Man, she’s beautiful. Oh, wait, she’s 24? Sorry, hideous is what I meant.
You know, Red Pillers — these supposed experts on gender relations and female psychology — tend to speak of women like they are the scientist dudes in a cheesy 1950s sci-fi movie talking about the monster. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman or something. Or like how all those guys in The Thing were discussing the bizarre alien creature that could imitate them perfectly. With that cynical tone of powerlessness and hopelessness.
In fact, that’s a great idea for a bad comedy. A bunch of dudes freak out over a “monster” that shows up in their neighborhood, only for it to be just some random chick who scares them all to death for some reason.
“Good lord, the monster’s growing in height!”
“I think she just put on high heels, Johnson.”
To me, whether you’re a man or woman, if you’re discussing either gender with that resigned, angry, and defeated tone, you’ve already lost the game. You’re basically admitting you can’t functionally engage with and/or despise 50% of the world population. Not a good look.
I don’t have a love/hate relationship with the Red Pill. I have a 5% kind of like, 60% don’t like, 20% actively hate, and like 15% puzzled-by relationship. And 2% butterscotch ripple.
In so far as some Red Pill content encourages guys to follow generic platitudes like “be the best version of yourself” or “level up,” I’m okay with it. The problem is when the Red Pill steps into this weird dogmatic zone where it theorizes cookie-cutter psychology about men and women, starts prescribing a weird laundry list of actions and behaviors young men should do to “get da gurlz,” and hilariously tries to define “Alpha Male.”
One prominant Red Piller even thinks the Australian Party Guy from this 15-year old viral video is the definition of an alpha male. No, I’m not kidding. APG is cool and all, but men like Dwight D. Eisenhower or Tom Brady strike me as way better examples of alpha males than some party dude wearing sunglasses.
The Red Pill Alpha Male.
Then there’s the Red Pill’s obsession with women’s age and the whole concept of the Wall. Likely, you’ve heard of it. It’s basically the idea that women’s “sexual marketplace value,” (SMV) begins to decline precipitously at around age 30 and beyond. What is SMV? How much dudes want to bang you, pretty much. It also measures reproductive ability, as a woman’s chances to become pregnant declines as she ages until menopause shuts the window for good.
However, this “wall” idea very often becomes conflated with “beauty,” both muddling the concept overall. As “women are beauty objects” and “men are success objects,” as the maxim goes, Red Pillers cheatingly hand themselves a permanent trump card. Afterall, physical beauty obviously declines while “success” has no upper limit.
Wow, what a hottie! Oh, no. She turned 24 yesterday? Yuck, I can’t bear to even look at her now.
It all comes across as a giant cope, really. As if Red Pillers are saying that while women have all the advantages when they’re young and beautiful — ha ha — that only lasts briefly, girls. Meanwhile we men are able to dominate with the opposite sex our whole lives as long we’re leveling up.
Then there’s the constantly shifting goal posts.
For years I kept hearing age 30 was the magical wall number. Then it suddenly became 25. Now I’m hearing it’s as low as 23!
I think this one X user Maggie put it best here:
Ladies, we're facing severe wall inflation. First, it was 30, then 25, and now 23. Sad state of affairs.
I predict before long the “prime” female age in Red Pill world will creep on down to 18. Every man should be assessing potential mates the same way a porn producer casts new talent, evidently. Or the way a john hires an escort for the evening. Let’s not think of things like personal chemistry, values, or lifestyle when examining a partner — none of those things matter.
By the way, has anyone told Travis Kelce that Taylor Swift is 33 years old? OMG, dude has no idea he’s dating a wall-smashed mutant monster freak! What a pathetic loser he is.
* * *
The nice thing about Red Pillers is you don’t have to examine much of their dogma very closely to see how absurd a lot of it is on its face. Most of these guys simply don’t pass the smell test at a glance. Really, go scroll through the mix if you care to waste the time. Most of them are angry middle-aged guys who got shanked in divorce court, or weird anti-social types who just can’t function properly.
The conspiratorial part of me suspects that the Red Pill is part of a broader depopulation psyop at worst. Or at the least bad theater in the attempt to jigger the YouTube algo for profit.
But all that aside, the Red Pill too often runs afoul of my individualist perspective with its wholesale generalities about the genders to be useful as anything other than “carnival philsophy.” Akin to palm reading or crystal ball gazing. Look, both sexes have their share of assholes, no doubt. But I think you can only look at people as individuals. Trying to lump a whole gender into some easily understandable mass is counter-productive and frankly, rather weird. It’s also why feminism, aka the female Red Pill, is a crock of shit for the most part as well.
Talk to Me was a movie I instantly wanted to see immediately after catching that freaky AF trailer. It gave me Hellraiser and It Follows vibes. Plus it’s nice to see an independent horror that’s not associated with the The Conjuring universe. A24 — the Nike swoosh of the indy horror world —has done me good thus far, with prior entries like Ari Aster’s Midsommar and his instant classic Hereditary.
While I still had some reservations, being equally reminded of similar godawful teen “prop horror” films like Truth or Dare, Wish Upon, and Unfriended, I was still looking forward to checking it out.
Unfortunately, I live pretty remotely from any decent theaters. The one a two hour’s drive away from me, where I saw Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part 1 this summer, had a giant tear or rip or something going right down the middle of the screen. So I wasn’t about to waste time or money on that one again. So, I was forced to wait until Talk to Me finally arrived on streaming, and for a decent price.
Was the wait worth it? Absolutely.
The premise of Talk to Me is at-a-superficial-glance silly — a group of teens use the embalmed hand of a dead medium to conjure spirits for fun and games, until one of them takes it too far and things turn murdery. We’ve seen this sort of set-up before, in which a group of young people screw around with the spirits and quickly get in over their heads. Such as in the miniature Ouija franchise from 2014 and 2016.
However, while many horror films have a slick and disposable feel to them, TTM boasts a strong cast that really manages to capture that elusive organic sense of a genuine group of teen friends. The standout is lead Sophie Wilde, playing Mia, whose spellbound facial contortions are ones for the ages.
Source: A24.
It Follows has a similar group dynamic aesthetic, but in a more subdued laid back Midwestern style. TTM, with its Australian energy, actually has one of the most amusing montage moments I’ve ever seen in a horror, if any film, period, where the friends all take turns getting temporarily possessed by the spirits they conjure with the evil hand. The camera work by director and writers Danny and Michael Philippou is clever and Evil Dead-esque in spots, and appropriately playful in the beginning.
But it’s not long before Mia falls prey to the tricky (and kinky) evil spirits on the other side of the hand. The rules for the game Talk to Me are pretty straightforward, if a little dubious. You light a candle to “open the door” so to speak. Grip the hand and first say, “talk to me,” Then a spirit only you can see will appear. You then say “I invite you in,” to let the spirit swoop into your body, where you experience what can only be described as a three-way cross between a rollercoaster ride, a mushroom trip, and an orgasm. But be careful not to let yourself stay possessed longer than 90 seconds, or forget to blow out the candle, or else the spirits will be able to linger, and get in your head.
When Mia’s dead mother appears to her, who died from suicide recently, she sees this as her only chance to reconnect with the parent she dearly misses. Except this is exactly what the evil spirits are looking for. They then try to manipulate Mia into killing so they can absorb another soul, with the “mom” spirit taking the lead. Evidently freshly dead spirits (or demons, it’s left amibiguous) are charged with possessing the next batch of suckers. Sort of like an afterlife pyramid scheme. Herbalife from beyond the grave. Talk about pure evil.
I judge horror on whether the story slithers into my mind and haunts me for a spell, as opposed to cheap jumpscares or profuse corn syrup. This one checked all the right boxes. As did Hereditary and even the original Saw, which is underrated as it is forgotten under the weight of a million sequels.
It’s also nice that Talk to Me doesn’t fall to the temptation of trying to be another “social horror.” Though it does make relevant thematic use of social media and drug abuse. And while the dead parent trope is often overused — Midsommar did it for instance— TTM wisely doesn’t center everything around it. Where the narrative of last year’s Smile was effective but thin, and ended somewhat unsatisfyingly, Talk’s ended in — spoilers incoming — quite frankly, terrifying fashion, if a tad predictable. I’d always imagined Jack Torrance’s spirit winding up in a similar way. Trapped discorporate at the Overlook Hotel forever and trying to bugger the living, just as our protag Mia ends up on the opposite side of the evil hand, with an ill-fitting and existentialist nightmare fate reminiscent of Craig’s demise in Being John Malkovich.
Talk to Me ia good creepy stuff that’s worth checking out.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to check out some of my other articles linked below. I’m also a novelist. You can check out my books here.
And God only knows what she could be doing to Travis Kelce.
Source: Made with Midjourney by the author. Taylor sitting on her pile of gold.
Taylor Swift is a woman of many talents. A global pop queen and beauty icon, serial boyfriend dumper, and one of the OG YouTube success stories. With her massively successful Eras Tour now in its international leg, and her docu-concert movie premiering in theaters this week, Taylor Swift is well on her way to becoming a billionaire.
Well, you can add brain damager to the growing list of her innumerable accolades.
Attendees of Taylor’s Eras Tour concerts are reporting a strange side effect that’s causing them to forget large gaps of her performance.
Fox News reports, according to Dr. Nathan Carroll, a psychiatrist at the Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center, that this is actually a legit neorological condition called transient global amnesia. Or TGA.
Says Dr. Carroll:
Individuals who experience TGA will attend an event (like a concert, wedding or festival) and later report undeniable gaps in their memory. For example, during the event, it may look like you’re acting normally and answering questions — but later, you may not recall some of your conversations. Unlike other amnesias, memory loss is very limited, only lasting about a day, and people don’t forget [autobiographical] information.
In other words, Taylor Swift is so damn good she’s literally blowing people’s minds. Hey, nothing wrong with that, right?
Dr. Carroll goes on to explain that other things like poor sleep, dehydration, anxiety, and anticipation can also cause the brain to blackout portions of activity. Somewhat frightening is also how Swifties don’t even realize TGA is happening to them until much later when they ironically remember that they forgot so much.
TGA reminds me of that weird driving phenomenon called “highway hypnosis.” This is where you drive for long periods of time without recollecting most of the trip. It can happen on short drives from work, or lengthy drives across the state. No doubt blasting “Shake It Off”makes it even worse.
Dr. Soha Salman, another psychiatrist working at the ridiculously wordy Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center, also blames other unique aspects of Taylor’s concerts like the nostalgia vibes and the emotional connection fans have to her music.
The doctor mentions how things like elevated blood pressure, stress hormones, and the release of cortisol and adrenaline could also be causing the mass short-circuiting of Swiftie brains.
But it’s what Dr. Salman had to say about the use of cell phones that interested me most:
By simultaneously trying to use your phone and watch the concert, you may overtax your working memory and affect your ability to store those specific memories.
Studies have also found that when we are recording something with our smartphones, we are relying on them to remember for us. This could lead to poorer recall of the event later.
Experiencing concerts and other events through the smartphone is something I’ve noticed has become a bizarre modern trend. I realize many are using social media apps to share what’s happening with their friends. But then aren’t you short-changing yourself by missing out on what’s happening right in front of you by acting as a virtual host? Seems counter-productive and unnecessarily burdensome.
Real friends would tell you to pay attention and enjoy the show, and not worry about sharing every second of it with them. Live in the moment. But then I guess everyone feels entitled these days to digitally inhabit someone else’s point of view. “If phone says I can, then I should,” is the mantra.
People vastly overestimate how much “mental bandwidth” they’re capable of sustaining. And in the case of TGA, they’re overextending themselves and losing their memories in the process.
Not to mention their wallets. Taylor Swift tickets ain’t cheap. At her last U.S. stop at SoFi stadium some tickets were going into the five digits, with the cheapest in the nose bleed sections as much as $700 or more. A hefty price for what turned out to be, well, a forgettable experience.
Ms. Taylor Swift could do her devoted fans a big favor by telling them to put away the phones during the concert. At least for a little while. That is, unless she wants to be forgotten.
A term used to describe a type of film just released but not worth seeing other than for the temporary comfort provided by the theater’s climate control system during a heat wave.
“with the trailers indicating the film’s dubious quality, and its low Rotten Tomatoes score, he designated Wrong Turn an air conditioning movie.”
I’m not sure if the above term has ever been used before. If not, I’m coining it now.
There have been several points in my life where I’ve been forced to stay outdoors, or simply couldn’t stand being at home, while also being bored enough to waste my money on absolute junk films I had no real interest in seeing. All of which coincided with summer time heat waves.
Air conditioning movies serve an important purpose. One might even say a humanitarian one. They get you out of the murderous heat, at the cost of seeing a (usually) bad film. Often these films are matinees of movies that have been in theaters for a few weeks. Or they’re being shown at those dollar theaters six months after they premiered. So they often only cost a few bucks to see.
Fun Fact: One of the big draws movie theaters used in the past was air conditioning to get people in the door. Back before TV’s became ubiquitous in American homes, people would spend all day at the theater catching news reels, Three Stooges shorts, Looney Tunes, and movies, of course. It used to be relatively cheap, too.
Nowadays, you can’t sneeze in a movie theater without spending $100. And God help you if you’re seeing something in REAL ID 3D, IMAX, IMAX 3D, UltraScreen DLX, D-BOX, PRIME, RPX, Cinemark XD, DreamLoungers, attending a Movie Party, Dolby Cinema, ScreenX, 4DX, The Void, 70mm, or BigD.
Yes, you can now go to the theater to get your fill of BigD. No wonder dating is dead.
Here are five air conditioning movies I’ve seen.
Wrong Turn (2003)
Source: By The poster art can or could be obtained from 20th Century Fox (All US rights, UK DVD)Pathé (UK theatrical)New RegencySummit Entertainment (non-USA)., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1380504
Boy, if ever a movie had a perfect title to describe what it felt like to drive to go see it.
I remember little about this film other than it was part of the early 2000s resurgence of the “killer hillbilly” horror genre originally started by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre back in the ’70s and renewed with 2001’s Jeepers Creepers.
Oh yes, one other thing. The moment the group of young people split up to look for help after their cars break down in the woods, some girl immediately offers her boyfriend a BJ. Hey, I don’t recall reading anything about that in any wilderness survival guide. Maybe it’s only in the ladies version.
Unlike Chainsaw, which was perfectly plotless, perversely original and shocking for its time, Wrong Turn is your predictable paint by numbers teens-get-slaughtered-by-maniacs film, only this time somewhere deep in the woods. It came out not long after the Scream and I Know What You did Last Summer renaissance. Lacking neither the smarts of the former, nor the bosomy charisma of the latter, Wrong Turn premiered during a time when all it took to sell a horror film was to slap a hot teen girl in a halter top on the cover looking moderatly distressed.
Apparently, this awful but profitable 2003 release launched a direct-to-video franchise and even a freaking REBOOT. There’s a Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort that came out in 2014, followed by Wrong Turn in 2021. Hmm, I wonder if some producers weren’t inspired by the same name style Halloween reboot in 2018? We can only gue$$.
I rate Wrong Turn a perfect five out of five air conditioners.
If you weren’t alive during, or don’t remember the time when Tom Green was everywhere on MTV, you sorely missed out. I’m still not sure his whole rise to fame wasn’t an elaborate CIA psyop designed to lower America’s IQ by ten points. Though to be fair, you could say that about virtually any social media star nowadays.
Freddy Got Fingered is a subtly brilliant meta deconstruction of the gross-out comedy genre. I know it’s hard to believe that about a film with a title about sexual molestation. But by the late ’90s, Tom Green had risen high enough to earn a blank check from MTV to make anything he wanted.
So what does he do? He makes a “film” with some of the most ridiculously disgusting gross out scenes ever put to celluloid. There’s a scene where he delivers a baby, and then proceeds to swing the infant around the hospital room by its umbilical cord. A scene where he gets sprayed by elephant cum. Then there’s a recurring gag about a young kid who keeps getting seriously injured.
And those are just some of the scenes I remember. I’ve suppressed the rest just like I did with all those Bill Cosby Jell-O commercials from the ’80s.
Oh hell no!
This so-called movie is essentially one man giving Hollywood the finger. Tom Green could have produced a solid high-concept comedy. He could have been like Mike Myers and done his own Austin Powers. Or like Adam Sandler and his many man baby comedies. He could have done a clever Shakespeare-inspired teen comedy like 10 Things I Hate About You. Comedy was easy in the ’90s and early 2000s, because you didn’t have to compete with the internet and streaming platforms. Seriously, there was a five-year period where Cameron Diaz having cum in her hair was the absolute height of yucks. Good times.
Instead, Tom Green made Freddy Got Fingered. For that, I feel he deserves some credit.
I rate Freddy somehow six out of five air conditoners.
Man, what a run by Sacha Baron Cohen. After his 2006 film Borat made fifty bazillion dollars, and inspired bad impressions at parties for years to come, he popped out this little satirical nugget in 2012.
The Dictator follows an evil despot named Aladeen from a fictional North African nation called Wadiya who fish-out-of-waters in NYC after escaping an assassination plot. Like Freddy Got Fingered, this too has some weird gross-out set pieces, including a scene where Aladeen and his new hippy girlfriend Zoey (played by Anna Faris) somehow share a handshake inside some woman’s birth canal. Don’t ask me how that event came about, it’s down there with Cosby’s Pudding Pops.
The film did make a few notable contributions to the national lexicon and the meme pool cyberspace. Including a clever bit about being HIV Aladeen, a gag about Gen. Aladeen wanting his rockets to be pointy because it makes them look scary, and Aladeen and an associate freaking an American tourist couple out during a helicopter ride over the city.
It feels somewhat loathsome to consign any film starring baby-faced Anna Faris to the lowly status of “air conditioning movie.” The Dictator is a servicable enough comedy, afterall. I actually saw it during a time when I was homeless and living out of my car. The film served as a vital escape and refuge in a dollar theater during a nasty July heat wave. Considering Faris’ lengthy career powered by such films as the Scary Movie franchise and 2007’s stoner comedy Smiley Face, The Dictator is high brow by comparison.
But if I’m being honest, I never would have checked this out had it not been for the fact that it was 100 degrees outside, the local library was closed, and I wasn’t about to sit in my car all afternoon listening to Carly Rae Jepsen sing Call Me Maybe for the umpteenth goddamn time. So off to The Dictator I went.
I rate The Dictator four out of five air conditioners.
You know, I’m not quite sure of the precise moment when Hollywood slid into the barren wasteland devoid of creativity in which it currently resides. But if I had to pick a time, I’d say it was right around when it decided to make a movie based on the popular board game Battleship.
Now, at first glance you might be thinking if you were going to adapt any boardgame, Battleship makes the most sense. It’s got conflict baked into it. Besides, it’s not like you can do anything with Connect 4, Operation, or Hungry Hungry Hippos, right? With Battleship you’ve got war. You’ve got guns. You’ve got senseless action and explosions. All the ingredients you need for any successful summer popcorn film. Transformers was also popular at the time, so you had a similar toy-based property raking in billions. You’d be insane NOT to green light Battleship with a $200 million budget.
Well, there’s this whole thing called a “plot” that has to make some sense. And there’s these things called “characters” you need to have in your story in order for it to work. In Transformers, you have two sides — the Autobots and the Decepticons — locked in combat, and represented by two strong characters, the awesomely named Optimus Prime and Megatron. As silly as the whole franchise is, it kind of writes itself. Good robots smash evil robots. It’s like poetry.
But what do you have in Battleship? Nothing, really. So they had to concoct this whole cockamamie story about an alien invasion and the aliens using some cloaking technology that makes them hard to detect, in order to shoehorn in the whole gameboard conceit of having to guess which grid number to launch missiles toward. It’s all too complicated and stupid to comprehend.
Then you have quite possibly the dumbest opening to a summer “blockbuster” in history, with director Peter Berg ripping off that viral YouTube video about some guy crashing through a store ceiling of a convenence store. You’ve got Taylor Kitsch, the King of Flops, whom Hollywood was desperately (and inexplicably) trying to make a thing back then. Poor Liam Neeson must have been blackmailed or something. And Rihanna was in it too for some reason.
I don’t even recall this movie even being worthwhile even as a mild diversion. In fact, I think I even left early I was so bored. Yes, it was preferable to sit in the burning heat in my car than watch this turd of a film.
I rate Battleship two out of five air conditioners.
An honorable mention goes to Hannibal, the 2001 sequel to 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs. Except that was a film I actually wanted to see, and I recall it came out during the winter, so there were no heat-related considerations in watching it. I do remember about a third of the way through realizing that it was clearly going to fall far short of the original, in which case it’s the only film of these five that transformed into an “air conditioning movie” while I was watching it.
You know, we’re lucky to live in a time where air conditioning movies are largely a thing of the past. Like polio and lobotomies. You rarely have to go to a theater to see anything anymore. With movies streaming earlier after releasing, and video on demand, and good ol’ piracy, we can all suffer to our heart’s content at home.
Still, what are your “favorite” air conditioning movies? I can’t be the only one who’s endured here.
So, about a year ago I was driving across country somewhere in the Midwest and I had to pull in to a travel plaza for some gas. It was one of those stops on the highway that has a fast food restaurant attached. This one, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, had a Mcdonald’s.
As a rule, I avoid fast food places unless it’s late and I’m traveling, and there are no viable alternatives. I was in the middle of a long trip. Usually I pack enough food for a day or two so I don’t have to eat out. Tuna sandwiches. PB&J. Mixed vegetables. Actual sustenance. But it was my third day of driving, and I’d already burned through all my rations. It was getting dark, I had a few more hours of driving to go, and by the time I stopped again it was possible nothing would be open.
That left one hell of a Sophie’s choice. So into McDonald’s I went after parking my car.
You know that shot from The Exorcist when the priest arrives to the house and it looks all foggy and ominous? That’s what I felt like standing outside the door to Ronald McDonald’s Chamber of Misfortune.
Source: “The Exorcist” or Me Entering a Mcdonald’s. Warner Bros. Pictures
“Maybe it won’t be so bad this time,” I stupidly thought as I entered, immediately smelling something that was a cross between a men’s locker room and a public bathroom. There were crumpled napkins on the floor. Crumbs left on tables. Wet rings left from soda cups. Splotches of ketchup all over the condiment counter. Like a party of five-year old’s had just left.
It wasn’t that busy. There were maybe three or four people in there. Middle-aged guys with pot bellies wearing stretched out t-shirts. Creased old white sneakers. A distinct aura of sloth and imbecility. In other words, your regular Mcdonald’s eaters. Not a visting dignitary stricken by an unstoppable masochistic urge due to severe hunger, like myself.
There were several employees wandering behind the counter and in whatever passes for a “kitchen.” Older, mean-looking ladies. I don’t blame them for looking mean. I’d turn into a one hell of a mean SOB too if I had to work at a McDonald’s. But then again, I’d be homeless and living under a bridge before doing that.
Because the old ladies looked so mean I thought better than to order at the counter. I instead turned to one of the glowing, smudgy rectangles nearby. McDonald’s has recently installed these giant smartphone-looking screens in their restaurants that you can order and pay on. This is supposed to make the food ordering process more “efficient.”
I guess they figure people can’t stand to look away from their phones for more than five seconds even to order food, so why not create a giant smartphone for them to order on? Seems genius to me. Who doesn’t want to press their fingers onto the same screen a million other people just touched with their germy, sticky hands?
But whatever, I was starved. And if this screen brought me garbage posing as food into my mouth even ten seconds faster, I’d be perfectly fine with getting hepatitis on my hands. I tapped on the digital menu selections. A simple quarter pounder “meal” with fries and a water. Paid with my card. Then took a little plastic number display to a table in the corner.
FYI, that little plastic number thing usually means someone will BRING your food to you. However, I was about to proven very wrong about this age-old tradition.
So there I waited. And waited. And waited. And no food arrived at my sticky little table. A couple of giant flies did try to land on me, though. And some goober was coughing the whole time in the other corner so hard it sounded like he was hacking up a blood clot. But besides all that unpleasantness, hey it wasn’t that bad.
About ten minutes later I get up and go to the tiny what-passes-for-a-counter counter to inquire about my missing cuisine. Mind you, I was only sitting right off to the corner. Like, if you were working that counter, I’d have been in your peripheral vision. You wouldn’t have even had to turn your head to notice me. But anyway, there my food was, sitting on the counter, getting cold, with the bag wide open. I’d input into the giant smartphone order taker that I wanted a tray as I planned on eating in, as I don’t like to eat and drive, or eat in my car period. And again, I took a plastic number to display on my table. But evidently the highly efficient new system Mcdonald’s had put in had failed to record that request. Either way, I was left with a bag of cold fries and a lukewarm “burger” (yeah right, more like a soggy greased cardboard).
I looked right at Mrs. Sourpuss Face and inquired why no one had brought me my meal.
“We don’t really do that here,” she hissed, and then ducked into the kitchen. I stood there dumbfounded for a moment.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. If you were sitting so close, why didn’t you get up earlier and check to see if your food was there? That’s besides the point. They still put it into a bag instead of on a tray. They left the bag wide open, causing it to get cold. And they weren’t that busy. Like I mentioned earlier, there were just a few buffoons in there when I arrived. They absolutely had time to hand off a simple tray of so-called food just out of courtesy. It’s literally the least the counter people can do. They don’t cook the food. They don’t even take orders for food, with those giant glowing monolith screens. They don’t clean up any tables. So what exactly do they have to do at all other than make customers feel like useless pests?
Dejected, I returned to my table. The food tasted like shit, of course. And after that horrendous service experience, I was pissed off and embarrassed. I’d have enjoyed a meal more sitting in a porta potty than sitting at that goddamn sticky table with the giant prehistoric flies buzzing around and Mr. Hack-A-Lung in the other corner.
Source: McDonald’s menu from the 1970’s.
When the fuck did Mcdonald’s become an absolute dumpster buffet? I remember when Mcdonald’s had a certain mystique. It had the ball pit. It had a play place. It was lively and colorful. Then some dumbass kid probably broke a tooth off on a ball pit ball and that was that. You used to even be able to smoke there. I know it was THE place to go to in the ’70s. That was when Mcdonald’s was at its height, not to mention reasonably affordable to eat at for a regular person. I paid something like $14-$15 for that cold pile of cholesterol-soaked sponges. Now, instead of Mcdonalds being a colorful foodie wonderland, the “restaurants” look like dystopian government offices. Everything is purely utilitarian. Like it were designed for robots. If there is one subtextual message McDonald’s sends with its interior design, it’s “Give us your money, now get the fuck out, asshole.” There’s no warmth. No welcome. No quality. No humanity. And certainly no value for your hard-earned money.
McDonald’s anymore is a monument to culinary failure. It’s like prison cafeteria food a supervillain somehow conned the world into paying $10+ per meal for. It’s staffed by people who aren’t really overworked, they just don’t give a fuck. It’s architectural design looks like it was created by aliens. Literally everything about it is so disgustingly bad that it’s actually shocking that such a business could even exist, much less be a multi-billion dollar corporation.
You’re not even a customer inside a Mcdonald’s anymore. You are a sucker from which as much money as possible is to be extracted, while offering as little as possible in return. Granted, that’s most retail and fast food establishments period. But Mcdonald’s takes it to an art form.
Source: “Falling Down,” or the Typical Mcdonald’s Experience. Warner Bros.
There’s this guy on YouTube called TheReportoftheWeek who reviews fast food. Some of his videos are quite lengthy. He reviews Mcdonald’s meals from time to time. He goes into detail, and gives really good and thorough reviews. But honestly, you only need about five seconds to review any meal at all from McDonald’s. They suck ass and belong in the trash. There, review done.
Really, I don’t know what it is anymore. It’s like every place exists to see how much it can piss you off just enough so you’ll still return. I went to Wal-Mart just today for example, and I’m not even done checking out before some fucking “associate” comes up to me to pester me about doing a customer service survey on the card reader. I’m in line trying to get my groceries in my cart and I’m supposed to fill out goddamn survey? GTFO. I was in line for all of two minutes. What the hell was I even supposed to base my survey on anyway? That’s it, no more surveys. I’m done. From here on out, if I’m asked to do a survey, it’s a guaranteed zero or one star review. I don’t care.
With the super successful Barbie movie in the billion dollar club at the box office, Mattel is ready to unleash the rest of its numerous branded toys into theaters.
It all started in 2018, when new CEO Ynon Kreiz, faced with declining toy sales, decided to transform Mattel’s catologue of toys into movie IP. Just like Marvel did. And like WB tried with the DCEU, and is trying again. And what Universal tried with its disastrous “Dark Universe” with 2017’s The Mummy. Everyone and their grandma is trying to make a cinematic universe. But will Barbie end up being Mattel’s Iron Man, or will the smash satirical hit prove to be a one off? Time will tell.
In the meanwhile, Mattel has 14 projects in various stages of development, according to Variety. This got me to thinking. What would they look like? What would they be about? Would they try to make them super smart, super feminist, and super socially-conscious like Barbie? Or would each be its own thing? Would they be connected, with a big Avengers-style mash-up every few years, or would they be stand-alone projects? How the hell do you even make a movie about Uno?
Well, I did some research on these upcoming films, and let’s just say I can’t wait for this MCU to get started! One thing I was very impressed with was the diversity of themes and ideas I found, and the piercing social criticisms attendant with each property. Here’s just a few of the plots and info of upcoming films I discovered coming out soon from Mattel:
What is it? Miniature dolls and accessories that you can fit in your pocket.
Theme: Female empowerment.
Plot: Polly Pocket and her friends discover they were invented by an evil man who wanted to make little toy women that fit in your pocket, because he thinks all women should be small and easily controlled. But they turn the tables on him when, through the power of friendship (and glitter) they become super-sized, and stick him in a tiny house.
Tagline:Is that a Polly in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
My thoughts: This is such a great idea whose time has come, and I think it will make a billion dollars at the box office easy.
Plot: A bunch of schlubby middle-aged good ol’ boy mechanics working at a car shop get put in their place when a newly hired 20-year old female with both beauty and brains, comes aboard and starts making these newfangled vehicles she calls “Hot Wheels.” When her models start selling like hotcakes, it becomes a full-on gender war. But not to worry, she easily comes out on top.
Tagline: Hot (and also Strong and Independent) Wheels
My thoughts: This is exactly the kind of deep intellectual satire you can sink your teeth into. We need more movies where stereotypically-presented alpha males are put in their place by flawless young women who are both equally beautiful and brilliant. I don’t think men realize that women can like cars, too. But after this movie comes out, the whole world will know that hell yes they can.
What is it? Little robots you control and punch the heads off of.
Theme: Female Empowerment.
Plot: Forced into a life of endless and mindless violence fighting in a ring, a toy robot is at last given a chance at peace when his human controller switches from a violent, mean and dumb little boy, to a peace-loving, very smart little girl.
Tagline: He won’t knock off your head, he’ll knock off your heart!
My thoughts: Such brilliant satire. And the irony, too. A violent robot boxer who learns to love peace and pacifism. I think Terminator 2: Judgment Day is going to get a run for its money for most likable robot who won’t kill when the world finally gets to meet our main robot character, Rock ’Em.
Plot: A little boy decides he’s had enough of being a little boy, and becomes a little girl instead. But not just any girl. An American Girl.
Tagline: (sung to the tune of American Girl by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) He was…an Americaaaan Giiiiirl!
My thoughts: Just reading the plot made tears stream down my cheeks. What a touching, smart, and very empowering story about girlhood, femininity, femaleness, and the wonder of women. I’m marking this one’s release date on my calendar. I just hope the theater provides enough tissues, LOL.
What is it? A pool ball that gives vague but somehow correct answers.
Theme: Female empowerment.
Plot: When a mysogynistic middle-aged man discovers a magic eight ball that gives 100% correct answers, he gets the shock of a lifetime when the answer to his every inquiry is: “Women are always right.”
Tagline: Are all women infallible and wonderful? All signs point to yes!
My thoughts: I don’t need a Magic 8 Ball to tell me to go see this movie when it premiers. I’ll be camped out over night to get tickets, that’s for sure.
What is it? Playing cards with rules that are way too complicated to learn. Why can’t we just play Old Maid?
Theme: Female empowerment (with a touch of anti-patriarchy)
Plot: When a woman becomes the CEO of a major toy manufacturer based in Southern California, she deftly manages to ward off every criticism from the misogynistic men in the boardroom by using magically endowed playing cards that reverse their hostile feelings.
Tagline: Meet the girlboss who’s about to be numero Uno!
My thoughts: I’m going to go ahead and call this one a royal flush. It’s like Anchorman meets The Mary Tyler Moore Show meets Big, inspired by the incredible true story of Theranos run by legendary female CEO Elizabeth Holmes. With that many classics smashed together, you know it’s going to be good.
What is it? Some cheap plastic thing you look into to see blurry pictures of things.
Theme: Female empowerment
Plot: When a nasty, 98-year old misogynistic man is gifted a magic stereoscope by a fairy princess that allows him to see the hurt his thoughts and words cause to others in the world, he changes his sexist ways, and becomes a male feminist.
Tagline: He’s had eyes his whole life, but he didn’t SEE until he was 98.
My thoughts: I’ll be very surprised if this isn’t in contention for Best Picture. It has the kind of character arc you used to only see in classic films, not to mention a very timely theme you rarely see talked about in movies today. If Clint Eastwood is still around when this gets made, he’d be perfect for the lead. It’ll be the role he’ll be most remembered for without a doubt.
That’s all I could find for now. Aren’t these great? I’m not sure any of them will be at the level of Barbie, or bring in the same kind of box office. But I do know I’ll be waiting in line at each one on opening night. See you there!
Dean Brooks 