Archive for December, 2011
Snarky Cinema: Adventures in Live-ish Blogging “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, or “HOLY COW SANTA CLAUS IS A JERK IN THIS MOVIE”
Hello children. Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, and Happy Festivue to the rest of you.
Today is my 21st birthday, and I had my first actual honest to goodness alcoholic beverage tonight. (I’m not joking; aside from accidentally drinking out of the wrong glass and a sip of Miller Lite I haven’t ever had anything, ever.) First I tried the wine my parents drink, which I don’t like, and straight whiskey, which I really, really don’t like, and a Mike’s Hard Black Cherry Lemonade, which I really liked. And yes, I did get buzzed. But only just.
Tonight 1/2 of my family is watching Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer in all of its stop motion glory. This is a traditional Christmas movie for my family; as such we have watched it for the past 2-ish decades. I loved this movie when I was little; Rudy was suitably cute and adorable and the Abominable Snow Monster scared the ever-loving crap out of me. Of course, as the years went by the elder members of the family, myself included, began giving the movie the MSTK3000 treatment because as it turns out there are parts of Rudolph that are unbelievably horrible for a kid’s movie, or any movie that isn’t propaganda for a hate group. As such, it is wholeheartedly deserving of ridicule. However, my Mom likes to watch movies without listening to a running commentary. Therefore, the running commentary is below. The time is off a little bit, but you should get the general gist of things. If you haven’t ever seen the Burl Ives classic, then look it up on Wikipedia or something because I’m too lazy to do the usual rundown on it.
00:23 Christmas seals don’t look like seals. They look like the expelled solid by-product of metabolism.
00:44 Mrs. Claus is trying to give her husband an eating disorder. If he wants to be healthy that’s his business.
01:49 I want to say, for the record, that I don’t recall the most famous reindeer of all.
02:21 Okay, so there are parts of this movie that are really problematic, but I really, really love the soundtrack.
03:08 What is Rudolph’s deal? I mean, flying reindeer is okay, but glowing noses is where we enter into the unacceptable? Also, recessive alleles don’t explain the wonky genetics going on in this story.
03:46 I like how Donner’s antlers move around. Because antlers totally do that.
04:15 Until the appearance of the Abominable Snow Monster, no one really makes it clear why Rudy’s nose is so horrible. It seems to come down to “because it is.” Which is actually totally realistic – people will hate you for completely arbitrary reasons. This is an educational movie.
04:55 Harnesses do not work like that. They aren’t necklaces – they have to actually attach to things…
05:22 Apparently Kris Kringle is the King of Jing-a-Ling. I feel like Jing-a-Ling would be in Asia somewhere, which makes sense given how much the workshop resembles a sweatshop.
06:32 When a studio eventually gets around to rebooting/remaking Rudolph, because you know they will, I want them to flesh out the backstory of the Abominable. What’s his story? Did a reindeer slaughter his village? Was he abandoned by his parents? Or – were they killed by reindeer? Is that why he hates Christmas – because he never had a family to enjoy it with? THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW.
07:27 Why do the elves have like 13 guys physically building the toys but only one guy painting? How is that an efficient distribution of resources?
08:11 Apparently the North Pole is a communist dictatorship. Poor Hermie just wants to be a dentist, but the man won’t let him.
09:07 Donner: “There are more important things than comfort. Like self-respect!” World’s Greatest Dad, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah.
10:56 “Ho-ho-ho, ho-ho-ho, we are Santa’s elves!” So not a communist dictatorship – just slave labor.
12:04 So the elves make a lovely song for Santa, rehearse it and everything, and sing it for Santa. Who responds with “Needs work. I have to go inspect the reindeer now instead of validating the hard work of my slave labor work force.” Fantastic.
13:21 I really like Hermie, but it takes a special mind to strike off on one’s own in the middle of the North Pole without any food or supplies at all whatsoever.
13:55 Comet: “My name is Comet, and I’m not just your teacher, I also want to be your pal.” Creepier words have definitely been said by an authority figure, but dangit that’s still creepy.
15:16 Clarice is the first person in the movie to accept Rudolph without any reservations. I feel like this says something about true love and how it conquers all, but I also feel like this says something about how much of a jerk basically everyone else in this movie is.
15:57 Rudolph is a flying prodigy. But apparently this does not outweigh having a flashlight on your shnozz.
16:23 The reindeer react to Rudy’s nose with horror and shock. I just want to remind everyone again – flying reindeer. You’d think the fantastic wouldn’t be that big a deal. Also, it’s only a big deal to the people in Christmas Town. Cornelius is fine with it, Hermie’s fine with it, Moonracer is peachy about it. So what is it with the Christmas Town folk?
16:47 Santa: “Donner, you should be ashamed of yourself!” I’m a little curious as to how, exactly, this would be Donner’s fault. At the very least is should also partly be Rudolph’s mom’s fault, because ½ of that genetic material was hers. Also, why doesn’t Rudolph’s mom get a name? What is up with that?
20:27 Hermie: “What d’you say – why don’t we be independent together?” I don’t think Hermie understands what independence is.
21:56 Abominable Snow Monster! (ASM from here on out.) Who is now magically bigger than a mountain. The scaling on this movie could use a little work.
22:31 Yukon Cornelius doesn’t always drink beer, but when he does, it is out of the skull of the Dos Equis man. When Chuck Norris eventually dies, it will be by the pickaxe of Yukon Cornelius. Yukon Cornelius once visited the Virgin Islands. There were no survivors. #yukoncorneliusfacts
23:17 Yukon frequently tosses his metal pick up into the air into the snow, and then licks it. Let me repeat that – he licks his metal pickaxe that has been hanging, uncovered, on his belt, before being thrown in snow. It’s like he’s never heard of A Christmas Story.
25:27 I think Yukon’s dogs might be the smartest characters in this movie.
26:37 I think events later in the movie prove that the ASM does not, in fact, have one weakness. Yes it sinks, but I think we’re forgetting its weakness to being hit very hard in the head with a falling rock.
27:44 Not all who wander are lost, but I’m pretty darn sure our heroes are.
27:49 Oh, so NOW Donner feels bad about how he treated Rudy. Far after anything useful can be done about the situation.
28:56 I think “Charlie-in-the-Box” is the greatest euphemism for anything, ever.
29:23 Charlie isn’t accepted as a toy because his name is Charlie, not Jack. A) This is making an Everest out of a very poorly built anthill, and B) I think this could be solved by a very simple name change.
30:50 So in that remake, I want in depth backstory on the Doll. I mean, she looks perfectly normal. What exactly is her deal?
31:10 There’s a water pistol that shoots jelly. That’s why it’s a misfit. Here’s my question: WHO LOADED THIS THING? My money is on the Pillsbury Doughboy, who, despite the name, clearly does not understand how weapons work.
32:19 The herald just played that little trill for King Moonracer’s court. I bring this up because while shopping with my roommate in Walmart the other day, I heard this trill from across the store and (very) loudly and excitedly informed my roommate that that sound was the trill for King Moonracer’s court and that therefore Rudolph must be playing somewhere in the storm. (My roommate, who is blessed with the patience of a hundred saints, ignored me and kept shopping for classroom supplies for adorable little snot-nosed schoolchildren. I still say we could have saved money by not getting them Kleenex. I made do with industrial grade sandpaper; so can they.)
33:00 King Moonracer wants our heroes to someday inform Santa of the Island of Misfit Toys so that Santa can help them. Here are the problems with that line of reasoning: 1) Hermie and Rudolph were so reviled that they fled Santa’s court. So why, exactly, would they have any clout at all with Santa? 2) Santa has thus far rejected a tiny, adorable little reindeer for the crime of having a blinking light on his nose. It’s kind of out of character for him to be all that warm and welcoming to a group of people whose only defining trait is that they all have a “defect.”
35:39 Santa wants Rudolph to find Donner, who is missing. Also missing are Rudolph’s mom and Clarice, but apparently they’re not all that important, as Santa specifically wants Rudolph to find Donner because it’s nearly Christmas Eve and he needs Donner to pull the sleigh. To clarify – sentient reindeer is missing; Santa wants him found not because his friend is missing, but because he needs said friend to provide manual labor.
36:36 Rudy’s folks are missing, and apparently have been missing for months. Rudy’s first plan is to look in the cave of the ASM. How, exactly, does that conclusion make even the remotest bit of sense?
37:15 I really wish that when I’m all grown up I have a laugh half as evil as the ASM’s.
39:05 I think Cornelius is psychotic. My first clue was the constant giggling while dropping a person-sized boulder on the ASM’s head.
39:17 Hermie is the world’s greatest dentist. In the space of 30 seconds he removed over a dozen teeth as half as large as he was. That’s pretty impressive for someone with no practical experience.
39:41 “Just walk right past the toothless ASM. It’s not like he is three times as tall as you and capable of crushing you with one hand.” Thank you, Hermie.
40:32 “They realized the best thing to do was to get the womenfolk back to Christmas Town.” I don’t even.
41:17 “Hey Rudolph, we’re sorry we basically drove you out of our society and stuff. And we’re sure that simply saying that is enough to make it up for the seasons you spent wandering without shelter or companionship, dogged by the ASM.” – All of the Other Reindeer
43:43 Remember kids, you can be as different as much as you want to be so long as you are useful to society.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Things I Like: Las Drogas
Good evening all ye gentlefolk. I know it’s been awhile. And I’m calling you gentlefolk because less than an hour ago a rather irritated woman referred to me as “that gentleman coughing over there,” so gentle has been on my mind. I’m also calling you gentlefolk because it sounds uppity and hoity-toity and I feel like talking that way because today I passed one of the most profound passages of adulthood: I went to the doctor by myself without Mommy and navigated the murky waters of insurance payment with only a little bit of help from Mommy.
(Although in my defense, if I had an insurance card – which is something that pretty much everybody thinks I should have, apparently, so I suppose I should figure out how to get one – I could have done it all without Mommy.)
I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that I once again have a sinus infection. The good news is that I’m not in Virginia, so an uncouth slackjawed yokel quack a highly trained and paid medical professional didn’t look at the green viscous fluid oozing out of 5 of the 7 orifices on my head and diagnose me with severe allergies. (I learned this week why snot turns green when you’re sick (but it doesn’t when you have allergies, Dr. Dumba Guy!) As some of you know, I have disembowled a corpse and literally been up to my wrists in the contents of its lower intestinal track. I ate food about a half an hour before that, and the thought did not even occur to me that I should be disgusted. Knowing all of that, I want you to consider how disgusting something has to be in order for me to think it’s gross. So I’m telling you now – green mucous is really, really, really gross and it makes me feel faintly sick inside to think about how much my body has produced during the past week.)
Anywho, I’ve been feeling lousy since Sunday but kept telling myself it was probably a cold and I’d be over it in a few days so I should suck it up and just deal until I got over it. Ironically, that last sentiment was probably stated verbatim at some point on Sunday by a blood relation of mine, or at the very least thought really, really loudly. So to anyone who had that thought – I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK.
After going through the contents of six different boxes of Puffs in five days, 4 of which were completely full before I got to them, I figured I should maybe go see a doctor. The first problem with this was that my campus doesn’t have an onsite clinic, so I needed to go off campus to Trinity, the local clinic. The place isn’t exactly close, and there was no way I would be able to walk there and back without walking in the dark, so that wasn’t happening. I finally resolved to try the free campus medical shuttle, except then I figured out that I wouldn’t be able to get to the clinic and back during the medical shuttle’s operating hours. I then decided to try borrowing my roommate’s car. This was problematic because I didn’t know where my roommate was. At this point it was about 4PM and I was in the College Center, hoping my roommate was working the Control Desk so I could borrow her keys. She wasn’t there. Then I tried asking my boss if she knew where my roomie was. She didn’t, but she was willing to call her cell phone since mine was dead. After all of this, I finally got in contact with my roomie to find that my roomie was perfectly willing to loan me her car, but our mutual friend was out at a clinic until five and using the car.
Instead of assuming that these were all signs that God didn’t want me to leave campus and was in fact actively working against my efforts to gain medical attention, I went back to my apartment and eagerly awaited five. At precisely 4:57PM, I heard a knock from the door in the creepy stairwell and threw caution to the wind and answered the door without taking the time to grab my rammer, which is like a hammer except instead of hitting nails I use it to hit rapists. At precisely 5PM I was driving to Trinity.
I learned an interesting fact about administrative staff in medical centers. They all assume that if they don’t have your medical information on file then you have an insurance card to give them. As I previously mentioned, I don’t have an insurance card. I did, however, have the foresight to get the policy and group numbers from Mom a few days ago, so I used my fallback of looking pathetically earnest and clueless (which was easy because even though I have felt like crap for the past week the fact that I was going to be getting drugs soon made me so very, very happy), at which point the nice receptionist lady took pity on me and sorted it out.
I then waited for an hour, which was not enough to dampen my spirits because I spent that time thinking that however long I sat in that lobby it still wouldn’t be as long as that time in Virginia and that irregardless of a bus crash nobody would be getting in ahead of me who hadn’t been there already.
When I finally did get taken back, a nice lady came in and took my vitals (I didn’t have a fever, which is not surprising and makes me mad because this proves that I can in fact be sick and in need of antibiotics and not have a fever, which would have been useful proof to have for Mom during the twelve years during which she determined whether or not I was sick enough by her standards to avoid attending school that day.) She took my medical history and got the general gist of what had been going on, then got a doctor. The doctor came, listened to my assessment, told me that the lingering cough I had had for the month prior to this was probably mild bronchitis and that both should be cleared up by taking Augmentin, which she would have the pharmacy across from the street fill out. This whole thing took under ten minutes. I think Virginia is feeling inadequate right now. I hope it is.
Then I had to go to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled. Here we ran into some trouble, because the nice overworked lady behind the counter asked me for something called a “bin” number. I looked at her with my best “please-help-me-I-am-a-clueless-college-student-who-has-never-had-to-do-this-before-ever-and-I-have-no-idea-whatsoever-what-I’m-doing” face, which did not actually tangibly help the situation but did have the effect of making the nice lady take pity on me and be really nice. She eventually called my Mom, who did supply the “bin” number. And that is how I dealt with insurance TWICE today. Like a boss. A pathetic boss, but a boss nonetheless.
One other thing I want to mention here: Generations before me – do not EVER whine to me about how rude today’s youths are. Because I have to say – out of the four people who interacted with the pharmacy ladies, the two who loudly talked about the incompetency of the nice lady – WHO WAS STANDING TEN FEET AWAY FROM THEM – were above the age of forty. The woman who just wasn’t getting her prescription fast enough (this would be the “gentleman” lady, so at the very least she was politely calling me a guy) and loudly let everyone know that she was dissatisfied with the level of service and having to be near “that gentleman coughing over there” was over fifty. (I found this really funny because the guy I sat next to (who had also just come from Trinity, and recognized me from the waiting room and said hi) had pneumonia but wasn’t showing any symptoms. Between the two, I think the lady would probably rather have the sinus infection than the pneumonia, but that’s just me.) The only person out of the bunch who treated them as the competently educated and overworked professionals that they were was me. I am twenty. And that fact would not stop my Mom from giving me a slap if I treated the people who were helping me the way those three treated those ladies.
So, to make a short story long, I am currently in bed chilling with my drogas. That I got. By myself. Because I am awesome.
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Things I Like and Other Miscellaneous Musings 