Meaty Stuff

Being a poultritarian, I don't like to talk about meat so much. It makes me think of all the crying lambs and cows you people eat, while I'm guilt-free, eating my smiling chicken. However, there are three things I have to talk about that are loosely related to meat. What do you think of that? Can you grasp that idea, or are you too ham-handed? That was a meat joke.

1. Taco Bell Commercial - I'm usually an expert at avoiding commercials; however, during the baseball playoffs I set aside my insane flipping abilities for the sake of catching every pitch. This led me to see the same few commercials about one million times (rough estimate). My least favorite was definitely the Charles Schwab A Scanner Darkly crap, where "everyday people" recite how awesome the Schwab is and how much attention he gives normal customers.

Is this screencap from an annoying commercial series, or a movie that failed to live up to its trailer?

F Charles Schwab. I'm happy investing my stocks with the real star of A Scanner Darkly, Winona Ryder's animated breasts. With breasts as my brokers, I admit my portfolio is a bit too dependent on the dairy industry, and my checks do tend to bounce. Still, my broker can take a licking and keep on ticking, and that's something I can wrap my hands around fondly.

So yeah, Taco Bell. You've probably seen this commercial, but if not, here's the brief: A Jack Black wannabe (I shall call him Nacho Bibre) tells his younger brother three rules to live by:

Don't date girls with dragon tattoos.
Don't get a small dog.
Always get chili on your Nachos Bell Grande.

The set-up is already tenuous, given that the code includes two negatives and a positive. What ultimately results is even worse, punishing the viewer with the most ambiguous ending since Pan's Labyrinth. A girl with a dragon tattoo appears (the girlfriend, we assume, since she is in Nacho Bibre's house - either that or the guy is so concentrated on his own rules that he ignores the breaking of more common societal rules, like "home invasion" and "the law"). Second, the girl gives Nacho Bibre a toy dog, telling him to walk "his dog." Whoa. So this girl almost certainly is his girlfriend, and this dog almost certainly is his dog. The first two tenets of living have been broken in a matter of seconds. Nacho Bibre and his brother are stunned, as is the audience after the director then cuts away to clips of how awesome nachos with chili is. No logical path has been traveled, and Robert Frost would be pissed (or pleased, if you agree that his poem makes equally zero sense - Chris can explain). We don't know whether this guy has given us rules that are good, meaning we shouldn't eat nachos with chili. We don't know if Nacho Bibre only wanted us to follow the final, positive rule, and therefore encoded the first options negatively so as to protect us when the hilarious (?) conclusion of his own insufficiency was revealed. We don't know anything.

If you don't like beef, though, don't order this chili-topped crap.

2. Zombie Romance Mystery (ZomRomMys, not to be confused with ZomRomCom's the likes of Shaun of the Dead).

I don't have much to say on this subject other than what is inherently said in its existence. CBS heroically green-lighted a television pilot that fits into this genre. Devastatingly for both us as Americans and Amber Tamblyn's wallet (as a would-be star and benefactor), Babylon Fields was not picked up. The glory of the internet has *ahem* brought this show back from the dead, in the sense that we can at least experience moments of its brilliance. You can enjoy my favorite clip ("Post-coital zombie brags about the erectile enhancing benefits of being dead") and learn more about the hour-of-pure-joy-that-could-have-been at the link in the previous sentence. You can also be enchanted by the clip located below, which encapsulates the whole cop/mystery aspect of the show. Enchant!



3. Resident Evil

If you haven't notice, I've connected zombies with meat. Not only does their rotten flesh reveal the animal substance our souls struggle to rise above, they also taste delicious once the infection is broiled off. DO NOT EAT THE BRAIN! IT CAN NEVER BE UNINFECTED! One man's delicassy is another man's doom, given that the first man is undead. Also, kids need to learn that eating other people's brains is not a legitimate way to gain knowledge. Sylar is a fictional character and a bad role model.

Give life, Sylar! The gift of life!

Resident Evil allows me to nerd out for a second, albeit nerd out on a series that has inexplicably (to me) become a popular movie franchise. I've seen sections of the first two movies in commercial-drowned bits on basic cable, and I'm noo soo impressed. The death scene where the guy is lasered up into hundreds of cubes does rock, yes, and it rocks hard, yes, but the tense suspense of the game is lacking. This is no surprise. In a video game, cheap scares like zombie dogs jumping through windows work, because your avatar actually can die. In a movie, we know the hero is going to live at least until the end, especially if the hero is a chick like Milla Jovovich (who just had her first child... zombie congrats!). A simple plot - like an evil corporation creating the zombinating infection - can thus support a good game, as long as the gameplay is entertaining. In a movie, this plot wears thin fast and is quickly covered up by action sequences - sequences that often skimp on effects because the studio knows a video game movie isn't going to rake in the dough. It's a vicious circle of bad cinema, and despite the Resident Evil movies falling into it, they are somehow succeeding?

I'm as confused as a man looking at a Taco Bell menu. Bring back the chihuahua.

This entry was posted by DoktorPeace, on Tuesday, November 06, 2007. You can leave your response.