfied with. I also like how this is the rare piece of media that shows a toxic non-heterosexual relationship and plays it relatively seriously, something that I don’t think I really saw again until Steven Universe. Like, there are definitely jokes centered around their relationship, but it’s the comically evil Saddam who’s the butt of the jokes and Satan is always portrayed in a very sympathetic light, and it’s not really portrayed as “Haha, they’re gay!” but more as “Haha, Saddam Hussein has a dildo!”

Of course, there are bits of this movie I don’t necessarily like. The awkward love triangle with Stan and Wendy is largely unnecessary, and the whole “find the clitoris” joke has such a weird, out-there payoff that I can’t really get behind it. I also hate how some characters get horribly underused. I understand this is before characters like Randy or Butters really rose up to major character status, but the fact that Chef and Mr. Garrison barely get anything to do in the movie is a bit egregious. Like sure, they have roles, they have lines, but I feel like for the big movie event they should have given some of the major faces of the series a bit more to do.

Still, these are minor complaints. This is one of the best animated films ever made, with a resonant message, catchy songs, and mostly good humor, as well as an oddly compelling gay romance subplot involving the Prince of Darkness and a Middle Eastern dictator. It’s the sort of crass, in-your-face brilliantly offensive fun that South Park is at its best, and while it does get preachy, it never feels needlessly so like some of the later episodes. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ve either seen this already or should watch it right now, and if you want to get into the show, this honestly isn’t a bad jumping in point. If you just want good raunchy adult animation in cinematic form, this is also right up your alley.

Frankly, I’m just amazed at how well most of this film has aged, considering how poorly South Park episodes that cover topical subjects tend to fare even a few months after they air. I wouldn’t go as far as to say the movie is a timeless classic, but it’s definitely a classic in most regards. It’s funny, it’s smart, it’s immature, it’s offensive, it’s even a little emotional, and really it’s everything good about South Park condensed into one movie, with very little of the bad. Mr. Hanky and Towelie aren’t in this, after all.

[atamascolily]

Avengers: Endgame review

TL;DR: This is not a terrible movie, especially given how many characters and story arcs the creators are juggling. That said, its success make its missteps all the more frustrating for me.

I like the opening scene, because it's so mundane. Instead of monsters and aliens and fighting, it's just a family picnic in the American Midwest. Even though it feels like Hollywood only knows one way to shoot family/domestic scenes, I like that Clint is teaching his daughter to shoot a bow instead of one of the boys.

I like how quickly the Snap happens, how silent and quiet it is. One minute, everything is fine, and then... Clint looks around and they are gone. He knows right away something is up. There's no place they could have gone. This scene is so short - less than three minutes out of a three hour movie - but the audience already sees where Clint is going next.

This scene also emphasizes how Rapture-like the Snap is - to the point where people online started calling it the Snapture. The film doesn't focus much on post-Snap life, but I'm sure religions would have a lot to say about this. In some ways, exploring life in this scared new world is more interesting to me than more predictable arc of getting it back...

I like Tony and Nebula playing paper football. How intense Nebula is, how into it she gets, how Tony lets her win. Wiki says those scenes were improvised and I approve. The message he leaves for Pepper with his helmet is pure Tony Stark--glib, audacious and yet charming all at once. I can’t decide whether I want to punch him or hug him for it. Maybe both.

I like that Captain Marvel's arrival is so angelic. She's glowing. It's a miracle. Was she sent to find him, or did she just stumble across the ship by chance?  We never find out.

I like how the Avengers are able to locate Thanos, only to discover he's destroyed the stones. I like how using the stones has consequences: Thanos is able to use them, but at great personal and physical cost; it's nice foreshadowing for the end.

Thanos is so chill about dying; it makes me suspect he's got something up his sleeve, but apparently, he's okay with dying now that his Crazy Apocalyptic Death Cult has achieved its goal. He manages to break Nebula's heart even more before Thor murders him. It's hard to say who's more surprised in that moment: Thor or Nebula.

Time skip. There's only one real plot reason for a five-year gap, and that's so Tony Stark can have a kid and an excuse to be selfish that doesn't render him completely unsympathetic to the audience. Morgan is cute, and all, but I'm not a fan of what she represents, nor of the stock Hollywood way of portraying children. Tony lives in a log cabin in what is obviously Georgia, and doesn't use his wealth to fix the world or anything. Granted, he's got extreme PTSD, but he's chosen to become a hermit. I guess we should be glad he's not drinking, doing drugs, or screwing journalists, like he did in the first Iron Man movie.

Steve running the support group is poignant, especially since that was always Sam's gig. I wonder if it's his way of honoring Sam. Sob. Marvel claims the gay man in the support group is historic, but I can't help but note it's something that can be easily edited for release in China.

I have not seen the Ant-Man movies, but I like Scott Lang. He is an optimist who soldiers on despite the fact that he is the Butt Monkey of all the jokes. I like how he extricates himself from the storage locker--though the fact that the van is still in storage five years out speaks VOLUMES to how messed up the world is five years later.

I think Scott walks past his house first--then goes to the wall, then to his house and knocks on the door? Or is that just a random house in the background when he first asks the kid on the bike what's wrong? I don't know why the kid doesn't answer him, except to add an aura of mystery to the whole thing.

The stones on Crissy Field are intense. Scott running around in a panic is spot-on--and his confusion when his name is on there, and his relief that Cassie's isn't. He knocks on the door of his house and a now-teenaged daughter greets her father. Again, I'm not sure I buy how Hollywood portrays these kinds of reunions, but it's very moving.

I love Nat and her peanut butter sandwiches, her rapport with Steve. I love these two as friends and I also ship them, and nothing in this scene proves me wrong. I love that Nat is basically in charge of the world now, and that she's the one keeping everything running smoothly --even when, as Okoye puts it, some things like undersea earthquakes don't require any action on her part. I also like her hair - I wasn't a huge fan of her Infinity War look, so I'm glad she's gone back to long/red-dish hair again.  

There's also the first stirrings of what Clint is up to, and while I don't like this subplot, I have to say it's set up very well. I can admire skillful plot devices even when I dislike their contents.

Scott showing up is priceless. I love his babbling to the security camera and Steve and Nat's reactions. Also, he drove the van all the way from California to wherever-the-hell-the-Avengers-Institute is located--I think it's supposed to be New York, but the filming location is a car headquarters in Georgia, so I think of it as Georgia.

I like that Bruce and the Hulk have come to an understanding. I wonder what Nat thinks about this. This movie makes it pretty clear Bruce is still into her, even though Nat isn't into him (and most of us are pretending that little subplot in Age of Ultron never happened).  

Same with Thor. It hurts to see him so clearly stuck, but Korg is amazing, as always, even if he is an enabler. I don't know why Valkyrie hasn't kicked Thor's ass yet. Maybe she's too busy running things. I wonder if Valkyrie and Nat are talking. I bet they are. I bet they respect each other.

I also like how fanon says that noobmaster69 is really Loki trolling Thor via videogames. Otherwise, the idea of the God of Thunder threatening a teenager is terrible, not funny. It's much better for everyone if it's Loki.

I'm not sure how they get from quantum stuff to time travel, except Plot. I think it would have been less confusing if they'd called it traveling to parallel universes from the get-go, instead of time travel that happens to create parallel universes, because it doesn't act like the standard time travel narrative. There's some meta about this in the film, but I don't think that's enough to compensate. Anyway, timey-wimey-magic-science-plot ball.

Cut to Clint Barton murdering yakuza in Tokyo. I do not like anything about this scene, or Clint. Vigilante justice is not a healthy coping mechanism. Clint pulling back his mask in the rain while Natasha is behind him with an umbrella is beautiful, and I love it. I appreciate the callbacks to Clint reaching out to Natasha when she was brainwashed by the Russians, even though I don't like where this story arc is going.

I love that everyone finally puts their heads together and realizes that the Infinity Stones have all spent an improbably large amount of time on Earth in recent years.

You can hear the smile in Nat's voice when she says "Be right back," and my heart breaks because Oh, Irony.

Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One is a treat, even though I'm mad they whitewashed the character because China complained about making the character a Tibetan (as in the comics). I like how easily she is able to separate Bruce from the Hulk, and how Bruce just sighs and tries to negotiate. Strange giving up the Time Stone is one of the weirdest parts of the last movie, and I'm glad everyone else thinks so too.

(Also, Dr. Strange is in the middle of surgery while the Chitauri are attacking New York? WOW.)

The Captain America vs. Captain America fight is great fun, if painful to watch. Also, that callback to the Elevator scene in The Winter Soldier is great, as is watching all the secret!Hydra agents file in, and Scott says what we're all thinking: "How could you give the stone to them? They LOOK evil!"

Loki getting away with the Space Stone is a wild card, and I don't know what they're going to do with it. Going to Camp Lehigh in the '70s is great on a plot level: Tony gets a chance to chat with his father, and Steve gets more magic particles to further the rest of the plot. And they get the stone, too. Right.  

Thor having one last conversation with his mother, oh my heart. Also, he stole his hammer from his past/other self... isn't that going to cause plot problems? Who cares, when we can have TWO flying hammer things in the final battle?

Peter Quill's internal monologue never looks as good from the outside. The directors seem to loath him as much as I do, meaning he is the other Butt Monkey of the party along with Scott. Rhody is genre-savvy and I approve; Nebula is an android and indifferent to personal danger.

The android bit makes things complicated when 2014!Nebula starts spilling bits of 2019!Nebula's memories. 2014!Thanos correctly identifies this as time-travelers from the future/parallel universes trying to prevent him from success. He gets to see the whole thing from 2019!Nebula's POV. I like that even though Thanos is dead in the main timeline/original universe, a different version of him rises up to take his place.

God, Clint and Natasha go to Vormir and it's terrible. Red Skull is appropriately creepy, but the whole premise pisses me off so much. Natasha and Clint fight about who gets to jump; Natasha "wins," causing Clint and everyone else much angst. I hated this in Infinity War, and I hate it even more now. I hate that the movie goes out of its way multiple times to explain there's no way to bring her back, even as it violates causality to replace Gamora. I hate that the only way to get the Soul Stone is to play the stupid game. There ought to be a way to beat it without sacrificing someone, and even if there isn't, why is it always the female characters who get sacrificed for manpain? I knew this was coming, so it wasn't as bad as it would have been otherwise, but I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

Anyway, so they all come back, and mourn Nat. Continuous emphasis on how she's gone forever. Fuck you all, writers.

Bruce snaps to bring everybody back. He can tolerate gamma radiation. I love the line "It's like I was made for this". Bruce, honey, you're a rock star.

Tony is so freakin' specific about "bring everybody back but don't erase the last five years" because he loves his baby girl so much and cant bear that he have to lose someone himself. All kinds of logistical problems are going to happen as a result, but does he care? No! It would have been just as easy--probably easier--to snap Thanos out of existence right before the Snapture, or to allow Thor to slice off Thanos's head in time. That would also create continuity issues, but I think it would be a Stable Time Loop--and honestly, there are already so many continuity issues, I'm not sure why that would stop the writers. Anyway, I think we can all agree it would have been better if there HADN'T BEEN A FIVE YEAR TIME SKIP and maybe like six months or something, that would have been more manageable for everyone.

(and also if just Thanos is dusted and not the stones, the stones would still exist, although maybe it's for the best that they've been destroyed??)

But evil!Nebula has infiltrated the group, and opens the time machine to bring 2014!Thanos forward right after Bruce's snap brings all the dusted back. How she does this, I'm not sure exactly; is it even explained? Whatever. Plot demands it, so she does. They get Pym particles from somewhere. I don't know.

Anyway, so the Georgia car headquarters is blown to smithereens by an alien spaceship. The lake starts falling into the crater. Clint has the gauntlet with all the stones and is chased by space wolves. Thank goodness he still has exploding arrows.

Good!Nebula manages to convince new!Gamora to betray Thanos (it doesn't take much, tbh), but has to kill her evil!self. Ow. Poor Nebula gets traumatized AGAIN.

Steve wielding Mjolnir is not only a continuation of a brick joke from several movies ago, but also a Crowning Moment of Awesome. So is Dr. Strange opening the portals for everyone to show up and fight. Huge CGI battle ensures. There's no blood and everything's a mess and it's hard to keep track of everything, but man, those Chitauri bone-whale spaceships are cool. Carol Danvers knows how to make an entrance. Peter Parker is awkward and endearing, as per usual. Instant Kill Mode gets a workout.

Wanda attacking Thanos is heartbreaking. "I don't know you." "You took everything from me." HEY TONY, UNDOING THE SNAP THE WAY YOU INSISTED THEY DO IT MEANS VISION IS NEVER COMING BACK! Poor Wanda. I liked Vision. I'm sorry he's gone.

Thanos’s remark that next time he’ll make it so nobody remembers the horror of the Snap and they’ll be grateful to him and stop fighting it is truly horrifying. The Thanos in the first part seemed really resigned to dying, and it’s such a contrast. Thanos is right, of course--he would have gotten away with it “if it weren’t for those meddling kids” and the best way to prevent that is to re-write the universe to Make It So. 

Thanos is such a smug, priveleged dudebro. Have I mentioned I hate him? I fucking hate him. He’s like the epitome of Smug Male Privilege crossed with Galactic Warlord. In some ways he’s the galactic foil to Tony Stark, which makes it all the more fitting that Stark is the one to take him down. Thanos is willing to sacrifice his loved ones for his vision of reality, and Tony fights to preserve them, even when it would be “better” not to. (I put “better” in quotes because I freely admit it’s a moral grey area with the whole “five year time skip” thing.) Stark starts off alone, and then dies surrounded by friends and loved ones; Thanos starts off with an army and a family and dies defeated and alone, twice over.

Stephen Strange holding back the waterfall--and gesturing to Tony across the battlefield--both great. "If I tell you, it won't happen." Anti-self-fullfilling prophecy, which amuses me. When all hope is lost, Tony reveals he has the stones and delivers the ultimate one-line--"I am Iron Man" before he snaps. Tony could have snapped for <i>anything</i>, he had ultimate power in that moment, but all he does is turn Thanos and his army into dust. Of course, Thanos is the last one to go, because it's more Dramatic that way.

Tony dies. Pepper gently but firmly pushes Peter out of the way. Peter Quill meets Gamora and Gamora kicks him in the nuts, unimpressed. I know she and Quill will probably get back together in later movies and it will annoy me then just as much as it did before, because he's so much cooler than he is. I had to stop watching the first GotG film because of all the ass shots of Gamora; ugh.  

Everyone is appropriately sad and Tony's funeral at the Georgia lakehouse is very well attended in neatly thematic groupings. Nick Fury watches from the porch.

Have I mentioned how much I hate the "posthumous letter from emotionally constipated father figure that makes the audience and his loved ones cry, but which absolves him from any actual emotional development or growth" trope? It happens in the Stranger Things S3 finale and it happens here. Thanks, I hate it. Morgan Stark is cute and sad. God, Happy annoys me so much. I've hated him ever since he was so fucking condescending to "Natalie Rushman"--Natasha's alter ego in Iron Man 2. GOD. There is no justice here.

Steve volunteers to fulfill Bruce's promise to the Ancient One by returning all the stones. (It’s sweet how earnest Bruce is about this. I mean, Bruce has always cared about preserving the universe, even ones he doesn’t necessarily live in, but still. I find it endearing.) The movie doesn't say, but judging from the looks that Bucky and Steve give each other before Steve leaves, Bucky already knows what Steve is planning - to go the long way home and to give the shield to Sam. Bucky also knows where to look for Steve - on the bench by the lake. Still in Georgia; they got lots of tax credits for filming in Georgia, I will never be able to see this place as anywhere but Georgia.

Sam taking the shield breaks my heart, but in a good way. Nice set up for Falcon and Winter Soldier, I see what you did there, Disney.

The movie did an okay job of reminding people that Peggy existed by having Steve gaze longingly at her portrait in the locket and by staring at her through the window when he was at Camp Lehigh in the 1970s. Still, I don't blame fans for forgetting about her, given that she hasn't been a major character since The First Avenger, and died in Civil War. Both Bucky/Steve and Steve/Nat interactions are fresher in audience's minds - even Steve/Agent 13, although I guess that was just a side plot that didn't go anywhere.

Steve staying on through time the long way would make a LOT more sense if the time travel in this film worked like other time travel movies, but it's not, so it's just kind of weird. Literally, if it weren't for this ONE THING, I think the writers could have gotten away with "parallel universes" instead of time travel--especially since there's a 2014!version of Gamora around! How did Thanos do the snap the first time if his 2014!self jumped forward to 2019 and got killed there "before" he did the snap? It makes NO SENSE unless you assume the Quantum Realm takes you to identical-but-parallel universes instead of the past of the original universe.

(Yes, I KNOW Bruce says time travel doesn't work like you think it does--but I'm not sure it works the way this MOVIE thinks it does, either. Like I said, parallel universes all the way, except for the Steve 'n' Peggy bit.)

Also, I know Peggy gets married, but we never learn her husband’s name/see his face as far as I know, so it’s entirely possible Steve DID create a stable time loop by traveling back to the 1940s after his ship went down in the ice, and married Peggy and stayed out of the historical record to avoid Breaking Time any further.

So, while I can't say Steve's decision to go back for that dance wasn't foreshadowed enough, or is inconsistent with one version of his character arc, it pains me from a shipping perspective. I like Steve/Peggy, but I really love Steve/Nat, and there's no reason Steve couldn't have gone back in time and gotten together with Nat in the same way it's implied he got together with Peggy. The fact that he doesn't mention her name just makes it easier for my shipper heart to believe. (Because if he says Nat, Sam's going to make fun of him.)

Also: Steve meets Red Skull on Vormir. Please. I know there are fics about this, but still. I know the movie is three hours long, but this seems like a terrible omission, even so. Just saying. Maybe a special extra bonus scene??

AND WHY CAN'T STEVE BRING NAT BACK IF HE RETURNS THE SOUL STONE?? Over and over again, they say "A soul for a soul"-- so if Steve returns the Soul Stone he should get a soul back, am I right, am I right? COULD YOU FUCKING BE CONSISTENT, WRITERS?

(Can you tell I'm bitter? No? No? Let me shout some more then.) 

I’m also not sure how the super-soldier serum works with aging, but I’m willing to buy that it doesn’t make Steve immune to normal aging - or at least gave him a lifespan twice that of most people, unless you want to chalk the first fifty years or so up to the ice or whatever. But that’s a minor world-building quibble at best.

Okay, so that was Avengers: Endgame. Glad I didn't see this in theaters -- I would have gotten too angry and too long for me to watch in one sitting without having to get up to pee. I think I would describe it as "adequate" --covered all the major beats, followed the standard scriptwriter format, some fun character moments. Very Obviously Written By Men based on its portrayal of family life and treatment of female characters, and the time travel makes no sense if you look closely at it.

But let's face it, it made bajillions of dollars, so as far as Disney's concerned, it was a home run.

So would I watch more Marvel films? The answer is, yes, maybe, but I feel so "meh" about the MCU now that Nat is dead. I'll make decisions on a case by case basis about what movies I watch on DVD after their release, but I'm not getting my hopes up I'll feel excited. There's always fic and fandom; I just don't know if canon has anything to say that interests me anymore. (Kinda how I feel about new Star Wars to be honest.)

[canaryatlaw]

alright. so today was overall pretty good. I woke up to my alarm at 10:15 because I was scheduled to get a call from the DV clinic about potentially interning there for a while at 10:30. So I more or less just got myself to wake up until they called. It was fine, mostly what I knew already, going over what the responsibilities would be and how I could get to court and all that good stuff. I was going to ask if there was a possibility it would lead to a long term job, but I was never given the opportunity to ask questions lol which I’m sure was an accidental oversight on their part, but they did say that they hoped to have all their hiring done by the end of June, so that sounded somewhat promising. I told them I’d keep them updated about news on the New York job and how that may affect me going back to NY, but I could potentially work through the end of June. So that was good. After the call I tried to go back to sleep because I’m lazy and I like sleep, but it wasn’t happening, so I got up and made blueberry pancakes being that I was out of m&ms and other suitable chocolate substitutes. I tried to make the batter a little thicker than I had previously so it would be able to support the blueberries more and not just fall apart, and it worked pretty well and there weren’t any uncooked middle parts which is generally my fear with thicker batter so that I was pleased about. I had cut down on how much batter I actually made, so it only made about three small to medium sized pancakes but that was a solid breakfast. After eating I decided I should get a jump on going to the store since I had the phone interview later, so I got ready and grabbed my cart and walked down to the grocery store. Just stocking up on some essentials like eggs and milk and getting some random stuff (like more m&ms) I needed for one reason or another. Didn't take too long, got checked out and the cashier gave me 17 of the little monopoly game pieces, which I’m pretty sure was way too many for how much I actually bought, but I mean I wasn’t complaining lol. Idk if I’ve mentioned it before, but the grocery store in connection with a bunch of other grocery stores in different states is doing the huge monopoly give away game like the one they did at McDonald’s a million years ago if you remember that, you get game pieces based on how much you spend, and each little piece has 4 property pieces, and if you get all the property pieces for a certain section of the monopoly board you win a prize. So she gave me 17 of them (I counted) and they had 4 each in them, which means I now had 68 new game pieces lol. I got back from the store and started to work on putting my civil rights final info together (as in what to take into the open book final). I had tried to upload some outlines to the outline depot site I was talking about so I could download some, but the ones I had hadn’t been approved yet, so I figured I’d wait until tomorrow to see if they can get approved so I could get the outline. Otherwise I could pay $20 for it, which kind of seems like a lot, but in reality it’s in line with what Quimbee and such would charge for their outlines. Once I had established that, I went through my case briefs and did some editing, just so everything lined up all nice and pretty and deleted some extraneous information, and I managed to cut it down from 66 pages to 58, so that was good. I then added page numbers to the table of contents I had made for each section and case. Once I had all that done I printed both docs, which took a lot of printing obviously, the amount of trees I’ve killed in the name of open book exams is....plentiful, at this point. I pulled a binder out of my closet (where everyone keeps their binders, you know) along with the massive three hole punch I acquired somewhere along the way (love that thing) and set it all up in the binder. At 4 I got the phone call for the longer phone interview, which ended up lasting about 50 minutes. Lots of questions, most of them going along the lines of “can you give me an example of a time when blah blah blah” meaning I had to come up with a story and I am the worst at doing that, but I feel like i managed to come up with mostly true stories, and the more fabricated ones were at least based on fact, so I was more or less satisfied with that. They said the next step was they were going to select like 2 or 3 final candidates and have them interview with their full team, so we’ll see where it goes with that. not gonna lie, I have somewhat of a feeling of dread regarding the job, just because I’m worried that I would be bored out of my mind, but I mean, it’d be a job and it’d be here, which is good....I have mixed feelings, obviously. but we’ll have to see where that goes. Hopefully I’ll have an answer on the NY job before I hear back from them so I’ll at least have a better idea of where I stand with that. After the phone call I spent an absurdly long time putting all the monopoly pieces on the board, lol. The game has been going on for months now, so I have like 3 out of 4 pieces for a lot of the different prize spaces, but of course the thing is they make 3 of them fairly common and just make very few of the last one. But hey, it’s fun, so it’s all good. When I finished up with that I looked at remedies flashcards for about 5 minutes before deciding I wanted to bake cupcakes instead. I had the cake mix I bought last week, but I wasn’t exactly wanting to bake 24 cupcakes, so I decided to get clever divide the necessary ingredients to make a smaller portion. the recipe called for 3 eggs, and since you can’t really divide eggs as well as other ingredients, I figured I’d do 1/3 of the recipe, so 8 cupcakes. so I used my super handy kitchen scale to weigh the cake mix (it was 15.6 oz) and then measure out 1/3 of that (5.2 oz), then mix it with one egg, and a third of the amounts of oil and water. A few times previously I had tried some of the pinterest suggestions for making boxed cake mixes better, mainly like add an extra egg, swap the oil for melted butter and double it (no, really) and use milk instead of water, but in my experience the cake would come out of the oven looking really great and puffy, then literally right away it would just shrink into it self and not be fluffy at all, lol. it still tasted great, but felt kinda heavy, so I decided to not do that. I had to run out of my building and get my amazon package off the front porch, because I had just ordered a new cookie dough scoop since I managed to somehow break my old one, which wasn't actually working well at all anyway, so that wasn’t much of a loss. But I used the scoop to divide out the batter, which was fairly mess free and worked well. Box said 12-17 minutes for cupcakes, I checked after 12 and they were good to go, so I let them cool while I ate some dinner. I had grabbed a rotisserie chicken from the store earlier and had stowed it in the oven for a while so it stayed warm, then kind of ate some of it throughout the afternoon. By the time I sat down in front of the tv it was 7:20, at which point I realized Supergirl started 20 minutes ago and I’m very bad at this whole watching tv shows live thing. So I started the episode from the beginning. It was interesting, probably one of the better episodes lately, so that’s good. The Sam and Lena stuff is getting very interesting, and I know I said this last week but everything Lena is doing is so VERY Luthor, not even in an evil way, but like Lex would do very similar things on Smallville long before he turned evil and back when he was actually a good guy. It’s just very in tune with how their family handles things. I feel so bad for Sam. she’s in such a hard position of course, and I feel like one way or another this season is gonna end in heartbreak. The Supergirl and Imra stuff I was kinda meh on, mostly because I don’t fully agree with Kara’s no kill policy, like if you can avoid it sure but it’s not always going to be avoidable and I could definitely see where Imra was coming on this one. Mon-El was meh, but what else is new. But yeah, overall not bad. I went straight into watching The Resident afterwards, which churned out another excellent episode. ah, it was all just so good with them dealing with their colleague who was suddenly in a dire state, and how they worked so hard to find the actual best way to save him. I totally loved the subplot with Mina and the new doctor, I love Mina so fucking much haha she’s totally brilliant and she knows it and I LOVE HER SO MUCH. That plot was pure hilarity, I very much hope the doctor guy chooses to stick around. All of the stuff with Nic was getting pretty creepy, but we’ve known that was the direction they were heading in since they’re up to some super sketchy stuff. The whole grocery confrontation thing was.....weird, very weird, but I guess it served its purpose of being creepy. After that I tried to get my roommate’s apple tv to work so I could watch Westworld, but it was not cooperating, so I decided to frost the cupcakes instead. I had gotten an icing bag a while back I wanted to try using, but it was being uncooperative and not letting me actually get the icing to the tip of it and I eventually just gave up and iced one cupcake by hand and figured I’d get to the rest of them when I actually want to eat them. So I ate the cupcake and some frosting out of the can because that shit’s good. I didn't want to jump into a long GoT episode, so I watched more of A Series of Unfortunate Events just as a filler show even though it hasn’t been my favorite lately. I think it somewhat has to deal with me not liking Neil Patrick Harris in this role?? Like I’ve always liked him before this but in this show he just kinda grates on me, and not in the way that like a good villain was, he just feels kind of ridiculous to me, even in a show that contains a lot of ridiculousness, it’s just not working for me. I do love the kids of course, they’re brilliant and lovely and even though I know this is the entire premise of the show I feel myself growing increasing frustrated that they still don’t have a safe place to live, which again I KNOW is the point of the show, but like, it’s getting old for me. So we’ll see how much longer I end up sticking with the show. After an episode of that I started to get ready for bed and now I’m here. Tomorrow I have an “evaluation” appointment with a new PT guy at a new PT place (it’s the same company as my old one, and it’s not even very far apart, they’re literally referred to as the [neighborhood name] North and [neighborhood name] South clinics, so it’s not that big of a change really. I’m getting moved to this one because they apparently have a person trained in the type of PT the doctor wanted me to try, so I guess we’ll see what comes of this. I should be doing better with my home exercises, so maybe this will help motivate me with that. and yeah, other than that I’ll hopefully get a civil rights outline and prep the rest of my stuff for the final on Wednesday, should be good. Alright, that’s all for now. Goodnight peeps. Stay chill.

[schlockvalue-blog]

Schlock Value, Issue #2: Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012)

Step over Speilberg and fuck off Jaws, your shit may be all classic and shit but bro, it ain’t got the abs this bitch is packin’.

An underwater mining exercise sends shockwaves through the water and calling a bunch of red eyed albino sharks of constantly changing design out of a cave barely dick deep in the waters off the coast of Jersey Shore, calling out like a proud stay at home mom that dinner’s ready, and Italian and silicon is on the menu.

This shit kicks off with as much patience as the cast has for keeping their shirts on — introducing the lip pouting cast with not a shred of subtlety. Winks and nudges all around as the filmmakers elbow you in the ribs for the next fifteen minutes, proudly spouting quick “Aye? Aaaaaye?” The lead Gueidette of this motley crew rocking up early with a license plate reading “Nooki”. Subtle is hardly the name of the game though, it’s all on display — literally — as the dude are muscle bound and the chicks ‘muscles’ less bound…“Aye? Aaaaaye?”.

Nooki kicks off confronting her skeezing ex-boi, “The Complication” (Aaaaaye?) the night after what this white suburban boy can only assume was a maaaaan rager bro. Red cups ahoy. Setting up a Boiz vs Bitches dynamic that spans most of the film. The Complication and his boiz Donnie and Balzac just want to enjoy waxing each other up, flexing all day and solving their need for some “serious A.S.S.: Alcohol, Sun, and Sex”. A noble venture. God speed boiz. The babes on the other hands are all about gettin’ their independent girl power on, proving they don’t need no man. Jersey Shore Shark Attack, tackling the big issues. Herein lies one massive fucking fuck up of the film. Not a single one of the Jersey Shore ripoff characters gets turned into chum by the horde of sharks turning their shore into a buffet. Let’s just rip that bandaid off early. See now, who the fuck is watching this not hoping to tune in and see Guido mince meat sprayed across their screen? The film makes a blatant attempt to humanise the meathead parade that makes up the cast of characters so I guess it’s aiming for cinema loving Guids out there (is that an actual thing?) but it’s also so incredibly obvious that it’s a piss take at the same time, poking fun at every aspect of Guido party life that its real life, shark-less) TV counterpart that you’d think it was giving every hater of the show their dream of seeing a Snooki wannabe get ripped apart from ass to the tip of her overly styled hairdo. Dear movie, MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND! This isn’t “The Misunderstood Souls of The Jersey Shore: A Lifetime Channel Special Edition” it’s JERSEY FUCKING SHORE SHARK ATTACK. Get with the program. Gimme silicon tits flying left right and centre! Is that too much to ask for?

Apparently so.

The shark attack portion of the title ain’t left for late though (thank fucking christ) as possibly the only pale skinned Italian in the entire cast — clearly some dude with a bad accent, a wife beater, slicked hair and given a cigarillo for a prop to complete the flawless and totally convincing transformation — gets offedby the freshly uncaved albino snappers while fishing in a dingy maybe two meters from the shore in. Why the asshole needed to be in a boat is a question for the screenwriter (I’m sure it had nothing to do with plot convenience).

The whole beach is going off in preparation for the arrival of the films token…*ahem*…‘celebrity’ cameo — former NSYC ‘not Justin Timberlake, one of the other guys’ guy, Joey Fatone. An excitement you better get used too because the film crams itself every ten minutes with a quick reminder in case you forgot you bought it in at least partial hope of seeing the NSYC alumni get his ass chomped by a bad CGI shark at some point. Spoiler alert, he does, almost immediately after being introduced (late) in the film. So we might not get Snooki or any of the 28 collective abs in the film gets chomped, we at least get that. Gee golly gosh.

The film spends a large portion of its early part half occupied with what it assumes is a ‘story’, trading blood and guts for a power struggle between the ever partying Guids and the sweater vest wearing, double collar popping, four syllable speaking, private school yacht club douches across the way. I swear, if Jersey Shore Shark Attack weren’t one of the best titles you could ever see staring back at you; in some distribution house somewhere out there, someone would have suggested releasing the film under the title of Guido’s vs Yuppies vs Sharks…not bad…I might have to copyright that. The good guys look like the musclebound bro bad guys from any other film and the bad guys are portrayed as assholes because they don’t want to listen to club music every second of the day. So, again, who the fuck is this thing supposed to be for? Cause I’m on Team Shark here. It’s hard to get behind walking wannabe cannon fodder with single digit IQs who use words like “drowneded”. You’ll be praying the whole cast gets their arses ripped out their mouths the moment they step on screen, and that they take the script with them.

The battle of the sexes enters a ceasefire when one of the many disposable and interchangeable bronzer snuffing pieces of cannon fodder washes up on shore. In a feat of literary originality, the mayor refuses to shut down the beach and The Complication’s father — the local Sheriff — doesn’t believe his son, seeing his actions as further proof of his disappointment in life — gee, wonder if that’ll resolve itself by the end of the film. Subplot ahoy. It all leaves our main pack of Guidos to take it upon themselves to hunt down the pigment deprived sea evil using fireworks and protein bars as bait. They also try to steal one of the ‘bad guy’ yuppies yachts “because he’s a douche” before Balzac fumbles one of the fireworks and blows the whole thing up (tell me again why we’re supposed to like these guys?).

At its core Jersey Shore Shark Attack is a Guido love story with a mayoral conspiracy giving the old reach around and wrapped up in just enough shark attacks to give its title enough credence. Everyone’s more pre-occupied with their own shit and getting occasionally distracted by a corpse or two. The climax of the film only comes in the midst of the customary blood letting beach side massacre when the head of the Yacht club tries to pull one over on the Guids by seducing Nooki and convincing her to join him and the his botchi loving conga line of talking pastel sweaters on a yacht out at sea for a party. The Complication reaches his character arc and realises he loves her (oh and y’know, that they need to take care of the sharks once and for all) and rounds up the Ab Club, stealing another boat and heading out to play cockblock while armed to the teeth with automatic rifles (and, I assume, more protein bars. After all; “Nothing’s going to resist 25 grams of power packed peanut butter crunch.”)

They shoot, pout and even nose kick the sharks on their way to rescue the yuppies and Nooki onboard their boat — which, of course, is broken down out of phone reception range — before returning to shore to save everyone from the shark attack which apparently a trained police department could handle on their own. Not enough protein in their diet I suppose. It all ends with hugs, cheers of “GUIDOS! GUIDOS!”, mended father son relationships — even though The Complication is still no less a party and gym obsessed meathead who will never leave the Jersey Shore. But hey, he does make peace with the yuppies, even though they just tried to revenge bang his girlfriend and gave off the impression that there was a roofie or two in her future if Plan-A went sour. But hey, water under the bridge right?

Jersey Shore Shark Attack is about as intelligent a parody as the dense fuckers it’s populates itself with. Every ounce of self aware writing makes you wonder if they themselves got the joke because other than The Complication and Nooki, the rest of the characters assume the completely pointless position reserved for cannon fodder to give people expecting some kind of delivery on the title and yet not a single person you want to see die actually dies. Hell, only once is any of them vapid “wait, what’s her name again” characters in any peril. The only other time anything happens is when Nooki’s trapped in the sinking boat, with a shark ripping its way through the hull, at the end of the movie in a scene replicated in damn near every other shark movie ever made and trust me, you’re rooting for the shark to get just a liiiiiitle closer. Just one more inch. Just rip off a leg! Just one goddammit. ANYTHING!

Drunk with a group of friends and a shameless love of self flagellation and if nothing else you’ll probably get a kick out of screaming at the screen for everyone to die. *Sigh* the love of communal hatred.