Back alley reporting
April Fifteenth, aka the day after Valentine's day. Yesterday Odovaucer posted an eloquent (albeit incorrect) update on how to make Valentine's Day work for you. In this update I'm going to dispel some myths that he's made the mistake of spreading and explain to you exactly why Valentine's Day is the most worthless holiday in the history of worthless holidays (even more worthless than Boxing Day).

However before I begin I'd like to tell you a few things about myself. First off I'm not posting an angry hate-filled rant against females; I don't need a special excuse to do that. If I was doing that, this update would have started with "You know what sucks? Women." Secondly, this update has nothing to do with my lack of a girlfriend. In fact I broke up with my girlfriend once I discovered the truth (about Valentine's Day and the fact that the world is run by the Vaginocracy).

The truth you see, is a dark secret shrouded in mystery, a dark secret Hallmark doesn't want you to know about. Yes, everyone says Valentine's Day is a Hallmark holiday, but what does that really mean? I bet you the average Joe would tell you that it's a holiday made up to sell more Hallmark cards. Suffice to say the average Joe doesn't have a fabulously well-paying job writing for a free weblog. The real meaning of that saying can be dated as far back as 1912.

We all know that Joyce Hall founded Hallmark Cards, but what we don't know is that he was bitten by a vampire in 1912. Immortal and now fueled by blood rage Joyce Hall had only one source of sustenance: hobos. Convinced that there must be a better way he began to try and slowly pervert holidays to fit in with his more diabolic needs.

As he would find in the coming years however, many mainstream holidays had already been taken over by the far more powerful werewolves, ghosts, and tiny robotic men. Disheartened and depressed he went on a killing rampage, slaughtering more hobos than anyone had ever slaughtered before. The history books of course recorded this as an economic boom, "Unemployment goes down!" were the headlines of the time. Once Hall finally calmed down he discovered that the answer was staring him in the face.

His blood rage having taken him to a local library to feast on hobos, Hall now found himself in front of a book that might very well hold the key to his salvation (whatever salvation is available to vampires, that is): "The Life and Times of St. Valentine." Suddenly he had a plan. You see, at that time in history very few people attached any real significance to Valentine's Day. Tired of Schnapps-flavored blood and always having had a sweet tooth, Hall used the money he had accumulated from his current selection of cards ("Get well soon", "Happy Birthday", and "Sorry for sucking your blood") and poured it into the media slowly perverting the holiday.

Years later millions of brainwashed consumers buy cards extolling the virtues of love and candy, get a sugar high off of chalky faux-hearts, and then do it like rabbits. In their weakened state Hall and his vampire family slink into their homes and come out with what can only be described as "Vampire Candy". Well fed they return to their cavernous caverns to sleep for another year only to repeat the cycle again.

And that is why I do not support Valentine's Day or anything that has anything to do with it. And while you may laugh at this and call me a crazy cook, next time you wake up on February 15 with your loved one nowhere to be found, you should remember this: it's not her handwriting on that suicide note.


And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.
- posted by Andrew @ 10:51 PM (0) comments

 
VD Doesn't Have to Be a Social Disease
Today was Valentine’s Day.* Now let’s assume for the moment that you have a lover this fine Valentine’s Day. Whatever are you going to do for your lover? Buy roses and chocolate? Sexy underwear? A teddy bear? Maybe even something a little more personal?

Seems a little farfetched, doesn’t it? Lemon Party readers with girlfriends? Yeah, right. And if you think that’s a tough one to buy, try wrapping your head around the idea of not only a female reader, but one socially well-adjusted enough to ensnare a boyfriend. If that’s not absurd enough for your tastes, how about homosexual readers in stable relationships?

So it seems I’ve misjudged my audience. None of you had romantic plans on Valentine’s Day, so why should I bother writing about it for you? My logic is that one day you may overcome your natural shortcomings and find yourself a woman who’ll love you who doesn’t answer to “Mom.”

Something tells me that’s a long way away, but you never know. Bitterly lonesome lifelong bachelor turtle_07 has, over the years, made more than a passing acquaintance with the opposite sex. Still, we’re going to work with baby steps for now. One day I’ll write you a comprehensive guide to getting emotionally involved, but for now we’re going to go with a simplified model, one fit for a Valentine’s Day update on the only worthwhile blog on the Interwebnation Superhighway.

Step 1: Make Internet Friends

Since you managed to find your way here you seem to have at least a rudimentary understanding of the Internet. With that newfound power you can find communities of likeminded people, no matter what that mind of yours is like. Fond of little boys? Try out NAMBLA.org. A college student? How about Facebook? A film snob might check out IMDb, a retarded chimpanzee might be entertained by Fark, a fan of RPGs or TCGs might want cruise by Wizards.com, and an overanalytical music listener might be at home at SongMeanings.net. Regardless of your particular niche or niches you’ll find people just like you, who are the easiest sort of folk to befriend.

Step 2: Make Real Friends

Of course everyone knows that Internet relationships are cold and pointless, so you’ll have to pick some friends “IRL” at some point if you ever want to integrate into that scary place where people comb their hair over their eyes or wear half a dozen Livestrong bracelets up their forearms. Don’t be put off by their peculiar fashion choices and disarming self-confidence: they’re no more intelligent or worthwhile than you. Don’t try to make friends with them though (unless you happen to be one of them). Your first real friends should be just like your first Internet friends. In fact they can sometimes be the same people. Of course, if you actually arrange a rendezvous with someone you met over the Internet I cannot be held responsible for any nonconsensual sexual acts that may ensue.

Step 3: Make Female Friends

Okay, so you’ve developed a cadre of likeminded individuals that you might call your friends. Now what? Well, you can sit at this step as long as you like, as you’ve know attained a status that allows you to venture out into the direct sunlight without the terrible shame of being alone. You’ve got your friends, your crew, your posse. They’ve got your back, and you’ve got theirs. The next step, my friend, is to expand your posse to include pussy. This is quite possibly the most difficult step since it’s almost impossible for your Internet friendships to be with girls. Sometimes this step can be achieved through the aid of females in your family or through a connection made in class or at work thanks to the increased self-confidence of having friends. These scenarios pale in comparison to a situation out of your control. Most of the time one’s first female friends are simply friends-of-friends or girlfriends-of-friends. Not everyone moves at the same pace, and not everyone starts at the same time, so eventually your circle of friends will expand to include someone whose circle had a chica or two. From here you expand slowly but surely. Most girls tend not to have many close female friends, because females are bitchy and jealous, but don’t worry; they all have networks.

Step 4: Start Dating and Hooking Up

Sometimes these newfangled “female friends” will take a liking to you, or be bullied or guilt-tripped into dating you, but don’t count on it. It does happen, but by and large the Ladder Theory is a depressingly accurate model for female behavior. Instead your most likely prey is, again, friends of friends. Especially popular are friends from out of town just staying for a week or a weekend. You, dear reader, are going to look much more attractive when she knows she won’t even have to see you again if she doesn’t want to. Stick to it though. There will be failures, but each success makes you more attractive in the eyes of her fellows (the jealous bitch thing again).

Step 5: Get a Girlfriend and Go Steady

Don’t call it going steady, or you won’t make it this far. If you have however resisted the temptation you’ll find yourself at your goal, the rarefied air of the “taken.” It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact it ends up sucking a hell of a lot more than you could ever have imagined a lot more often than you could have ever imagined. I would tell you not to let it dissuade you, but it probably should, and you won’t listen anyway. Burned once, you’ll go back for seconds and thirds and on and on until the buffet closes.


Wait a minute, you’ve got a girlfriend, and it’s Valentine’s Day! What are you going to do? Let me present you with one option, a twist on an old favorite that’s been sweeping the nation: cards. Plus, you don't even need to have a girlfriend for this one. You can send Valentine's Day cards to anyone you want.

Everybody looks down their noses at those sappy old Hallmark cards (well, obviously not everyone, since Hallmark’s still going strong), so why not subvert and detourn them? It’s witty, sensitive, and a chance to showcase your creativity. Or, if you don’t have any creativity to showcase you can head over to the Awful Forums and steal some art. Or, if you think you’re up to the task, you may want to head over just to see some examples to get the creative juices flowing. Your tools are simple: Adobe Photoshop or the equivalent, a modicum of comprehension of said image editing software, and Internet access. On the web you’ll probably have to search for base images, fonts, and Photoshop technique.

The cited threads take the cinema as their inspiration, and so shall we, at least for now. There are five styles of card that I want to discuss with you today.


One: The Textual Gag

Here we grab a quotation from your film of your choice and tack on a sappy romantic message. For example:

The benefit of this technique is that you have more flexibility in your image selection than other approaches. Pretty much any image of the character who provided the quotation will do, even if it’s not precisely the original context.


Two: The Trick Ending

A subset of the prior category, but should highlighted as a very specific approach. Here the quotation is presented virtually unchanged at the top of the image with a surprise conclusion hiding at the foot of the image.

One is great, but after the first the gimmick begins to wear thin. Use moderation.


Three: The Groan-Inducing Pun

This is again a subset of the first category, but deserves its own section. Take a word or phrase from the movie and pun on it to come up with a cheesy and saccharine-sweet (a rather peculiar culinary mixed metaphor) Valentine’s Day missive.

Traditionally one of the most rewarding cards, though also one of the most difficult to compose on short notice. Here the image generally needs to be more precise than in other textual gags, since the card is narrower in its focus.

Four: The Visual Gag

The opposite end of the spectrum from the textual gag, these are all about the image, while the text often has little or no bearing on the image’s original context. Indeed, that would be the source of the humor. It’s surprising how often a movie still gives completely the wrong impression when fitted to unexpected words.

Then again some images are pretty clearcut.


Five: Absurdist Humor

There’s a radio on my fingernail.

CAR!





And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.


*This update written while under the influence of bittersweet songs and memories.
- posted by Odovaucer @ 11:59 PM (2) comments

 
To Attempt the Unthinkable: In Defense of Uwe Boll
Not long ago it was my privilege to spend six dollars and fifty cents on admission to a screening of BloodRayne, the latest video game-based opus from director Uwe Boll. What, you haven't heard of Uwe Boll? Worry not, Wikipedia does, and the synopsis is waiting in the following paragraphs.

German auteur Uwe Boll has helmed ten films so far. The first four were German language releases that never made it past that nation's borders. In 2000 things really got rolling when he founded his own production company, Boll KG, and started working in English. He directed three micro-budget pictures that never made it to theaters, before hitting on a concept that would dominate all his his subsequent pictures. Boll discovered video games. Three video game-based movies have been released, with another in post production and at least four more in the works.

All of that is true, but none of it really gives you a sense of the man behind the lense. Uwe Boll is not a good director. Let me rephrase that. Uwe Boll is the cinema as Hitler is to the Jews. The man has apparently made it his mission to make the world's worst movies. Countless critics have observed that he does not speak the language of the cinema, but that's hardly the end of it. He doesn't seem to even speak the language of his actors. Possibly the most entertaining aspect of Boll's career is his steadfast defense of his pictures. He reads all the major film discussion websites, and, with some regularity, signs up to argue for his movies. The results are not pleasant, unless one has a taste for blood.

Boll has no fans in the traditional sense. The best compliments his films get are "so bad it's good" reviews, and comparisons to the beloved Ed Wood, long considered the worst director of all time. There doesn't seem to be anyone but Boll himself who doesn't think he should fall back on his doctorate in literate. That's right; the worst movies of the young millennium were directed by a doctor.

This is the background. Today I am going to try to write an article in support of Uwe Boll. My brief research suggests that this has never been done before. Frankly, I'm not surprised. The man is deserving of much of the criticism he's received, however there are three major points in his favor.


Point the first: His movies are profitable.

There are many people who see the cinema as an art form. I would count myself among their ranks, but one should not forget that there is another dimension to the movies, one that doesn't seem to occur to many aspiring filmmakers: the cinema is a business. Hollywood is in the business of making movies. If a movie doesn't make money it is not a success in those terms. There plenty of wonderful movies that made no money at all, which, at the end of the day, is not a good way of doing business. It's one thing to make a beautiful and moving masterpiece. It's quite another to secure financing for your next picture.

Uwe Boll is not the Picasso of 35mm. He is not the Beethoven of 35mm. Nor is he deserving of comparisons to David Lynch Sergio Leone (He has made those comparisons himself). Uwe Boll is, in short, a terrible artist. Why does he keep making movies? Because it is profitable for him to do so. It's the same reason his fellow perennial critical punching bag Michael Bay keeps churning out movies.

What separates Boll from Bay is only scale. Michael Bay has been helming summer blockbusters with budgets well past the nine digit mark. Boll's first US theatrical release, House of the Dead was made on seven million dollars and made over ten million in the US alone. Not a dramatic profit, but a noticeable one.

He's not a stupid guy, though his broken English is often enough to fool the casual listener. Take a look at this quotation on casting for BloodRayne. "They were better than actors. We looked for local Romanian actresses, but there they are all from the theater and act very broadly. For 150 euros a piece the whores would be naked and do as they were told. It was better." How's that for thinking outside the box? He got exactly what he wanted for less than many other directors would have to end up paying. Whether or not he was actually well-served by his prostitutes is open to debate; that we should praise this as shrewd moviemaking is not.

Of course the real genius of Boll's productions is that they don't have to make money to make money. German tax has a built-in loophole for films owned by German companies. The laws are such that even a movie that fails to turn a profit at the box office can be profitable to its investors. The only real cost for Boll is securing the rights to his films, and he has shrewdly gobbled up about a dozen video game properties at bargain basement prices.

There has been talk of the loophole being closed, but, at least for now, Boll still gets his tax incentive. The law has been amended to prevent American production companies from taking advantage of the tax shelter via surrogate owners (much like the minority-run businesses in America that were controlled by whites taking advantage of the system). Boll's movies are owned and produced by Germans and often even filmed in Germany. It is extremely unlikely that he'll fall off the gravy train any time in the foreseeable future.


Point the second: He has a fantastic talent for casting.

Boll has released three movies in American theatres and finished filming a fourth. Altogether they cost something in the vicinity of hundred million dollars. Every movies he's made has been universally hated by film critic and film audience alike. Yet here's a brief list of some of the star power he's been able to contract.

Burt Reynolds
Ron Perlman
Jason Statham
Ray Liotta
Jurgen Prochnow
Michael Madsen
John Rhys-Davies
Christian Slater
Academy Award-winner Ben Kingsley

Yes, that Academy Award-winning Ben Kingsley. This isn't all the big names he's secured either. I tried to highlight some of the most talented people who somehow found themselves working with the good Dr. Boll. So why are these people working with Uwe Boll, not to mention apparently doing it for less money then they could have gotten? Boll's secret is twofold. One he is said to be incredibly charismatic (it doesn't come out in any of the interviews I've seen, but a whole lot of people see it) and two, he has memory. A memory? What has a memory to do with casting? If you look closely at most of actors in the list above and the many other "big names" he's cast, you'll notice that, by and large, they are fallen stars, has-beens.

Imagine you used to be a big star commanding fat paychecks and bringing in audiences with name alone. Today you don't seem to be getting much work, and when you do it's usually just cameos. Then one day a passionate and charismatic German doctor tells you he wants you to be the star of his epic new adventure pic. Finally a chance at a comeback!

Of course it doesn't really work out that way in the end, but everywhere you turn there are more former celebrities to cast. Be honest, would you have ever been able to envision Leelee Sobieski in another movie? Of course not. We can barely remember her name, but that doesn't make her any less of a star, because, even if just barely, we do remember. As to how Jason Statham, whose career seems to be rock solid, got involved in Boll picture we have to wonder. On the other hand, the once great actor named Academy Award-winner Ben Kingsley is said to have taken the role of Kagan in BloodRayne to finally fulfill his longstanding desire to play a vampire. Congrats Benny, you did it. I don't think there's any way to retract a knighting, but if there is someone ought to look into for Sir Ben Kingsley.


Point the third: He's stated a desire to improve and shown signs of doing just that.

"Saying Uwe Boll's Alone in the Dark is better than his 2003 American debut House of the Dead is akin to praising syphilis for not being HIV." (Nicholas Schager, Slant Magazine) It is interesting to note that Schager's simile is far more appropriate than he himself seems to have recognized. To wit: HIV is incurable; syphilis is not. After watching House of the Dead one is struck by the fact that it is an unmitigated disaster. There is nothing good about it. There isn't even anything mediocre about it. It's just plain atrocious. Upon subsequent viewings it becomes clear that many of the film's problems are not due to cheap and shoddy craftsmanship, but rather to conceptual flaws. One, it is flat out impossible to make a good movie with that script. Two, Boll appears to have been trying to make an arthouse zombie flick.

What?

This is not some slapped together piece-of-shit action movie. This is actually a carefully orchestrated piece-of-shit art movie. What Boll was trying to do was trying to bring the media of video game and movie closer than they had ever been before. Think of it like Sin City.* The difference is that Sin City went about recreating the feel of the comic by translating everything to the screen as directly as possible. Nearly every panel of the comic is directly reproduced on screen. House of the Dead, on the other hand, bears no plot similarities to its predecessor. There isn't even a house for chrissakes. What there is is little to no plot or character development (a video game hallmark) coupled with a number of effects very much video game-inspired. Most obvious is Boll's use of actual in game footage during the opening credits, between scenes, and during the largest battle scene. He also makes constant use of bullet-time, and does it so as toreminiscentcent of video game cutscenes, and to top it all off, he announces each characters death with a steady image of said character as the screen fades to red. You're surprised when the movie doesn't demand that insert moremore coins.

This movie is Boll the auteur ascendant. He's being daring and not worrying so much about what people think as what will be the most interesting way to get his ideas across. Make no mistake, the movie is a colossal failure, but the intent needs to be recorded, since there was no way to save the script anyway.

After House of the Dead Boll moved on to Alone in the Dark, his syphilitic masterpiece. Alone in the Dark is also a bad movie, but it is a much better one, and one that suggests a further improvement. Gone are most of the artistic ambitions. Hstillstil trying to do neat things with bullet-time, but for the most part Boll settles down to make a commercial blockbuster. It's not a success, and he still seems fundamentally incompetent.

Unlike House though, Alone does have certifiable good points. Or rather a good point, which is the performances of its male leads, Christian Slater and Stephen Dorff. They both play arrogant posturing tough guys, but they do it right. It's all the more laudable when you consider that they did it with shitty lines, a ridiculous plot, terrible costars, and a director who doesn't seem to speak their language. Despite it all they are convincing in their one dimensional roles. That's pretty much all there is to say about Alone in the Dark: two good performances in a movie where nothing else goes right. The picture gets lost sometimes and never really makes all that much sense, but it never gets bogged down its own awfulness the way House of the Dead did. It's not a very good movie, but it could have been so, so much worse.

BloodRayne is more difficult to judge. Boll seems to have fallen into a backslide towards martisticsitc approach. He approaches the video concept from a different angle this time though. BloodRayne actually has level bosses and powerups. One reviewer scorned the movie pointedly for this conceit, but it is an interesting thought experiment. BloodRayne is an exploration of the medium of video game movies. The important thing is perhaps more the journey than the result. That is if he learns from his mistake.

BloodRayne is a step up in its action elements (the most important part of an action movie after all); the fights are more realistic feeling, the effects are better, and the staging is less ridiculous. For the first time in Boll cinema there is a segment that is genuinely cool (tempered somewhat by the realization that you're watching a level boss fight). The story also pretty much makes sense, albeit with a few exceptions here and there, and Boll has greatly expanded the scope of the picture. House of the Dead pretty much alternated between a forest and a shack, while Alone in the Dark stuck to warehouses and laboratories. BloodRayne is actually something of a sweeping epic, with a variety of distinctive feeling locales.

On the downside the acting is much worse (with the exception of Billy Zane's brief appearance), almost to House of the Dead levels, and there's a really, really silly scene that is somehow more tasteless when it isn't showing any skin. Like House of the Dead, BloodRayne labeledlled a prequel, but both movies ended up as incompatible with existing mythos as Alone in the Dark.

Uwe has given a lot of interviews in his brief time making movies for America, and unsurprisingly he's been pretty defensive about his movies. It's to be expected that you'd be protective of your babies. Yet he is willing to look for places to improve. Sure he says that he's "still happy" about Alone in the Dark and that "the only weak part...is maybe Tara Reid's acting," but he's willing also to talk about it as a learning experience. And he has learned from his failures. His pictures are improving, and he's getting more of a sense of how the cinema works. He'll never be a great director. He'll probably never qualify as a good one, but if critics are willing to judge the movies on their own merits rather than Dr. Boll's reputation I think they'll find some if not good at least acceptable ones in the coming years.


I don't know if what I've written here today has had any effect on your opinion of the good doctor Boll, or even if you knew who he was before reading this. Regardless, I think this has been a worthwhile exercise. I'll go so far as to say that I'm likely to try arguing for unpopular opinions with perhaps some degree of regularity here on Lemon Party. If you have strong feelings one way or the other you could let me know via the comment system, or then again you could choose not to.

This seems a poor note to end on, so I'll leave you with one final reason to like Uwe Boll more than you did yesterday. Here we go, straight from the horse's mouth.

"What is disappointment, disappointment for all the fans is that Tara Reid is not losing her bra but this is a typical prude U.S. err, uh, thing like uh, the actresses are not willing play nudity normally and it's very disappointing for us Europeans and for the U.S. audience I think. Good that Kristanna Loken in BloodRayne is full naked."



And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.

*Incidentally another movie that pulled down a fantastic array of names on the cheap, most likely again due to the charisma of the director and the power of his vision. Bruce Willis's salary would have most likely been about half the total cost of the production.
- posted by Odovaucer @ 3:40 AM (0) comments