Tuesday, August 8, 2017

BB19 and Who Has Been "Cancelled"

It's been a busy few days on the blog which continues with the posting of this podcast. But first, if you missed my blog post the other day: I discussed the recent editing snafu that the producers chose to do and relayed why it was problematic. If you want to read it, go to the home page of  this site, scroll down this post, and you should be able to see it. With that being said, here is the link to the podcast.

Sunday, August 6, 2017

CBS Sucks: A Rant About the Editing of Big Brother 19

   I’ve recently had a conversation with someone where they asked me a very reasonable question. Why do I like Jessica and Cody on this season of Big Brother? It’s a reasonable question. In theory, they represent everything I don’t like in Big Brother contestants. They don’t treat the game like the Holy Grail, they care more about competitions than strategy, and they do have pretty terrible social games. But yet, I love them. I’ve discovered that what I love is their no bs approach to these houseguests and how they are the only people on this season to truly understand how everyone else in the house with them is complete and utter trash. It’s as if the Big Brother house became a landfill and Jody are the recyclable cans that ended up there by a lazy mistake.

  This is a cast of completely unrepentant narcissists and nasty people. First, we have Paul: the midget with a Napoleon complex who thinks it is his god given right to behave cruelly towards other people. The worst part is that, try as he might to justify it, his actions have nothing to do with the game. Kicking two people that are already down is NOT a game move. He didn’t get anyone new to turn on them. He didn’t make them perform poorly in a challenge and then backed off. He decided to make their lives a living hell this past week. 

   For those who saw the harassment Jessica and Cody faced on the Thursday Big Brother episode, let me tell you, there was so much you missed. Paul orchestrated that entire attack hours before it happened and told each person what they were to do. What you didn’t see was Alex and Christmas for multiple hours attacked Cody’s military service and told him that his service was a lie. Cody was a marine for 10 years and was deployed twice in Afghanistan and they had the nerve to tell him his service was fake. CBS, likely to protect ratings from dropping, did not air these remarks. Furthermore, this attacking of the two lasted for hours beyond what was shown. Jessica and Cody had to be talked out of not quitting by the diary room and the houseguests had to be warned repeatedly to stop. However, what makes the situation even worse is that after all of the warnings, all Paul got from the experience was that America would “mistakenly” think he was a bully. He might as well buy a big old track with oversize wheels because his small penis syndrome couldn’t be anymore obvious.

  Christmas ought to only receive coal this year for her behavior as well. I do not care if she is on painkillers. She has the capacity to realize that Paul’s actions were disgusting and she should not have agreed with it, or even participated.  Matt was falsely portrayed as a good guy during the episode, but that was incorrect. He did express doubt over the plan, but only because he was worried about Cody hitting someone. He was full blown egging on Raven when she was attacking Jessica.

    And don’t even get me started on Raven. She is full blown Carrie/single white female/white trash/insert any other crazy and demeaning allusion here. 1. When she was flat out called Paul’s dog, she freaking barks in response. DOES SHE NOT GET THAT THAT WAS AN INSULT?! 2. I’m angry at CBS for how they edited her fight with Jessica over Alex’s cat ears. What they did not show was that everything Jessica said was correct. Raven DID steal the cat ears and pour out the coke, and CBS EASILY had tape of it that they could have shown, but they didn’t because protecting Raven is protecting Paul. I don’t care that they still showed those two negatively. It was much worse than what was portrayed. 3. Raven is an attention whore. Plain and simple. While the stomach disease that she talks about is real, the extent to which she says she suffers does not appear to be. For a “life threatening” and horrible illness, she has not had a SINGLE instance of being sick in the house. Furthermore, after Christmas broke her foot, Raven noticeably began faking a limp and this limp was only present when other houseguests were around. Then a few weeks ago, all of a sudden she has a story about having been kidnapped. If you think this is it, you are mistaken. Jessica a few nights ago was talking about how her father is passed away and Raven with her “one up” disease (the only real disease she probably has), decides to make it all about how her mother could probably be in the hospital. Oh, Raven, your mother is so sick but you chose to spend your summer in the Big Brother house? Crazy is as crazy does and she gets a lot of it from her mother. 

   Social media participation is nothing new for Big Brother contestants’ families, but Raven’s mother has taken it to a new level. Anyone who says anything negative about her daughter is blocked and harassed. Her mother has even gone so far as to post people’s addresses on Facebook and report parents who don’t like her daughter to Child Protective Services claiming that they abuse their children. 

   The sad thing is, is that no one on this season outside of Jessica, Cody, and Mark have any redeemable qualities. Elena is the classic bystander who does nothing to stand for what’s right, which makes her almost as culpable as who does it. Alex is a petty and insecure mean girl who trashes girls and then wonders why she has no girlfriends. Jason has made several disgusting remarks about how different women should be raped and Kevin has become openly confessing to having adulterous thought about Christmas even though he has a wife and children watching the show. Kevin, in a conversation with Paul, even openly detailed how to have an affair without a wife knowing. Are we seriously supposed to believe that he has this knowledge without having done it before? 

    The sad thing is that this week has almost had me not hating Josh as much. At least in Josh’s case, I can pinpoint his issues to some sort of psychological issue that he can’t control. The others are just horrible human beings that are exhausting to watch and read about. I was really excited about this season at the start due to the fights, but with Paul in this house, it’s taken a turn toward revolting and without Jessica, Cody, or Mark in the house, I’m not sure I could continue watching. What makes all of this worse is that CBS indirectly allows this behavior to continue to flourish for the sake of ratings by not airing it. If they had a truthful edit, these contestants would be getting blasted and actually have to face real consequences for their actions.

   So I’ll continue to wave my Jessica and Cody flags in support for non-trash Big Brother contestants. I will also continue to write about what actually needs to be said about this season, even if CBS refuses to show it. You can’t just cast horrible people and expect to get no backlash for it. 

I'll see you next time,
Julia



Saturday, August 5, 2017

War for the Planet of the Apes : "An Obvious Allegory"


   Have you ever really enjoyed a movie but still rolled your eyes at some of its more heavy-handedness with its message? Oh, you’ve watched every Marvel movie ever? Good, we are all caught up. Well, last weekend I went to see War for the Planet of the Apes, and I found myself in this exact position. In fact, I spent more time thinking about how obvious the message it was sending was, then about whether I was enjoying the movie. The movie was decent, but certain parts kept it from being as good as its predecessors, regardless of what the critics say.

    But before we dive in, I want to thank everyone who has been a part of my blog journey so far. As of last Thursday, it has been a year since I started this blog. In celebration, there is a lot of cool content to look out for on the blog this week. First, tomorrow or today depending on when you view this, I will be posting a rant blog about the recent harassment going on in this season of Big Brother. On Monday, Big Brother coverage continues with the posting of the most recent podcast I recorded. Other content during this week will include: my thoughts on the Bachelorette finale and a review of the new Dark Tower movie, so keep an eye out for all of this coming up on this special anniversary week of the blog. Now, back to the review.

  As I said before, this movie was decent. There was a lot going for it. The visuals were absolutely stunning as usual and the acting for the most part was top notch. Woody Harrelson in particular relished every second of his being the villain. He was by far the best part of the movie. In my opinion, the movie’s only real complexity came from his storyline. Without going too much into spoilers, the movie spends a lot of time considering whether or not his actions compared to the apes are moral. And while he was clearly evil, I appreciate the fact that it is also made clear that his motivations aren’t wrong, and that his reasons for committing the atrocities he does are based on a fear that ends up coming true. 

   However, that’s really the only exceptional part of the movie. Perhaps my hopes were too high considering how much critics liked the film. They cited its “message” as particularly insightful. However, even a blind individual could see the message. Similar to how its predecessor Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was somewhat of a retelling of the story of Julius Caesar being betrayed by Brutus (fitting considering the main ape’s name), this film played out as a retelling of the Holocaust. We have the villain (Hitler), who believes that the only way to save the human race (Aryans) is to defeat who they believe to have caused all of the problems, the apes/jews.  It is an easy way to get an audience emotionally invested through the parallels, but also feels cheap. The past two movies worked because there was no clear way for the humans to deal with the apes. Everyone’s actions, even if they were misguided, were reasonable. In this movie, it’s made abundantly clear that we are to sympathize with the apes and only the apes. That takes away any chance to have real discussion over the issues presented and instead makes it seem like a generic popcorn flick, when interviews with the producers make it clear it wasn’t supposed to be.

  Overall, I’d give the film 3 out of 5 stars. It is a decent film, but don’t go into it expecting it to be incredible. One last note to touch on that explains why I gave this film a higher rating than my comments above might have suggested: if you know anything about the movies that this is a prequel of, it is worth seeing. There is a subplot in this film with the child in the movie that explains how humans end up the way that they do in the original films. I found it interesting to follow once I connected the dots as to what it all meant, and this subplot in particular is how you are able to realize that the villain might be right in all of this. If you have no idea about anything in the originals, then the child will likely feel added on and her scenes will lack gravitas if you can’t make the connection as to what she alludes to. If you are fans of the originals, you should definitely check this movie out.

  May Andy Serkis move on to another Oscar worthy portrayal of an animal in a blockbuster franchise. He honestly could make me like anything. Except snakes. I will never like snakes.

  If you like the idea of me doing spoiler-lite reviews of movies when I see them, comment on this video, my Facebook post, or let me know how I’m doing in person. If enough people like them, this could become regular content on this blog and I can even dive into my thoughts on some older releases.

  Thanks and have a great day,
   Julia.