Monthly Archives: July 2010

Dear Expendables – Save Us

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When we head to the theater to catch a movie on the big screen, we already have to deal with continuously growing ticket prices, massively overpriced food, and talking teenagers with their bejeweled cell phones. But a much more disturbing trend has been taking place in the last decade or so, a very terrible trend that literally forces me to stay at home and avoid going to movie theaters whenever possible:

Teeny Bopper Takeover.

This despicable scenario of pre-puberty is not a single faced monster though. It has several facets. The first of which being the fact that many more movies center around highschool age characters for their plot lines. From Tranformers to Twilight, Superbad to Juno – there is no denying it. Way too many movies that have come out in the 2000’s surround lame teenage characters.

The second side of teeny bopper takeover is the actual movies being produced. Hollywood studios seem to strong arm directors into producing PG-13 rated movies to maximize their profits. I can understand this to a point; but when DIE HARD 4 comes out as an effing PG-13 movie, something is seriously wrong with the mother effing world.

Not only do the studios jack the movie up to maximize the teeny bopper profit at the theater, but they then release the “Director’s cut” to DVD/Bluray so that the 18-35 crowd will theoretically spend a few more dollars to see the movie how it should have been theatrically released in the first place.

The Twilight generation is ruining the movie industry for the rest of the world. I don’t care if Bella is sad. I don’t care if you want to be in a “wolf pack” at school. It’s effing stupid.

Well, teenie boppers, The Expendables are going to break you. The biggest collection of action movie stars ever. From the classic Stallone/Willis/Lundgren to relative newcomers Statham/Couture/Austin – The Expendables promises us all everything.

It is my prediction that The Expendables are going to turn the tides of the movie industry. This movie is made by awesome men, for awesome men. Even the Old spice guy would approve of its existence. There’s no bullshit rating cut here either. The MPAA rates “The Expendables” a solid R with the following description: “Rated R for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language”

This film has seen a fairly significant male call to arms via the internet. And it seems like MEN around the world are uniting in blood to see this movie on August 13th when it comes out (on my 30th birthday, oddly).

It’s going to be a success. It’s going to own the box office for the weekend and possibly for several weekends. Hollywood is going to notice, and they will realize how stupid they have been. How they’ve been missing out on making this kind of movie for a long, long time.

If you’re a man – then you really need to see The Expendables at least once on August 13th in the theater.

The Trailer ensues

Pandora it is

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A couple months ago, I was blogging about my exploration into the world of internet radio and streaming music.  I was enthusiastically trying new services and overall just making a push to find a better way to experience music.  I was weighing pros and cons of a few different services over this time, and I’m happy to emphatically proclaim that Pandora radio is by far the best service for me. 

I purchased the annual subscription to the premium Pandora One service, and it is possibly the best 36 dollars that I’ve ever spent.  The premium service grants several enhancements; most important are the ad-free listening, a desktop application, and higher quality audio streams.  For a clean and simple to use service, it’s amazing what somebody can get from Pandora.  I supremely enjoy the fact that I can queue up an endless stream of music that is specifically tailored to my tastes; all while not having to worry about creating playlists or syncing up any media devices.

Not only has Pandora simplified the way I listen to music, but it’s drastically expanded my exposure.  Before Pandora, I had very specific musical tastes.  I grew up listening to only a handful of what the music had to offer, and that basically trained me to keep in a “sheltered” state of music.  I was overly picky and I never gave anything new a chance.  I didn’t know that Killswitch Engage’s song “Holy Diver” was a cover of  Dio.  I didn’t know Dio sang for Black Sabbath.  I didn’t know or appreciate what Jimi Hendrix could do on a guitar.  I didn’t enjoy the vintage appeal of bands like Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones.  I didn’t grasp the depth of genre that has come with the last decade or so in music.

In short: Pandora has been my higher education of music.

I’ve also noticed how the tech world is adopting Pandora on a much wider scale than I realized.  I was amazed to see that my new Panasonic television has Pandora streaming capabilites.  Heck, Ford is even in the works to get Pandora into their Sync platform! (which, I still give massive props to Ford)  Pandora is clearly the frontrunner and defining what streaming radio can be.

Pandora is an awesome service; plain and simple. You’re doing yourself a significant injustice if you dont give it a try. It’s free, easy, and immensely powerful. I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys music.

If anyone is interested, feel free to check out my Pandora stations. I’m proud of them and they have become finely tuned to my liking.

And for reference, here is my Pandora profile: http://www.pandora.com/people/vanberge5#