The smell of subjugation

I spotted this commercial on your television cablecast today, and was uncertain I was reading its message correctly. The commercial in question:

Am I to understand that Ms. Spears' fantasy is to have her will subjected and subverted by a man she doesn't love to become his sexual slave? Because that's what I'm getting here. Is this a common human fantasy? It seems very strange to me.

Really, here's the short version: She was running from this creep, he wanted to touch her, she wanted a career, he shot her with a magic arrow and made her his love slave, an she liked it.

I don't see another way to read that, but even for humans that seems pretty insane.

Revies of Movies I Have No Intention of Seeing: The Princess, The Frog, and James Cameron's Ego

THE PRINCESS & THE FROG

Oh, goody. The Disney Corporation is back in the business of watering down and commercializing traditional human fairy tales. For a few years now they’ve been trying some different things, but since their computer-generated original stories have been failing compared to other studio’s efforts, they decided to do what they do best : 1) buy one of those other studios and 2) go back to the drawing board. Literally.

So what can we expect from The Princess & The Frog? Disney’s by-the-numbers fairytale recipe:

1. Pretty, young, passive female protagonist

2. Wishing upon a star

3. Handsome, bland, non-threatening love interest

4. Jealous magic-using villain

5. Talking/farting animals

6. Songs so catchy you’ll hit yourself with a hammer to make them stop

7. Dead parent(s)

8. Phalluses snuck into background drawings by bored, sexually-frustrated artists

If that’s what appeals to you, you can cough up ten bucks to see it again in the theater or dig out one of the copies of Snow White/Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty/The Little Mermaid that Disney tricked you into buying on VHS/Laserdisc/DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital Download. Hurry before it’s locked back up in the vault, sheep!

AVATAR

What am I missing about Avatar and how the movie-going experience will never be the same for those who decide to go see it? What’s the big leap forward? All I’m seeing is a CGI-laden senses-overloading fantasy spectacle in the same style we’ve been seeing innumerable iterations of over the last decade. Has Cameron been locked away working on this thing for so long that he didn’t hear about The Lord of the Rings trilogy?

Will none of his yes-men tell the King of the World he’s been beaten to the computer-generated punch? What will he invent next? The wheel?

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS?

No.

Nor do I want to.

Revies of Movies I Have No Intention of Seeing: Office Police Cop vs. the Sexy Werewolves

NINJA ASSASSIN

This movie keeps billing itself as the best Ninja movie ever made. Was that a hard title to earn? Kind of sounds like being the toughest kid in the chess club.

Also, do you know what Ninjas are? Assassins. This is like titling a law enforcement movie “Officer Police Cop.”

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON

Look, I’m an alien, not a pre-teen girl. Or a 30-year-old-woman with the taste of a pre-teen girl.

I know I’m being particularly pedantic this week, even for me, but it actually takes more than having more than one part to properly be called “a saga.” That’s not even a quality judgment, it’s just a reminder that words actually have specific meanings.

Also, it is a quality judgment.

SERIOUS MOONLIGHT

Yet another romance/werewolf movie in which Meg Ryan falls in love with Timothy Hutton, turns into a werewolf and then eats him. OK, I’m just guessing all this based on looking at the poster right now. Go ahead and tell me, though, that you really know that’s not what this movie is. Have you seen it? Will anyone? No and no. This is a movie we ALL have no intention of seeing.

Probably they should’ve gone with the damn werewolves.

TRANSYLMANIA

From the team that brought you a bunch of movies that no one has ever seen before, comes this allegedly hilarious spoof about students in a monster-fighting school in which they IBOOINLDASD LXOAI DHZMJZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Oh, I’m sorry. I fell asleep on my keyboard for a minute there.

Yahoo's Most Poopular: Telepathetic maybe

Here's a most-popular picture today:

Cambodian mechanic Nhean Phaloek sits in his self-designed home-made Angkor 333-2010 car at his house in Phnom Penh. The gold-coloured convertible turns heads on impoverished Cambodia's roads -- not least because of creator Nhean Phaloek's outlandish claim that it can be operated telepathically.(AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Hmm... Methinks Nhean is confused about the word "telepathy," which means to communicate or control something with your mind. A telepathic car, of course, wouldn't have that steering wheel. I think I know the word you meant to use for what kind of car you have there, Mr. Phaloek.

It's "regular."

Or possibly "golf cart."