http://www.rock106.ca

The above image is a quote that I’ve been mulling over for awhile. Adele saying that she doesn’t make music for eyes but for ears has some practical errors but it also has some ideological ones as well.

Whether Adele (who I always want to pronounce ah-dell-AY for some reason) knows it or not, you really can make music for the eyes. It’s the same way that a master chef can make food for the eyes or how Febreeze can make a scent for the eyes.

Or a taste of the ear, right Mike?

Image, dear Steinman, counts for a whole lot in the entertainment industry. ESPECIALLY in the entertainment industry. What you look like, what you do, where you go, your respect for authority and a good deal of other factors contribute to how you’re viewed by the general public.  It’s been true long before movie stars and rock stars started showing up in newspapers and tabloids. And it’s especially important when you’re representing a group of people – they want to know that most if not all of what you do aligns with their values.

I know I’m less inclined to listen to the Justin Bieber even before I listen to his terrible music. No matter how slowed down it is. I know this because of the way he’s presented and because of the people that listen to him. It’s all a part of the image. You can already picture the rocker dads that listen to the new Van Halen stuff or Chickenfoot because of the way they look or even just their age.

Which brings us back to Ah-dell-AY. She makes music for ears. She might even mean that she makes music for ears. But even by saying that she makes music for ears, she’s not making music only for ears anymore. I would go so far as to say that doing that is impossible. Making any kind of statement about what you do innately changes it in the eyes of your consumers regardless of whether they’re fans of the music you make or devourers of the food you cook.

So what does it mean when Ah-dell-AY says that she makes music for ears? That either she wants to believe that she does or that she wants you to believe that she does or both. That’s her target market – people who want to believe that music can be made without all the flashy, sometimes gaudy, production that a lot of pop music gets today. People who want to believe that a person can be beautiful without getting Photoshopped into a two-dimensional figure. Hell, lookit Ah-dell-AYs eyes

Can't... look... away...

See how the left one is a little bigger than the right? That’s something that can be easily removed with Photoshop (it’s probably been a little altered anyways) but it was left in for this picture. Because SHE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT! SHE’S ABOUT THE MUSIC NOT THE LOOKS! SHE’S LIKE YOU AND ME!! Nothing that can be considered genuinely ugly, but something to show she’s real and honest. Just little flaws like you’d find in handmade dishes.

Adele hopes that you’ll see her face and be reminded that her music comes from the heart.

There’s nothing really wrong with it. Every musician you hear has varying degrees of image grooming from Ah-dell-AY to Chickenfoot to Corb Lund to Skrillex to Johnny Cash to System of Down to Justin Bieber. It’s simply common practice.

So next time someone says something like ‘making music for the ears’ or ‘music that cuts through the bullsh*t’ or any number of cliches, remember it’s all part of how they want to define themselves and how they want you to see them.

What type of dining set defines you as a person?

Today is Friday and that means a lot of things to a lot of people. The main thing it means to me is I’m left wondering how best to get motivated.

It’s a challenge, no doubt. The weekend is minutes (many, many minutes) away and you can almost taste that sweet moment when you get home. You know the one – you waltz in, close the door (probably) and immediately take off your pants! And you won’t get fired for it if you do it at home. I wonder if strippers put pants ON when they get home…

As for me, I find one of the best ways to deal with the complete lack of motivation is to face it head on. And by face it head on, I mean give in to it completely.

Go ahead. Play those kamikaze birds until you burst like a green hog. Browse the internet at your leisure. Because, really, everyone else is too. There’s the odd Friday you have to work on some project the boss needs IMMEDIATELY or on some ridiculous deadline but c’mon. What can’t wait ’til Monday? This is the day of slacking off. Especially in the summer time when it’s hotter than the devil’s… well just when it’s really hot. No one wants to be working right now and anyone who tells you that you should be working is just angry that they have to and you’re not. Revel in the glory! Lord your relaxation over others!

Whenever you get around to it.

For the record this has nothing to do with non-hallucinogenic marijuana but almost the opposite of it.

I’m looking at drugs to fix your morality. Drugs that’ll make you a better person by calming your anger, making you more cool and collected – and an all around better citizen.

The problems here are obvious, as seen in science fiction all over the place. Evil governments, accidental poison, a lot of beige coloured uniforms; we all know where it’s going. But let’s play make believe for fun and say that they actually made a drug that would make us better and more moral creatures. Even then it’s STILL impossible to get a perfect society or perfect world.

It’s a fun question to ask whenever anyone brings up concepts of right, wrong, good and evil. It really is a matter of perspective. What’s good depends largely on who’s point of view we’re seeing things from. And when deciding on a perfect world, who do you want in charge of deciding what’s right for everyone?

And that’s where things get tricky. Just like we are all our own unique and delicate snowflake, we all have different ideas on how the world should be. Sure some of the more basic things we have agreements on – it’s socially right to hate Nazis for example – but when we get into the gray area, we get messy. It’s one of those “should a man be punished for stealing bread to feed his family” kind of things. Only, in this case, it’s “should a man have his emotions repressed with drugs”.

For extra fun, think about Prozac/Zoloft and Ritalin. Drugs that exist and are in used to control people’s emotions to bring them to a more socially acceptable level. We’ve clearly approve the use of these drugs and even if you stick your nose in the air and say “Oh I don’t approve of those” you haven’t done anything to stop it and that means you approve! So we’re already on the slippery slope. At what point is too much drugs too much drugs?And it’s a little bit important to think about it beforehand. If you’ve already reached the too much drugs point, you’re already too doped up to do anything about it.

And then only solutions for the modern computer can save you!

Some universities are mired in old traditions and secret societies. Some are all bleeding edge methods and classrooms without boundaries.

Some show you a woman masturbating on the teachers desk.

It wasn’t a prank or a protest or anything like that, it was supposed to be educational. It was a demonstration for psychology professor John Michael Bailey’s human sexuality class. And the only reason it took place at all was because the people who put on the demonstration had seen a video that the class had watched concerning female orgasms and thought it wasn’t very realistic.

Because it’s sexual in nature this demonstration already feels like there should be a massive controversy surrounding it. Really though, it’s not something that you can generate a whole lot of controversy about without taking on the entire university art department in a fight over censorship.

At worst I can only really say this was a little silly. The rough approximation is that 12% of internet websites are pornographic and while you can almost guarantee that porn won’t depict realistic experiences we can figure that somewhere out in this horrible atrocity we call the internets there’s a genuine female orgasm. What I’m saying is that a live demonstration is not really something that was required. But hey the demonstrator is an exhibitionist and most universities will let you get away with most anything so why not?

And it’s not like anyone was locked into the demonstration either. Someone’s mother even stayed around to watch. But like I said, it involves ssssssex so that means it’s worth media attention because people will listen.

So why are we really here at this blog post? Because this article is hilarious. Let’s have a good time here and do a quick quotes list…

“It was entertaining because there were a lot of curious minds, so that was cool.”

“It is probably something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

“…most students were sitting in the auditorium’s balcony, including a student’s mom who attended class that day.” (again, let it be noted that she had to choose to stay there. Someone figured why give them the talk late when someone else can just SHOW them!)

“…engaging real people in conversation provides useful examples and extensions of concepts students learn about in traditional academic ways.” (Excuse me but could you move your hand a little to the left? Seriously, what kind of conversations are you going to have!?)

“The woman undressed and got on stage with her male partner, who used a device that looks like a machine-powered saw with a phallic object instead of a blade.”

I’d also like to point out here that the couple concerned with realistic female orgasms might take into account the fact that exhibitionism and POWER TOOLS are not necessarily the norm for achieving said orgasms.

“Once the demonstration began, Smith said, “there was a lot of covering of the mouth like ‘Oh my gosh.’ It was pretty quiet … I didn’t really see people take affront, but they were engaged with the experience.’””

“The students, he said, “seemed to be incredibly pleased. We had a number of them that got closer and closer.””

“Northwestern student Ryan Naylor, 18, is not enrolled in Bailey’s class but said he thought the demonstration “was really inappropriate.” ”

As for that last quote, Mister Ryan Naylor (who has a last name like he should be first in line to be in favour of this demonstartion) is the only quote the article lists as being really negative. Though the article also says that pretty much no one was consulted before the demonstration was held. Maybe more people will come forward in protest but it’s unlikely. The sheer quantity of questionable acts that go on in the average post-secondary institution is a rite of passage for boys and girls that think they’re men and women.

In the end, you can call this one naked shenanigans and hope they learned something about sex as per the class they signed up for.

Or just call shenanigans for fun.

It’s the day a lot of guys dread as much as they anticipate Z-Day. I don’t know exactly how V-Day got started and I don’t much care because the point is mostly irrelevant. It’s time for chocolates, dinners, movies, jewelry and various other traditionally awkward expressions of love. Is that the true meaning of Valentine’s Day? Who cares.

The point is whatever you want to make it.

If you think the whole thing is too commercial and you hate every frilly pink thing that hits the trash bin the second Wal-Mart decides it’s time for Easter, don’t buy anything. Or better yet, buy a lot of things the next day – discount candy is awesome. If you think this is the day you have to make a grandiose gesture of love for that special someone, do that (but don’t half-ass it or ur doin’ it wrong). If you think it’s about making a broccoli forest through which your hand crafted toothpick men may prance free from judgment, know that YOU’RE not free from judgment but do it anyways. And especially don’t hock some line about how Valentine’s Day should be every day of the year because that’s stupid and you’re a preachy dick.

As with nearly every post I ever make, this one came about from some story or article that set my mind aflame with thoughts of orgies and what love means. Because I know you hate reading, the article basically says that dealing with love if you’re polyamorous is a tricky thing. One proposed solution is that you need to take time/effort that’s clear to each person in your trying to display affection for. Sounds like a solid plan to me. Why buy a turbo expensive piece of jewelry if you really don’t care? Also, if you DO do something for Valentine’s and you don’t want to, it says that you’re really into that person when you really aren’t. That might be what you’re going for, but you’ve been warned if it ain’t.

This is the likely intended point of Valentine’s Day – to make an obvious expression of affection (and sell greeting cards/candy/flowers). That would be you grandiose gesture folk that I’m talking to. It’s a pretty simple breakdown, even if you are polyamorous and have several darling snuggle pumpkins to love. If you are, however, all hatin’ on Valentine’s Day you’re facing a greater challenge because you’re still recognizing Valentine’s Day. For single folk, it’s a celebration of how stupid the day is an how you don’t need it because you’re so damn lonely (often expressed via Anti-Valentine’s Day “party”). For the select few couples that still feel hate heart day, it’s really quite funny.

You’re still celebrating Valentine’s Day. You and someone you love together acknowledging that it exists and you hate it is a Valentine’s Day activity. Hell, so is making a point to not do anything at all on Valentine’s Day. I especially want that previous sentence to sink in and scald your soul if you’re one of those people who are too cool for Valentine’s Day. You are a perfectly normal human worm baby and as such are deeply steeped in the syrupy juices of our culture. You cannot escape it and you are definitely not better than it.

Because perfectly executed Valentine’s Day plans are rarely a thing of reality, your best bet is to go with some combination of a grandiose gesture and the broccoli forest thing. That is to say, do something weirdly loveable. Do something that’s unique to you and your special somebody like something revolving around an inside joke or touching on some cultural aspect that you’re both a part of I know a fellow who’s a pretty big douche but even he pulled off this feat: he gave his then-girlfriend a yellow umbrella because they both like How I Met Your Mother (for some inexplicable reason).

But possibly more important than doing or not doing something on Valentine’s Day is having an understanding with the love of your life just what is expected of each of you come February 14th. It’s another one of those relationship things that require you to either be on the same wavelength or willing to come to an understanding.

And I reckon there lies the definitions of love: display of special treatment including willingness to compromise (often in spite of logic). If you want to buy into this definition, it becomes pretty clear that just getting a dozen long stemmed roses that may suspiciously cost more this time of year isn’t an efficient expression of love. Thus, from a scientific standpoint, going over the top with a Valentine’s Day gift or event might look cute and shiny, but it means pretty much nothing.

All fluff and no substance.

Hate is one of those words that, if you say it enough, it sounds really weird.

And before we get going, I don’t like Glee. I think I’ve said as much elsewhere but it pays to say it again. Maybe I can get called stupid by Ryan Murphy too and I’ll be famous! That’s the creator of the show and he’s been rather miffed at a couple of different rock acts lately. But that’s usually how it goes with rejection. “Fine! I didn’t want to play with you guys anyway! I’ll make a better rock group! With better music!” and then you run away in tears.

That’s Murphy, for reference. He looks vaguely unimpressed with the Bunny Suicides calendar to my left. It’s alright, man. They’re not real bunnies.

The “news” reports on Murphy’s conflict with rock and roll deal with the Kings of Leon and Slash. First came the Kings. Murphy wants their music on Glee which a lot of people have done and, I’m assuming, enjoyed. But Glee’s clearly not for everyone and the Kings turned down Glee’s request to use KoL music. I’m not sure anyone documented the tone of the rejection but what is taken down is Ryan Murphy’s reaction to this rejection:

“F— you, Kings of Leon. They’re self-centered assholes, and they missed the big picture. They missed that a 7-year-old kid can see someone close to their age singing a Kings of Leon song, which will maybe make them want to join a glee club or pick up a musical instrument. It’s like, OK, hate on arts education. You can make fun of Glee all you want, but at its heart, what we really do is turn kids on to music.”

Well… that’s just strongly worded isn’t it. Now if someone had documented someone from KoL saying “No F— off and die, Glee.” saying eff you right back would be a little more understandable. But as far as I know, they just “No, thanks.” It just seems like a bit much.

But then it’s hard to take any side when KoL’s drummer comes back with this on Twitter:

“Dear Ryan Murphy, let it go. See a therapist, get a manicure, buy a new bra. Zip your lip and focus on educating 7yr olds how to say f—.”

So we’re kind of on even ground for who said what about who save for the fact that a lot of folk saw this retort as homophobic (Ryan Murphy is openly gay). I, personally, think that comment is a little more misogynistic than anything bu w/e it was in poor taste. Point, though, for noticing that swearing and talking about inspiring 7 year olds is somewhat contradictory. Potential homophobia aside though, the KoL have a point. Or maybe it’s better to say that Murphy doesn’t have one. I’m pretty sure none of the Kings are “hate on arts education” and at Glee’s heart what you really want to do is much more than put kids on music if you even want to do that at all.

When your resume includes Nip/Tuck and a different show about high school cliques, there may be a small chance that you’re more interested in taking down people who you think are ugly OR focusing your attention on pretty people. Motives aside what Glee really does is ride the wave of a movie high school that severely under-educates its students. Without High School Musical (and it’s neighbouring institutions, HSM2 & HSM3), Glee would have had a helluva time getting onto the air. What I’m driving at here is that Glee is not really inspired and it’s not all that inspiring either. It’s a show about singing cover songs. Just like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are learning, cover songs will only hold attention so long. There’s a reason Rock Band 3 introduced a keyboard into the band repertoire – a new gimmick to maintain sales. Glee could start writing it’s own songs but that’s clearly something that would take a lot of time and effort to do.

As for inspiring kids to sing or play instruments, it’s what should be known as the 101 Dalmatians effect. When 101 Dalmatians came out, every family got a dalmatian puppy ’cause they’re so keeeyooooooot and every family should clearly have one. Then every animal shelter in North America exploded with dalmatians because, hey, pets are an actual responsibility. Seriously, don’t get a dog or any other pet unless you’re ready to take care of it. And the same goes for music lessons. Even just a glee club requires commitment – a new concept to kids below the age of having to pay their own bills. So when Glee is inspiring kids it’s actually punishing parents to the tune of 250 bucks ’cause music was on TV. It’s almost the only kind of inspiration that’s happening here.

Almost.

At any rate, arts education is important, music – and really artistic expression as a whole – is important. Glee is not arts education or really much of an artistic expression.

Which doesn’t-really-but-still-kind-of brings me to Slash. Glee came to him and who knows who else about putting some Guns N’ Roses out there for the Gleeks. And Slash gave them this:

“We got asked about that once already but it got turned down. In the current climate of what’s going on in entertainment these days, I try to be more optimistic than negative because it’s really easy to get negative about it, but I draw the line at Glee.”

Slash does not like Glee (and I would expect the same from any man distinguished enough to wear a top hat). He says it’s worse that Grease which might mean he doesn’t like Olivia Newton-John either but that’s for another time. Naturally this doesn’t sit well with Ryan Murphy who loves to stare at my calendar.

“Usually I find that people who make those comments, their careers are over; they’re uneducated and quite stupid.”

Clearly, he’s upset. And not without reason. Slash just flipped off Murphy’s latest success. But that doesn’t jive with anything anyone is saying. First, Slash, I’m sorry to do this to you but being on Glee doesn’t mean negative things (unless you count the near guarantee that I’ll hate the cover of your songs). That’s just a bias in favour of the rock and roll genre and against pop music. Second, Murphy, while Slash may be a high school dropout, I think he’s proven his ability to succeed and, with a solo album out that’s only about a year old, his career ain’t over either.

Not everyone who rejects you, Murphy, is a moron. Not everyone has to like Glee or even lend their assistance to it. Hell, Slash has been in the music industry long enough to know that it’s a business like any other and that maintaining brand image is an important aspect of sales. To Slash, throwing in with Glee means that he’s killing the rock branding of his music (I concur). Glee is clearly not rock and roll.

And again I just can’t help but point out that Murphy wants to inspire 7 year old kids with this show. Saying the Kings of Leon or Slash have to cast their lot in with Glee and it’s various gleeks because of inspiring kids is not only silly but it’s also  insulting to the KoL, Slash and (if you really want to go there) every other rock act. What’s stopping kids from hearing the sweet licks that Slash pumps out every morning before breakfast and going “I think I want to learn to play guitar too.” And if you want to say they’ll end up doing drugs and having a lot of sex, I’m going to assume you haven’t read any of this blog up until this point. Or the Rocky Horror Glee Show episode where the club organizer gets his Rocky on.

The good news is, though, that Glee really does encourage more music in the world despite whatever shortcomings it might have. Even if it’s not my kind of music or Slash’s kind of music no one said Slash or myself have to like it OR it can even evolve into something I like better. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that this TV series is the gateway to all music forever. For example…

Face melting pipe organ riffs

Auto-tuned ridiculousness

Kids that are totally metal

Bottom line, love Glee, hate Glee, who cares. Ryan Murphy shouldn’t care, he’s successful and so is another one of his shows. Slash doesn’t, he’s too busy being successful too. And I suppose I don’t much care either so long as there’s music for everyone.

YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

It’s seven different kinds of reported already so I’m going to go ahead and say it’s official.

These are your new Catwoman and Bane for the third Christopher Nolan Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.

If you’re quite done ogling Hollywood skin, Catwoman will be played by Anne Hathaway there and Bane by Tom Hardy.

Hathaway is best known for playing a princess, a princess again and then a girl that becomes a princess while narrated by Monty Python.  With that resume, it’s enough to make you think that Nolan’s suffered brain damage and has accidentally killed Joey Pantoliano. But if you’re not into reading Wiki links, I’ll let you know now that Hathaway is one of those actresses that’s always come up short of winning an Academy Award. It’s a lot like the last movie when they cast this guy…

as this guy…

And though it was awarded posthumously, that was an Academy Award winning performance. I’m not saying Hathaway’s Catwoman will stack up to Ledger’s Joker – or that she won’t surpass what Ledger did.  I’m saying she’s got more than enough acting chops from characters like recovering drug addicts and the what-have-you to make this movie’s Catwoman very memorable. Also, if Nolan intends to draw on similar source material as what he’s already drawn from, the character herself will fit quite nicely into the film as well. It’s likely that this Catwoman will be more of an enthusiastic amateur with a mean streak (and possibly a prostitute) than she will be sort of killed by Christopher Walken or made of complete fail fighting Sharon Stone. In The Dark Knight Rises, look for Anne Hathaway as a very realistic, quick-tempered, ticked-at-the mob and somewhat-inspired-by-Batman’s-presence-in-Gotham Catwoman.

On to Tom Hardy and Bane. With Catwoman, the nerds squawked about the choice of actress being no good. With Bane, the character itself was denounced as muscle-bound fail by the greasy basement masses. The story of Bane, as I know it, is he was a scrawny kid put in a Brazilian prison since birth because the law decreed he had to continue to finish carrying out his father’s criminal sentence. Eventually he volunteered as a test subject for this drug – Venom – that, for whatever reason that no one cares about, made him super strong whereas it killed everyone else it was tested on. Then he goes to Gotham to punch Batman in the bat-boys just because he’s the biggest superhero Bane had heard of (Superman must have been off in the real world where he’s an awful character. He’s the most recognized superhero, he’s made by a Canadian, he’s a universal symbol of hope. He also invincible. It doesn’t work for interesting characters!). But that’s all, really, little stuff that’ll likely be chopped down to “Bane is super strong from this drug that he needs to take all the time to stay strong” – a point which some have theorized will be tied into Scarecrow/Dr. Jonathan Crane’s fear toxin.

The part that made Bane actually interesting was this right here:

Bane put Batman in a wheelchair, permanently. Naturally the entire story of that was nullified by magical healing crap that comic books do all the time but still. First Bane breaks everyone out of Arkham Asylum (which happened in Batman Begins), then Batman runs himself into the ground trying to round all the baddies up (which either hasn’t been shown or hasn’t happened yet) and then Bane steps in and makes a bat-wishbone.

Hardcore, no? Yet nerds across the land are chargin’ up their rage-lazors because Nolan’s Batman is supposed to be gritty and realistic. The idea of a super-strong criminal take Batsy down a few pegs isn’t quite taking off yet. I think it’s because the most recent version of Bane looked like this:

More or less as far as you can get from realistic without turning him green and completely ripping off the better comic book franchise. Ahem. But with that, it’s understandable to think that the character of Bane doesn’t fit into a universe where Two-Face’s superpower was GUN!

So how would Bane fit in?

I don’t want to speak for the structural integrity of your bones but I’m almost certain that guy could snap me like a twig. That’s Tom Hardy. He’s up and coming  in the acting world having been in a couple Guy Ritchie films as the guy that slow dances with Gerard Butler and Inception as the guy that screws with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and says “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” Stacking him up against Christian Bale in full Batman muscle and you’ve got at least a fair fight on your hands.

But Batman has body armour. So Bane has drugs, drugs drugs, guns and then probably more drugs. The thing about doing a lot of drugs is that you can’t feel your face. I mean, you can feel your face but you can’t feel your face, maaaaan. When you’re freaking out on PCPs or whatever you’re doing things and enduring things that a human being cannot physically do/endure normally. You’ll be wrecked when you come back down (if not dead) but that’s the fun of comic book movies – Venom will likely make Bane immune to pain and/or extra strong and that’ll give him a big edge on Patrick Bateman with a conscience.

And as for Hardy’s acting abilities, the biggest thing he’s done so far is a movie called Bronson, another one of those critically acclaimed things that no one saw. Except the British. Anyway, it’s a highly rated film in which Hardy plays a bareknuckle boxing, belligerent and criminal psychopath who spends a good deal of his life in solitary confinement in prison. The pictures of Hardy in this post so far have both come from that movie. He barely has to take on a new role for The Dark Knight Rises, he can just dust off the old one.

At any rate, Hathaway Catwoman and Hardy Bane are two big mysteries of this highly anticipated movie solved. And if you love it, good. If you hate it and you can’t get past the character choices or the casting picks, take comfort in this: Of all the movies Christopher Nolan has made, over half of them have ranked over 80 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes and none of them went below the 75 percent range. Those favourable ratings are reflected by a very large number of critics and regular folk alike.

How could this man steer you wrong?

Just for clarity, this is going to fail in its opening weekend.

There’s a slight chance that a movie like this – provided it isn’t a steaming, green swirl of fail – will come back slowly as it’s recognized but I’m not holding my breath.

Here’s the first stumbling block: try to picture Seth Rogen as a super hero. It’s not a reflex thought. You don’t look at Seth Rogen and go “That guy right there… he’d save me from a mugger.” So thinking that he’s going to be playing the lead role in a superhero movie is a lot like Happy Tree Friends. You don’t know what to expect until you’ve seen it at least once

That’s the next stumbling block: no one knows what to expect. The Green Hornet, so I hear, is a comedy first and a hero movie second. From the look of things, it’s a very close race between the two genre classifications. That is to say you could just as easily call it a hero movie juiced up with a lot of comedy. Hopefully it’s more entertaining that is is cripplingly horrible. The problem, though, is that it hasn’t been clear with anyone exactly which way it’s going to go with this film. If you go to Rotten Tomatoes right now you can see that Season of the Witch has a crap rating and Jackass 3D, while not perfect, at least got a passing grade. It’s because Jackass is straight up about what you’re going to see.

If you went into Jackass expecting to leave searching your soul for a deeper meaning in life, you’re either extremely shallow, over-thinking it way too much or you’re probably just stupid. Season of the Witch, on the other hand, has the brass to call itself “an epic battle” without doing so ironically. With that kind of movie (and indeed many Nicholas Cage films) your best hope is that your entertainment will most likely be delivered more in the fashion of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Batman & Robin

I feel somewhat robbed that they didn’t mention “Always winterize your pipes.”

At any rate, the point here is that while keeping your audience guessing can really pay off for your film it only works if that’s the kind of film you’re trying to make. When Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway (two actors us guys love to hate but are actually good at their jobs) did up a movie called Love And Other Drugs, it tanked into the nearest ditch because everyone was expecting a rom com. What they got was Hathaway with a crippling illness. I’m not saying it’s a bad premise, especially when you’ve got mature actors who can execute the roles that the script calls for but when the movie poster is two young-ish people naked in bed and smirking and the trailer for the movie is a carbon copy of every rom com before it, you’re going to expect a cookie-cutter rom com. Not Seth Rogen with a super ninja as his chauffeur.

Which is the final stumbling block: The Green Hornet, starring Seth Rogen but he’s uselss without Jay Chou (who plays Kato) who’s the shark to Rogen’s ramora. I might be spoiling some of the movie here but when I say Rogen’s character is useless I mean that Chou’s character does everything but pay the bill. Rogen’s character is the money. In exchange, Chou’s character basically humours him by taking him along and giving Rogen a gun (which he shoots himself in the face with).

This ties in, again, with the not knowing what to expect. Most superheroes are heroes with no money, heroes who need money or heroes who are the money. In this case, our hero is just the money. No skills (beyond, I’m assuming, doing a kegstand), nothing to bring to the table besides a wad of cash. There’s not a little girl or boy in the world that dreams of being the one who PAYS the super hero.

Although a lot dream about being rich.