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.
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
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.
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