The Invention of Laughing

Imagine a world where no one lied.  No one sinned in that fashion.  It would be perfect, right?  At least from the Christian perspective because the easiest sin would be gone.  But have you really given any thought to what this world would be like?

Ricky Geravis has. 

And thus we have The Invention of Lying.

No one in this world lies.  They remain brutally honest with one other.  It's highly amusing, but at the same time, it's highly offensive.  If these people were not used to the honesty, any one of them would be offended.

Mark, played by Ricky Geravis, hates his life and, honestly, most people hate him.  He loses his job, loses his prospective girl-friend, and is about to be evicted from his house when something occurs to him.  What would happen if he didn't tell the truth?

Everyone believes his lies because they are used to living in a world of only truth.

And, thus, a movie is born.

Sure, it's hilarious and hysterical, but at the same time it makes you wonder.  The world of honesty is harsh and cruel, yet when Mark starts to lie, things get better.  Not just for Mark, but for everyone around him as well.  He uses lying to make others' lifes better: he stops his neighbor from killing himself; he gets a homeless guy enough money to not be homeless; and he, more or less, invents the afterlife in comforting his dying mom, thus giving hope to the doctors, nurses, and other people in the nursing home.

After watching it, you have to ask yourself: is lying really that bad?  Sure some lies are, but what if you lie to make another person happy or better off?  Is that still sinning when you're lying to help someone out?

Two Big Reasons to Hate Stephenie Meyer

#1. Twilight

122 minutes of pure fail.

For at least 100 of those minutes, you see two camera shots: (1) Bella Swan (poorly played by Kristen Stewart) biting her lips and raping her science partner with her eyes and (2) Edward Cullen (played by Robert Pattinson and his gravity defying hair) staring at Bella like she's his next meal.  The only thing that changes is the scenery.

Things finally start to get interesting with the baseball game, but that may be because that by the time the movie gets here, you're so desperate for action that you'll find anything interesting. This includes Alice doing the same pose over and over as different 'vampires' hit a ball and catch it. 

All I can say is that is 122 minutes I will never get back.  I don't even know if I want them back because that would mean I may see the movie again out of curiousity.

The only positive thing about this movie is that it makes the book bearable, when before it was merely laughable teen-angst/love spewed out over 300 pages.

#2. New Moon

After watching the first one, I was definately not excited to watch this one.  I heard it was better, but even Watchmen is better than Twilight.  But I rented it anyway, hoping that it was better.

I was pleasantly suprised.

Kristen Stewart got a better make-up artist and learned how to make her face look like it was expressing something other than pure lust.  Robert Pattinson wasn't in it as much.  And there was actual action -- not sissy vampires dancing around a fire (except when Alice ripped of James' head -- that was kind of cool).

Even still, I had to endure 130 minutes of poor acting and a story that I care nothing about.

So, thanks but no thanks Stephenie Meyer.  You're a terrible writer with flat chracters and a dull story-line.  Anything that could be cool -- you make lame with poor dialogue and Bella Swan.  You should have just written a story about Alice. She is the only redeeming thing in any of your novels. 

Yes, I've read all of them, including The Host. 

It's notTwilight; it's you.

Just give it up now because you'll never be as cool as J. K. Rowling or write anything as epic as Harry Potter.  All you can do is kill everyone's images of vampires forever. 

Congratulations.

Getting High Off High School Musical

Okay.  I know this series is far exploited beyond reason and has been claimed by the tween generation as something great, but part of me really enjoys it.  Anyway, I fell in love with the movie before it rose to popularity, during the first weekend it opened on Disney, my freshman year of college. 

Despite everything, I still enjoy the series because it's so happy and the songs are so catchy.  You cannot watch these movies without feeling warm and fuzzy afterwards.  It's just not going to happen.  There aren't many movies that do that for me.

Plus, all three are playing on the Disney channel this weekend, so I figured why not blog about them.  It's a conveniance thing.

The one that started all the magic.

I pretty much hate the opening of this movie.  The first song is cheesy and boring.  The movie doesn't get any good until they get to the school and there are more characters.

I don't know much about dancing...that's my sister's area...but the dancing in this movie is pretty special.  It's obvious they rehearsed a lot to make something original.  Same goes for the music.

Also, it's nice to see Ashley Tisdale playing a role other than wholesome, studious, working girl.

I think what appeals to me about this one, in particular, is that it's all about breaking out of your shell -- breaking the stereotypes that pollute and confine kids in high school.  This movie expresses exactly what I had been thinking all through high school -- cliques are stupid.  E.G. Stick to the Status Quo.

Plus, I like Kelsey, the obscure girl who has no friend, but is amazing anyway.

After this movie came out, it was insane.  Every tween and teenager fell in love with Zac Efron and Disney exploited it into an oblivian. This, I thought, was highly unneccessary.  It's okay to have one successful movie and not go insane with merchandising and promotional gigs.  Apparently not for Disney, though.

And, thus, we have High School Musical 2 -- the summer edition.

I didn't actually see this one until much later after it came out.  I was weary of it. Due to High School Musical's insane popularity and Disney's failure at making good sequels, I wasn't sure that this would turn out very well.

And, honestly, it didn't.  The same conflicts happened: basketball versus dance.  Troy/Gabriella versus Sharpay.  It was nice to Ryan develop, but that is the only good thing about this movie.

It was obvious Disney was just pushing the movie because they knew the tween-teen demographic would watch it, no matter how bad it was.

Sure it was fun and happy, but the magic from the first movie was completely gone.





From there things just got worse.  There were more High School Musical singing dolls, t-shirts, party gear, etc. than there were tweens who cared.  There were also several movies/ TV series following the hype, trying to appease the demand for singing and dancing.  Thus, the Jonas Brothers were born.
 

When I heard this one was coming out in theaters, I was less than thrilled.  I was so over High School Musical, Z-Efron, and everything that came with it.  I saw it anyway though to review for my college newspaper movie-review column.

High School Musical 3 stands up to par with the previous movies in the series. It is a little disappointing, however, that everything is pretty much the same. The plot line hasn’t changed at all. In all reality, you could watch High School Musical or High School Musical 2 and know what happened in High School Musical 3.

All that aside, however, High School Musical 3 did have its moments. The choreography was phenomenal. You could tell that they spend the most time on make the choreography perfect.

To be honest, this one is my favorite.  Not only was there a bigger budget, so it looked better and the actors could act better, but it was the last one. They were graduating and it would be all over and the monster known as High School Musical would be done.


Or so I thought.

Apparently, Disney isn't ready to let go yet.  Not only with there be a spin-off movie following Sharpay, one of the most hated characters, after graduation.  Also, there will be High School Musical 4 with an entirely new cast, retelling the same time over and over and over again.  How depressing is that?

And if that's not bad enough, Disney is also in the works of making a movie called Prom about a high school senior class and their prom.  But wait?  Haven't I seen this before? Uhm...yes. I believe that was called High School Musical 3.

Epic Fail Disney.

The one positive thing I have to say is that Z-Efron will not be participating in any of these events, having supposedly sworn off the series forever.  I'm just glad that someone from these movies has been able to move on with their lives and acting careers.  Z-Efron is even able to make fun of the series.

Zac Efron SNL High School Musical spoof

Two Thumbs Up for Up In The Air

"To know me is to fly with me."  This was the opening line to the book and one of the opening lines to Up In The Air, recently nominated for serveral Academy Awards. I love that line. It's almost as powerful as "Call me, Ishmael."

From what I remember, the book was both humorous and fairly well written.  And preferable to the movie.  The storyline is supposed to be about a guy named Ryan who lives his life in the air, so to speak.  He is rented out by companies to fire their employees; he's home maybe 20 days a year.  He is all alone and has no relationship with anyone, not even his family.  He is forced to engage with his family, however, in honor of his youngest sister's wedding.  Yes, Alex is there, but the relationship goes no where.  But, in the end, he's still alone, but he got what he wanted: he hit 10 million frequent flyer miles.

The movie, however, made it more about his romance with Alex and how Alex will never love him because she  has a family existing outside of the airport.  This is exceedingly obvious by the DVD cover. Also, the producers threw in another character to accompany Ryan on his firing trips.  You lose the lonliness and isolatedness of the world Ryan lives in.  Sure, there's the Empty Backpack promotion he does emphasizes the lonliness, but not in the same way.  Especially when he abandons his philosophy to go after Alex.  He doesn't even care about his miles anymore.

Overall, I enjoyed both the movie and the book for it's realistic look into how a person surrounded by people can still live in an isolated, lonely world all by him/herself.  And they can be okay with living in that world.  But, at the same time, they can hate their lives too because they realize how lonely they are.