NOT-SO-DEARLY DEPARTED
After it spent nearly a month on my coffee table, I finally got around to viewing my Netflix DVD rental of The Departed last night, and I’d like to report that I really enjoyed it. I say I’d like to report that, but truth be told, I was majorly disappointed with this film, which was so highly-regarded by so many people. I can see now that Martin Scorsese winning the Best Director Oscar this year had more to do with his reputation and less to do with the merits of The Departed—i.e., the win was merely a "make good" for his previous Oscar snubs.
WARNING: Spoilers contained herein—reader discretion advised if you haven’t seen the film and plan to!
If you like violent and gory shoot-‘em-ups where everybody dies and nobody wins, then you’ll love this one, but I’ve grown really weary of this genre of films—I’ve seen all this before already! Departed is basically The Godfather set in 2006 in Boston, with lots of guns, lots of blood, lots of brains blown out, lots of use of the term "guineas", and major over-use of the words fuck, fucking and motherfucker. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not offended at all by those words (I use them often myself) but do they have to be every other word in the fucking—oops—freakin’ dialogue?!? Come on Hollywood, surely you can come up with more creative lines than this, even for mafia thugs and over-zealous arrogant cops!
Anyway, very few Hollywood film clichés went unused in The Departed—you had the whole gamut of mafia histrionics, the whole good-cop/bad-cop dynamic, the obligatory (yet totally unnecessary) sex/fuck scene, drugs, dirty money, blah blah blah—been there, done that. This is one of those films that I couldn’t find any empathy for any of the characters (i.e., there was no good guy to root for), so maybe it’s just as well that they all bumped each other off after all. About the only thing I found even mildly refreshing and new was Martin Sheen being dropped from the top of a building and going splat on the pavement—it would’ve been even better if it was Alec Baldwin instead! Beyond that, there wasn’t anything special to me about this flick, and it certainly didn’t rate any Oscars in my book, apart from a pretty decent music soundtrack. Dare I use my favorite term again? OVERRATED!!!
OOPS! SHE SCREWED YOU AGAIN…
Some first-class suckers paid up to 125 Yankee dollars just to see a 15-minute Britney Spears concert last night. Fifteen minutes?!? My gawd—how did she ever manage to find the time between all her rehab stints and pub crawls? Even Forrest Gump wouldn’t have been dumb enough to pay a friggin’ dime to see this travesty, during which she probably didn’t even actually sing one bloody note, anyway—she most likely lip-synched the whole damn thing! Britney Spears is one of those unique people in the entertainment business whose initials also pretty much sum up her career. There was actually a fleetingly brief time there when I actually felt kinda sorry for Brit, thinking that she truly needed professional help and all, but it’s all-too-apparent that she’s just another insatiable attention-seeker and publicity hound who will keep the tabloids in business for years to come. Go away, Britney—your career is toast…
CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #27
"Bennie And The Jets"—ELTON JOHN (1973) "She’s got electric boots/A mohair suit…" Had to hop aboard the ol’ Way-Back Machine for this one, courtesy of a long-forgotten 4th grade classmate of mine who swore up and down that Elton was singing "She’s got electric boobs." I actually had to show him my album jacket with the lyrics in it to prove da boy wrong. However, the concept of electric boobs has a certain appeal, doesn't it? Maybe those enterprising Guinness guys on the TV commercials can come up with something for us in their laboratory—BRILLIANT!
LET'S HEAR IT FOR THOSE IVY LEAGUE BRAINS!
An academic study of NBA officiating based on 13 years' worth of box scores uncovered this earth-shattering revelation: white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players! Well, duh! The refs don't have much of a choice, being as nearly 3/4 of NBA players are black! Shockingly enough, this study was NOT conducted by the University of Hee-Haw, but rather by a University of Pennsylvania assistant professor and a Cornell graduate student. Methinks these guys have WAY too much time on their hands if they have to go out of their way like this to find racism.
WHOLE LOTTA ROSIE—STILL?
Okay, the conservatives got what they wanted—Rosie O’Donnell is leaving "The View". So, why are Bill O’Reilly and the three dimwits on Faux News Channel’s morning show, et al, still flapping their jaws about her? Ding, dong—the witch is gone! Let it go, and please move on to something else, already…
Speaking of Bill O’Rile-Up, I saw conservative airhead Michelle Malkin filling in for him the other night on "O’Reilly Factor" while he was off sexually harassing female co-workers again. I’ll say one thing for Ms. Malkin—she’s a major idiot, but she may well be the cutest major idiot I’ve ever seen…
WHILE I'M ON THE SUBJECT OF FAUX NEWS...
A memo to all morning TV news show producers: PLEASE 86 those damn windows behind your sets that allow all these yahoos on the streets of New York to wave vociferously at us during your morning programs! This is yet another annoying "innovation" which MTV instigated (for all those viewers with the attention span of a tse-tse fly) that has crept into TV news that needs to go away, not unlike that constantly-moving hand-held camera shtick that TV news tried for a while, too. It’s distracting as hell trying to watch someone deliver the news or conduct an interview while some jagoff is behind them on a cell phone waving like a Kansas wheat field during a tornado and screaming, "I’m on TV! I’m on TV!" The only useful purpose these windows might have would be if a concerned viewer does as George Carlin once suggested and lip-synchs, "I hope all you fucking lip-readers are looking in!"
IT’S WHAT’S UP-FRONT THAT COUNTS
One of my all-time favorite jokes—Q: What’s the difference between the Lawrence Welk Orchestra and a moose? 
A: Well for one thing, a moose has its horns in the front and its asshole in the rear!
No comments:
Post a Comment