Sports Movies

Even though I'm really not into sports, there are a few sports movies that I love enough to compile a list of. With the exception of the soccer movie, all of my favorites deal with unconventional, rather extreme sports, which is cool, because there's way too many football movies anyway.

Blue Crush
Actually makes my "favorite movies" list. I love surfing, I love the actresses, and I love really good looking NFL dudes too. This, along with Point Break, really makes me want to move to the west coast and become a surfer. The cinematography is really good, and though the storyline can be a little irritating, what with NFL boy and all. Though I've stated previously that he's attractive, I'll admit that I really hated the NFL guy at first. Yeah, he's hot, but I just find something about him annoying. The first time I watched it I kept thinking "Dude, go away!". But anyway, it's a really good movie, with cool camera work, an inspiring message, and a happy ending (don't all sports movies have those?). If you haven't seen it, I definately reccomend watching it sometime.

Bring It On
This movie combines several things that I enjoy: it's an early 2000s movie with 90s music, cheerleading, Jesse Bradford and Eliza Dushku. I don't think that there's a way to get better that that. And don't you love the words that they combine with the word "cheer"? "Cheer-tator", "Cheer-ocracy", and so on. It's great. Yeah, it's a vastly cheesy, stupid movie. But it's cheesy and stupid in a really good way, and the rest of the Bring It On movies don't seem to capture that at all. Because they're cheesy and stupid in one of the worst ways possible. Yet I still watch them...why is that exactly?

GOAL! The Dream Begins
I actually read the movie novelization like three times before I saw the movie. Which was actually a pretty good thing to do, because unlike a novel that is made into a movie, it's a movie that was made into a novel. So it's practically identical, with the same exact dialogue and everything. So...to get to the point, I don't know anyone who doesn't like GOAL!. Soccer is a really fun sport to watch, and Santiago is completely loveable. There are points where you almost cry because you feel so bad for him, but things get better (as I've mentitioned before) and at the end of the movie you'll be all happy and excited. So go watch it.

The Cutting Edge
I really digg this movie, and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's because everytime I'm vastly bored, and it's Decemberish, it's always on to entertain me. In addition to this, I find it hilarious when chacters fight with each other throughout the entire movie, and then go and make out with each other at the end. To be honest, I'm really not that thrilled about the ABC Family version that just came out, and I don't think I'm going to watch it. Sure, you cast some pretty people, good for you, but can it ever be as good as the original? I think not. It's a pretty beastly movie.

(BTW, thought I'd add that I just found out about a movie that I believe will be the best sports movie EVER! It's called Queens of The World (one of the girls from that webshow Anyone But Me is starring in it), it's about soccer, and I'm sooo siked! Unfortunately, it's not scheduled to come out until mid 2011, so I'll just be all excited for another year. Check it! http://www.queensoftheworld.com/QUEENS_OF_THE_WORLD/HOME.html)

Documentaries

I know that everybody thinks that documentaries are boring. But they're actually pretty entertaining. There's a documentary on almost everything, and they can be about serious issues like human rights or suicide, or something completely random, like jump rope competitions.

Some that I have watched include:
*CampOUT
*EqualityU
*JUMP!
*Dealing Dogs
*Death on a Factory Farm
*I Have Tourette's, But Tourette's Doesn't Have Me
*Supersize Me
*Super High Me
*Boy Interuppted

EqualityU is a documentary shown on LOGO that deals with LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) issues in correlation with Christianity in America. It shows 33 LGBT activists on the first ever Soulforce Equality Ride, a 2 month tour across America to visit Christian colleges with anti-gay policies and peacefully protest. It was interesting to see the way that people treated them when all they wanted to do was spread their message. Their stuff was vandalized, and they were insulted and even arrested. But it was really cool that they never gave up and kept visiting schools, even if they knew that they would get arrested the next day. This documentary was very inspiring, and if they continue to do Equality Rides, I definitely want to go in a few years.
Equality U Trailer



Dealing Dogs and Death on a Factory Farm are a part of a documentary series shown on HBO that investigate animal abuse. In Dealing Dogs, an undercover animal rights activist works at a large kennel that sells and trades dogs for research. The dogs at the kennel are underfeed, beaten, and live in dirty cramped cages. Death On a Factory Farm features the same activist working at a factory farm that raises hogs. It deals primarily with the way that the animals are killed, which is often in a rather violent and unnecessary manner. Watching these two films was very interesting, because I am strongly against animal abuse, and I live on a family farm where we raise cattle and pigs. My entire family watched Death on a Factory Farm, and though we didn't agree with how the farm workers treated the animals, we felt like it cast a negative light on some of our farm practices. Overall, these were very well made movies, but they are very violent and rather offensive, and can be hard to watch if you have even the slightest bit of positive feelings towards animals.

JUMP! is a documentary about competitive jump rope, and probably the most non-intense documentary film that I've ever watched. Despite the fact that I'm not athletic in any way, shape or form, I do appreciate those who are good at sports, so this was a really interesting to watch. Before I saw JUMP!, I didn't even know that competitive jump rope existed outside of an elementary playground. As it turns out, there are actually competitions on an international level, and those jump ropers are insane! Can you do a back flip while jump roping? Didn't think so.
JUMP! Trailer


So yeah. If you've never seen a documentary, you should watch one. I highly reccomend any of the films that I have listed, and if you see any other ones, you should definately tell me.

Horror Movies

As defined by Wikipedia: Horror films are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Mhmm. They try to scare you. Horror movies have been around since movies were first filmed, and have evolved A LOT. To sum up the entire evolution of horror films briefly...the movies of the past used lots of psycological crap to scare people. The horror movies now use lots of gore to freak people out. So are they really that scary if the only way they scare you is by their excessive use of blood? Most people agree that the same repetitive zombie-chainsaw-ghost thing is getting old. So what is unique in horror movies? I don't do the scary thing, so my thoughts might not count. But here they are anyway.

Movies like The Blair Witch Project have pretty original, in my opinion. Why? When it first came out, people actually thought that it was real footage from real dumb college students who got lost in the middle of the woods. It might seem stupid thinking back on it, but you know that if you were in a tent and you heard a noise presumably made by a witch/goat/spirit you would be running through the woods in your socks screaming "WHAT WAS THAT??? WHAT WAS THAT!!!" I find the way that it was created to be unique as well. From my understanding, they pretty much just dumped the three actors in the middle of nowhere with video cameras and notes of what was going to happen each day. And from then on, it was all improv. Also, a website was created that furthered everyone's beliefs that it was real. Whether you think that it's a bad movie or not, you have to admit that a lot of creativity went into it. Here's the website link. There's actually a lot of pretty cool stuff on it: http://www.blairwitch.com/


The "inescapable virus" horror movie is pretty common, but to me, it's still pretty scary. In other horror films, a good general rule is "stay away from that big scary thing, and don't go outside when it's dark". Newsflash: you can't run away from a virus. A good example of virus movies would Cabin Fever. Practically everyone who has seen it thinks that it's stupid, but because of my severe emetophobia, it freaks me out beyond the normal freak out levels. I got about 15 minutes in and had to stop watching it. And then I was scared to drink water...or eat anything with water in it (which turns out to be everything...) for about 5 hours. Even if vomiting and blood and bad acting don't scare you, I'd really recommend NEVER watching this movie. Ever.

Horror movies of the past relied more of the psychological elements to scare people. And it worked. Alfred Hitchcock directed movies whose concepts scarify people to this day. Though I haven't seen any, I've heard that despite their ancientness, they're actually pretty good.


On the not-so-creative side of the spectrum, you have popular horror movies of today, such as Saw, Hostel, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They often include various forms of "gore-nography" (exactly what it sounds like) where the victims are violently tortured and killed. Eliminate the blood, and it's not terrifying in the least. Proof of this? I laughed throughout most of The Hills Have Eyes. And I leave you with this quote.
"Hobo munchin on a dog leg, hehehe."

Cheesy Movie Quotes

Horribly cheesy lines in movies. They're pretty much self explanitory. And most found in action movies. Still, as ridiculous as they are, they're super fun. Here are some of the worst, yet most hilarious movie quotes ever.

"This definitely rates about a 9.0 on my weird-s***-o-meter." - Will Smith in Men In Black
(Funny? Yes. Stupid. Most definately.)

"Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Patrick Swazye in Dirty Dancing.
(It is sooo bad. And I'm really not quite sure why?)

"Bodhi, this is your wake-up call man. I am an F...B...I... Agent!" - Keanu Reeves in Point Break
(Oh Keanu...you know I love you. But were the super long pauses between F, B, and I really needed? Probably not.)


"I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me?" - Robert De Niro in Meet the Parents.
(Mhmmm...)

So...they're horrible. Yeah. Opinions? Comments? Questions?

Web Shows

I don't think anyone really gets into the web show thing, but they are, on occasion, very entertaining. The concept is different throughout the entire web show genre: they can be a show by themselves or a continuation of TV show (these are usually called webisodes). Obviously, they can't be too long, so the average time is usually 3-10 minutes. Surprisingly, this isn't extremely short, and works well with the storyline of most of the shows.

One of my favorite places to watch web shows is Take180. Take180 is a Disney-owned website that creates web shows geared towards viewers under 18, all with episodes 180 seconds or less. They often use the input of the audience to write characters, solutions, and conflicts for the next episode, which, due to the creativity of the people watching, turns out pretty well in the end. One of their most viewed shows, I <3 Vampires, started out parodying the fans of the Twilight series, and has grown into an incredibly popular show, now in it's second season, and with accompanying "Confessions of a High School Vampire" books online. For more information, visit http://www.take180.com/


Though mostly comedy, some webshows, such as Anyone But Me, are more serious, and film episodes like a regular TV show (spread out over a longer period of time, as opposed to I <3 Vampires, which films as if over a period of a 3 or so days). Anyone But Me centers on the life of a girl and her friends as they deal with common, but complex issues faced in high school. To watch this awesome show(also in it's second season), visit http://www.anyonebutmeseries.com/


I haven't watched a ridiculous amount of web shows of web shows yet to get a decent opinion, but the ones I have watched, I love. There's pretty much a web show about everything, so Google stuff, and you'll probably find something that you like =)

Music Videos

I think that everyone could agree that music videos have changed music ginormously. Not only do they show the world the musician's playing style, personality, and appearance, but they also can be very artistic and deep, or just plain hilarious. Music videos bring together two elements of entertainment into a breif, and occasionally amazing work of art. Here are some of my favorites.

Artistic
One of my favorite music videos to one of my favorite songs (seen below) invokes elements of art by both its topic and the way it was filmed. I'm not going to go into detail on this, because really, it's something that I can't explain in words. So just watch the video, k?

Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie


Humorous
I find that the most creative and artistic videos are made for the lesser known songs that have more meaning, whereas really funny videos are for the really popular songs that everyone knows about. Most of the time I'm not sure if they're even intended to be as funny as they are, but regardless, they're very humorous. Have fun watching the video below (often known as Numa Numa).

Dragostea Din Tei by O-Zone


Fan Made
Fan made music videos are a huge phenomenon on YouTube and other video sharing sites. They can be made with clips from a movie or TV show, or with video recorded by the video maker. Here is a example of one that is both creative, hilarious, and fan made.

See You Again by Miley Cyrus


What are your favorites (out of these and personally)?

TV Pairings That I Love

OK, so I don't watch an excessive amount of TV. But there are a few shows that I watch... most of them through reruns. And I'm rather obsessed with a few pairings in these shows, which I shall list below.

Spashley (Spencer/Ashley, South of Nowhere)

It's the main pairing, and their relationship is pretty much the entire concept that South is based around. They inspired the hizzel out of people, and when the show went off the air, it sort of ruined the world for awhile. The whole point of Spashley is that love has no boundries, which is something that everyone should pay attention to. Regardless of race, age, gender, whathaveyou, love is love. Check it: http://www.savespashley.com/


Dwight/Angela (The Office)
I don't think that these two have a cool shipper name, but their relationship is entertaining regardless. It was sad, yet humorous when they broke up, and even though Dwight shouldn't have put Sprinkles in the freezer, he did try to give her a barn cat named Garbage, which was nice of him. But then she has to go and get engaged to Andy, and continues to have a thing with Dwight. Bad Angela. All I know is that I need to watch some more current episodes to see what's goin on.


PB&J (Pam/Jim, The Office)
I'm pretty sure that their relationship may be one of the only serious aspects of The Office. The first couple of season are torturous, because you know that they like each other, but it takes time. But everything's awesome sauce when they start dating, because, as Kevin from accounting says "I thought that they'd be good together. Like PB&J...Pam Beesly and Jim!!!"



Kataang (Katara/Aang, Avatar)
Screw Zutara. The entire time I watched Avatar, I kept waiting for these two to get together. I really wondered if it would ever happen because it was a show geared towards kids, and that sort of thing might be slightly inappropriate, but the random innocent kissing and the last few episodes made me uber happy. Seriously, after I watched the series finale, I was estatic for like, 2 hours. But now I wonder if their babies would be airbenders, or waterbenders, or what? Hmm...

Tiva (Tony/Ziva, NCIS)
I find the way that they make fun of each other hilarious, and have I mentioned that Micheal Weatherly is gorgeous? Umm, as Ziva would say, "Does a bear sit in the woods?" Currently, I think that their relationship is still in the slow, painful, torturous building up stage, but with little moments such as the following, I'm pretty sure I can wait for a little bit =)

Twillow (Tara/Willow, Buffy The Vampire Slayer)

I'm totally a fan. Ridiculous cuteness, witchyness, gingerness, the song! Gah, it's beast. Unfortunately, Twillow is the only pairing that I'm a fan of where someone dies. How much does that suck?! I mean, things are good, and then all of sudden, boom, not alive. That's not fair AT ALL.

Fuffy (Faith/Buffy, Buffy The Vampire Slayer)

As much as I like Angel and Buffy together, Faith>Angel. Yeah, so it never actually happened. That doesn't mean that it couldn't have. I mean, the ridiculous amounts of subtext made it obvious. After watching numerous episodes, I completely believe that this pairing could have (actually, that it should have) existed. Eliza Dushku herself wanted the two to "hook up", at least for an episode. The creator of BTVS, Joss Whedon, admitted that the pairing wasn't directly intended, but says that some part of his subconscious was aware as he wrote it.

Look at the freakin' heart!

Exactly.

So, yeah. Fuffy is completely awesome (and my latest fav). And if you don't believe me, check out these sites.
http://www.wickedndivine.com/
http://faithrocks.tripod.com/love.html

My Favorite Movies (Part 1)!!!

I thought I would do my first official relevent post about something easy. So here's a list of my favorite movies, and an explanation of why they're amazing.

Titanic

Call it overrated if you want, but it's still an amazing movie. Who doesn't love a beast love story? Plus, these characters have depth. Rose isn't some preppy girl who just wants a boyfriend. She's an intelligent and strong willed teenager, who is confused, depressed,and tired of living with the overbearing high society idiots that she's been raised with. Jack is a poor dude with a positive outlook on life, and the short time that they spend together just makes something inside of you happy beyond words. The "Jack! I'm flying!" part? Very cool. I wuv it.

The Girl Next Door

Despite heavily involving stars of the adult film industry, it's a super cute movie that most people who love awkward love find hard to hate. I personally can't find anything that I don't like about this movie; it's so adorable that even offensive or controversial subjects seem innocent and humorous when they otherwise could severely piss someone off. Matthew and Danielle are ridiculously cute though; there's no other way to say it. And Eli and Klitz make everything hilarious. So go watch it. I have it on DVD if you want to borrow it (don't try to buy it in Walmart if you're under 17...) and the UNRATED cover is cool.

Elephant

Another non-love story indie movie, Elephant isn't something that I recommend to all of my friends,but it's something that people should probably see. Based on the Colombine school shooting, Elephant follows (really, the camera actually follows them as they walk through the school) the students at a regular high school on what they think is a regular day. You see many different types of students, from the "ugly girl", to the "athletic guy", preppy girls, photography nerds, and even the shooters themselves, as they are bullied in school, as they formulate their plan, and even carry out the shooting. It's very intense.

Loving Annabelle

Yet another indie movie, Loving Annabelle isn't going to be everyone's "thing". Some consider it vastly inappropriate, and even I'll admit that it pushes the boundaries commonly found in a love story. The character's interactions are very realistic though (you know you want to be as confident and BA as Annabelle), and it's insanely well shot. You can hate the storyline, but you can't deny that it's a "pretty" movie. The end will probably disappoint you, but watch the alternate ending (it's on Youtube!!!). Just do it.

First Post

So this is my first post.

Kickin.

Basically, I'm going to be talking about movies, shows, and anything else dealing with that sort of thing, such as soundtracks, actors, and themes. I might make lists, give reviews, or just ramble on and on about why I like, dislike, or don't understand something relating to those topics.