Peeling Back Movies: Independence Day!

I admittedly can be a movie snob.  In fact, I find 70 percent of the crap I’m subjected to completely unwatchable and, often times, flat out insulting. That said, I do love disaster movies, no matter how dumb they are (and they often are).  I don’t care if it’s an angry volcano or extra terrestrial intruders hellbent on havoc, if it involves blowing shit up to the brink of complete extermination, count me in.  So, naturally this weekend, I took in the latest invasion flick that continues the theme of having an advanced alien race, superior in virtually every way, outsmarted by the average American: Battle:LA.  Have you noticed this trend?  Sure, in Armageddon they gave some crazy Russian drunk some due (though he never bothered to watch Star Wars), but he was clearly more of a dolt than a savior and, if anything, slowed down the rescue mission (not to mention, the Russian space station from which he came featured faulty technology that almost submarined the entire thing before it started.)  Someone may want to tell Michael Bay the Cold War ended a while ago and we no longer need propaganda.  After all, even Rocky Balboa told a Russian audience “if I can change, and you can change, we call can change!”  Apparently the Armageddon braintrust never changed. That said, if any movie studio wants to pay me to write a flick about some Russian commie saving the world from complete destruction, I’ve got time.

But I digress.

While watching Battle:LA I was reminded that in all of these movies, the filmmakers don’t just ask the audience to take a basic leap in logic (the idea of an alien attack is hard enough), but they continue the theme of being illogical at every other turn as well…you know, for symmetry I suppose.

So I figured we’d take a look back at one of my favorite alien invasion films and discuss the top five (in no particular order) small leaps in logic featured in the 1996 smash hit INDEPENDENCE DAY! 

1) Thank God Jeff Goldblum is a genius!  He has the answer! Goldblum’s character, David Levinson, figures the only way to defeat the alien race is to fly an old flying saucer found in the 1960’s up to the mother ship (hovering somewhere in space), and infecting their computer system with a virus administered using his Mac laptop.  He figures that all communication runs through the mothership (logical), so if their entire system were compromised, it would limit forcefield use and communication with the ships currently attacking Earth (brilliant!).  So, essentially, it’s suggested the fate of humanity lays on the fact that alien technology can sink through a USB cord (fine, I’m with you even though my Mac can’t run Microsoft Office designed for a PC).  Then, once the virus is planted, they’d fire off a nuke and explode the entire alien base (you know, just a tiny detail.) Which begs the question: WHY NOT JUST DO THAT LAST PART!  Why do you need to temporarily disable the alien technology for five minutes with some dumb computer virus when you can just flat obliterate it forever?  If the “mothercomputer” didn’t EXIST, wouldn’t that have the same effect as simply disabling it? Movie could have saved 20 minutes right there and Goldblum could have saved himself some stress.

2) Aliens can travel light years with amazingly superior technology, yet they cant tell a black guy and a Jew has infiltrated one of their little fighter ships that, for some reason, flew directly back to the mothership instead of one of the many large satellite ships below, where one would assume it’s originally stored.  My guess is that this isn’t a common occurrence and their little air traffic control guy may want to investigate the insides of this rogue saucer upon entrance into the mothership (in fact, you can blame the entire lost war on that air traffic control worker).  Plus if the mothership were so important, you’d think they’d have some kind of gate checkpoint where they can flash a badge before permitted entrance.  Hell, I even have to do this when I go to work every morning, and my guess is the world would continue to survive if my office building exploded. 

3) President Bill Pullman tries to negotiate an impromptu peace treaty with the foot soldier Will Smith captures and brings to Area 51.  I wonder if Roosevelt ever did the same with German foot soldiers in WW2? Not to mention, despite very sophisticated armor, this alien was knocked unconscious by one Will Smith punch. Sounds like a pussy to me. 

4) At the beginning of the film, Randy Quaid’s character is teased by peers because he claims to have been once abducted by aliens.  Yet, at the end of the movie, when all his claims now seem plausible, people still think he’s full of shit.  Perhaps they should give pause and consider his story now that they spent the last two days dodging laser bullets from the weapons of aliens trying to commit human genocide.   

5) The same Randy Quaid saves the day when he bravely flies his aircraft in the middle of the alien ship’s “primary weapon,” causing the power weapon to backfire, thus sending a debilitating explosion throughout the enemy ship.  But here’s the thing:  Randy Quaid was actually the air fleet’s last hope or, in other words, the American Air Force (the most powerful in the world) was a hair away from losing the battle forever.  Now, the enemy’s primary weapon isn’t visible, it actually extends from inside the ship (like a big mechanical wiener) and powers once open.  So why not just wait while your tiny ships dogfight the fighter pilots (a fight they were clearly winning) and clear the air before you level the ground beneath with the apparent vulnerable phallic weapon (plus, if there are any physics majors out there, what are the chances a weapon that powerful would backfire due to impact with an F-14?).  For such an advanced civilization, these aliens sure are tactically stupid.

I’m sure there are many others.  Who has some!

  

Five Bucks To The Worker Who Nutpunches Their Undercover Boss

This past week’s edition of Real Time With Bill Maher touched on a subject that has long irked me: the existence of the CBS show Undercover Boss.  Class disparity/warfare will probably be a recurring theme of this blog, and this putrid  “reality TV program” really, for lack of a better term, chaps my ass.

If you’ve never seen Undercover Boss, allow me to give you a brief description:  The president of DirectTV (or some major company), in disguise, spends a day or two among his grunt workers in the factories, on the road installing dishes, you know, assisting (and by assisting, I mean fucking things up) the employees that make 1/100th of his bloated salary.  Then, at the end of the show, he reveals himself to the employees and showers them with money to prove he’s not a tremendous asshole, which beforehand they probably rightly assumed he was.  Then the boss addresses the company and informs them of his “experience of a lifetime” as if he didn’t have the ability to do it every fucking damn day; essentially making it seem like his ride in a DirectTV truck was similar to a goodwill trip making mud houses in a poor African town.  Seriously.  What probably should happen each and every time is that the undercover a-hole in charge should realize that every single job has merit, isn't necessarily easy, and provides the company with value.  Then he should proclaim he's slashing his salary and funneling some of that money downwards, maybe in the form of bonus checks or free lunches in the cafeteria.  But I'm sure he just goes home and regales his family with the horrors of being normal while they wipe their mouths with napkins made of hundred dollar bills. 

But here’s the kicker of this insulting show and it partially features something I never quite understood about the common American.  If Undercover Boss were broadcast on a closed circuit channel only available to America’s richest CEO twats in an effort to prove to them that all their workers were, in fact, human beings with families and feelings, then perhaps it would be somewhat admirable. 

But, in reality, the show is catered to the middle class American who, as decent ratings prove, actually find this bullshit heartwarming.  As if acting like a somewhat compassionate human is some agonizing sacrifice the rest of us shouldn’t have to bear.  It’s yet another instance of the public placing the oligarchy on a pedestal even though they clearly do not have our best interests at heart and would probably fire most hourly employees if it meant their seventh mansion was in danger of foreclosure.  It’s as if people believe that if they are kind enough to the incredibly wealthy, the rich will actually decide to dump their wallets on our doorsteps during some grand realization that we all are, in fact, human beings.

But here’s a newsflash: they won’t.  They never have. This whole trickle down economic bullshit is just that. And we don’t need a TV show that makes our daily shitty jobs look as appealing as walking the jungles of Vietnam.  

How "Smart" is SmartWater

The Jennifer Aniston/Smart Water “viral” video has probably sparked more conversation among my peers about the subject of viral marketing than any piece I’ve encountered in a while, especially regarding whether SmartWater “gets it” or not.

The SmartWater video parodying viral media which, then of course went viral, was probably a one-shot deal as the only reason it did go viral was because it was poking fun at the viral culture.  Got that?  But with the world changing and people now getting their content from many different mediums, corporations and marketing companies are scrambling to figure out how to get the word out about their product in a quick, sexy manner and, thus, have chosen to dip their toe in the viral pool as an extension of their marketing plans.. 

Though it’s incredibly hard to quantify, the sharing of information over the past few years has increased exponentially with the rise of digital cable, the internet, and most importantly social media.  For example, if you look at the whole Charlie Sheen saga, the news blitzed through all mediums to the point where a story with apparent legs went firmly into overkill within the course of a week…and now, of course, within just seven days the saying “WINNING” went from popular to passé.  So if you’re trying to market something with a launch date seven weeks out, how do you even begin to earn sustainability when dealing with such a tiny window?    

But, even despite that tall hurdle, I strongly think, unless you are incredibly saavy (I’m looking at you, Apple, Inc) corporate America is fighting a counter-productive battle because, by definition, anything produced by a corporate controlling entity will not be successfully viral because it won’t be considered grass roots.  The entire appeal of sites like Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter is the creation of a common community where voices can be heard and ideas shared while circumventing mainstream media and anything that represents the old guard (or in colloquial terms “the man.”)  The discovery of a video featuring a cute kitten or a 5’11” white kid who excels at slam dunks spreads through the internet because 1) it feels “found” and not “force fed” and 2) involves people who share the commonality of, well, being common.  This unspoken solidarity is appealing because, in our “celubuculture,” it’s easy to relate to someone similar and understand that you too may one day experience the same notoriety, if only for a Warholian moment.  It’s the same reason we relate to reality TV contestants who only 2 months before their show was filmed were on their couches eating bonbons like everyone else.

As soon as we see corporate logos attached to “viral” videos there’s an automatic disconnect because 1) we automatically know we are being forcefed and 2) you’re playing on our turf and the same rules don’t apply.  This is not to say viral marketing can’t be successful through a corporate entity, but it certainly fights an uphill battle because it lacks the one thing every great viral video lacks:  sheer authenticity.  That said, it looks like SmartWater struck a balance between viral and traditional (the use of a celebrity), though my best guess is, as said, that was a one-time shot.  So while they “got it” for a  moment, I wouldn’t expect other companies to have incredibly similar success. 

Thoughts? 

NFL Cheerleaders? Necessary?

The idea of a hot girl wearing little clothing is, of course, appealing to any red blooded straight male.  If I were to see a pretty woman in a cheerleader outfit on the street, I may find it a bit odd, but I’m sure the first thoughts that would run through my head wouldn’t regard any real concerns for her sanity or well-being. But as much as I love looking and thinking about beautiful women (which occupies much of mine and the average male’s day)… I don’t need them with my football.

During any random NFL broadcast, a fan will be subjected to numerous quick views of cheerleaders before and after commercial breaks, only to be followed by beer ads featuring cheerleaders so prominently that a foreigner may assume that they are as pivotal to the game itself as the forward pass.  Now, the “traditional” use of a cheerleader was to boost fan morale through their upbeat chants, but in stadiums that fit 75,000 fans, they are nothing more than a small group of insignificant ants in glorified bras and miniskirts.  So why have them at all?

Well, the simple explanation is that men like looking at women to satisfy their sexual appetites, but in this case, it doesn’t go far enough.  In reality, whether conscious or subconscious, the continued inclusion of cheerleaders in pro sports is nothing more than patriarchal society tightening its insecure grip in a male heavy setting immersed in power struggle.  As a long time NFL fan, I’ve pretty much pitched tents at sports bars on Sunday autumn afternoons.  And there have been countless times when random strangers ( due to their proximity or similar team allegiance)  have made some snide comment about a featured cheerleader as if this proclamation was needed to help accumulate the necessary male capital in an attempt to become the world’s biggest asshole.  As if an afternoon of watching grown men bash their heads together (in the company of other grown men) is so threatening to the strength of manhood that they have to prove their masculinity by making some comment about banging some chick he’s way to ugly to get.  Plus, it seems that males need to use the female image as some kind of unifier, in the midst of all male competition, to further prove to themselves that they are truly masters of the universe by belittling/sexualizing the female and implying she is his inferior.  I know why beer commercials plaster the cheerleader image and I know why male viewers feel the need to comment.  It’s to save face and a false sense of security.

Thoughts?

Going to the movies? By yourself? WHY WOULD YOU DO SUCH A THING.

How often have you taken that precarious stroll from the movie theater entrance to the automated ticket machines, glancing over your shoulder for reactions from strangers you will never encounter, who may or may not be judging you based on the fact you’re about to purchase only one, solitary movie ticket?  Hell, I’ve even stood at the machine itself and wondered if a box of 1’s and 0’s had the capacity to judge the health of my social life and ask me something like “Really?  Do you have no friends?”

Because even though a night at the movies seems like a pretty safe, easy form of entertainment (or way to kill time), there is one societal understanding that makes absolutely zero sense:

You don’t go to the movies alone.

Let’s put aside the fact that its “social taboo” to do many other activities alone: We’ve all stared at the guy eating dinner in a crowded restaurant by himself, but never consider that he may have chosen to eat alone and, instead, just assume he has no friends and, thus, no choice but to munch his French fries in miserable solitude.  But at least dining generally carries a social aspect as breaking bread is arguably our greatest vehicle for long, meaningful conversation/debate.

We often watch movies/television alone in the comfort of our own home.  Some even consider a night curled on the couch while watching movies to be therapeutic during rough times, such as a break up.  But just the idea of scrapping the rental plan in favor of purchasing one ticket from the box office can be poison. But here’s the thing: why is going to a movie a social event?  Sure, you have the five minutes prior to the movie to chatter away, and perhaps the five minutes it takes to walk to your car upon conclusion of the picture, but once the lights go down and the previews start, it’s uncouth to even utter a word beyond “I have to pee” while the movie is in progress.  In fact, theaters generally throw more than one warning for the audience to keep its mouth closed for the duration of the film.  Due to this, it’s arguably the most unsocial thing a human can do besides taking a shit (though some inconsiderate people do yap on the phone in the public restroom), yet much of the population absolutely REFUSES to go to the movies alone as they will feel like a “loser.” Does having a familiar, breathing human beside you somehow enhance the joy?  I understand that watching a movie in a theater can be a communal experience, but how often does it involve actual interaction between audience members?  Fifty years from now, when I’m having coffee with an old friend, I sincerely doubt the words “do you remember the time we saw The Adjustment Bureau? Oh, thems were the days!” will ever be uttered from my mouth.

While trying to dissect the reason for this, there’s only one possible explanation I can conjure: simply put, most humans love to go out to fulfill a social requirement to prove to themselves that they are not the aforementioned “loser.”  Though I will cover this more fully in another post, couples and friends will often go to bars, pay way too much for booze, only to sit in the corner and converse to no one outside their group.  They easily could do this in the comfort of someone’s living room and save quite a bit of money by buying their drinks in bulk and not paying a cover charge.  Yet, we never really choose option B because that doesn’t qualify as “going out,” and it’s not as cool to tell co-workers that you spent a quiet night at a friend’s house as it would be if you said you spent it at a hot club. 

But a night at the movies is an easy, acceptable way to spend an evening, even if it’s not the most “exciting” night out.  It requires getting in a car, driving, paying money, buying snacks, and sitting for a required amount of time.  Then, of course, it gives you a conversation piece later on when someone asks you what you did over the weekend. 

But even though this same exact experience can be had while viewing alone, it’s considered weird. 

Why?