Pop Culture Friday–Big Dumb Things Edition

3 May

pain and gain

1.  I Love It–Icona Pop–Wow, if there was ever a pop song that was meant for 20 years ago, this would be it.  This song sounds like something from Britain circa 1997–a mix between Supergrass and the Spice Girls.  It’s also marks the beginning of the summer clubbing season.  Anything I  notice about the song?  Well it’s catchy and somewhat fun, though the tone is a bit snotty and I could see this song being annoying really quickly.  It’s also very much a white girl song–I can just see them getting up in a group and hopping about at each other and mouthing some of the words on one of their “wild” nights.   The thing about club music is I generally find it presents these things as WAAAAAAY more fun than they really are.

2.  Pain and Gain–Wow, I was really surprised this movie outdid Oblivion, simply because Oblivion had such an aggressive campaign.  Then again, I don’t want to watch oblivion because I feel like it’s been shoved in my face too much, so there’s that.  Pain and Gain is a Micheal Bay movie that seems to be trying something different (for him).  But then I watch it and I see that he’s only shoved every “cool” thing into a movie that he could.  The 90’s are hot, so let’s to a 90’s story.   Let’s make it a little like Miami Vice too because the 80’s were hot until last year.  Let’s have a bunch of penis jokes a la “The Hangover” and lets make the whole thing huge, loud, and dumb while trying to lampshade it as being knowledgeably huge, loud, and dumb.   This makes me come to the conclusion that this movie is 1)like that girl at school who so desperately tried to be popular that she would do ANYTHING that the popular kids were doing, and 2) like that guy at a party who makes fun of dumb people and is more annoying than dumb people really are.  Don’t get me wrong, I like commercial films, I’m certainly not one who only watches films as art, but I really hate it when things get this caveman-like.

3.  David Baldacci, The Hit–“Will Robie is a Master of Killing.”  Yep, A MASTER, you want a spider killed in your bathtub–call Will Robie.   You want that ugly plant to die already so you can get rid of the damned thing for once and for all?  Will Robie’s your man.  Will Robie is such a master of killing, that if you’re fortunate enough to be on his death list you will wait in anticipation for the glorious experience that awaits you, even though you’re going to be dead at the end.  He’s that good.

“A highly skilled assassin, Robie is the man the U.S. government calls on to eliminate the worst of the worst—enemies of the state, monsters committed to harming untold numbers of innocent victims.”   When the swine flu struck, they called in Robie.  The swine flu just caught a bad case of him.

“No one else can match Robie’s talents as a hitman…no one, except Jessica Reel. A fellow assassin, equally professional and dangerous, Reel is every bit as lethal as Robie. And now, she’s gone rogue, turning her gun sights on other members of their agency.”    Wait a second, we just went through half this promo saying Robies the best, he’s the man that assassins call when they want someone killed and all of a sudden this lady nobody’s heard of is better?  Also, Jessica Reel?   Did he just take Jessica Biel’s name and change it a little instead of making up a character?

“But as Robie pursues Reel, he quickly finds that there is more to her betrayal than meets the eye. Her attacks on the agency conceal a larger threat, a threat that could send shockwaves through the U.S. government and around the world.”   It’s always more than meets the eye isn’t it.  Sometimes I wonder if secret agents are just a group of people with the worst communication skills ever and they just found a job that supports their efforts to be really passive aggressive.    I bet Jessica doesn’t even really HAVE a secret, she just wants attention.

Ok America–I see you’re in a big dumb mood this week.  I can dig that, I mean sometimes it’s nice to turn the brain off and just let things be there.  However, there’s such a thing as too dumb, as in makes you dumber for seeing it.  Remember that.

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