Poltergeist

Just saw this movie tonight on Turner Classic Movies. (I would so die without that channel.) It was pretty good, but I have just one question: Why was that family so goddamn stupid?

In the beginning, when the tree is eating their son, the parents run outside to save him. Leaving the little girl all by herself. Of course, this is when she gets sucked into the closet. Why would you leave a little girl alone at a time like that? There is a man-eating tree outside. I guess they were more worried about their son.

After they rescue said son from the Tree of Death, they return to the kids' room to find the little girl missing. (She done got ate by the closet while you were ignoring her, dumbfucks.) So they immediately shift all their attention to their missing daughter, completely neglecting their poor son who is covered in blood, mud, and twigs. He is left to stand in his room, alone, while the rest of the family runs madly through the house looking for Younger Daughter. I guess they were trying to make up for when they ignored her and she got ate by the closet.

Jump forward to the end of the movie. They have rescued Younger Daughter from the red gelatin-filled hell that is her closet. They have packed their things and are prepared to move. They have let their guard down. Of course they have let their guard down, they are a family of idiots. If they were not idiots, they would've got the fuck out of that house when they got their daughter back. But no. Family Dumbshit believes everything is okee-dokee on the home front. But then! (You will be shocked to hear this.) It turns out, the demon thing wasn't really gone! It tries to eat Younger Daughter and the boy. The Mother just barely manages to save them, after her bath.

Meanwhile, the Father, who was away with the guy whose bright idea it was to build on top of some graves (why not?), arrives home to see a tremendous light spewing from an upstairs window of his house. He stands there, in the street, gaping at it for a few moments. He takes a few steps forward. He stops and gawks a little more. Forward. Gawk. Forward. Finally, he sprints to the front door, only to find it blocked by a corpse in a coffin. This is one of the dead guys pissed off about the house on his grave. So these dead guys start popping up everywhere, and instead of trying to save his family, whad does Father do? He runs up to Jerkwad Who Builds Over Graves, grabs his collar, and shouts in his face, "This is your fault!" This was infinitely helpful to his family's plight.

Eventually, they get the hint and get the fuck out of there. Eventually. Overall, it was a good movie. I really liked the medium. She was badass. The stupidity of the family was delightfully frustrating. I gives it a B+.

Live-action what now?

I found out this week about the Hollywood adaptatioins of DragonBall Z and Akira. My reactions: mixed.

Now, I own the first volume of the Akira manga, and I treasure it dearly. I've also seen the movie, which was pretty good, though a two-hour movie is hardly enough to do a six-volume series justice. I'm hoping these two movies, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, will get more of the story in. One of my qualms, though, is that the setting is New Manhattan, not Neo Tokyo. I'm not a fan of westernizing things like that. Though I guess, for it to be accessible to an American audience, there can't be too many slanty eyes. Which totally explains the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the like. Are there really so little English-speaking Japanese actors out there that they had to change the setting to New York?

The DragonBall Z movie, though. Oh, man. This is going to suck hardcore. For one, the show sucks hardcore. The story is a generic quest with a villain-of-the-week plot. The main character is an unstoppable musclebound machine with the personality of a toaster. No, scratch that. My toaster and I actually have some lively conversations about toast. All Goku cares about is SAVING PEOPLE and GETTING STRONGER. And, of course, the balls.

I'll still watch it, though.

So. I've got two movies born on the trailing end of the "let's make movies based on comic books" trend, and one movie in the "let's make movies based on old cartoons" trend, a trend which really should have died after the first Scooby Doo live-action disaster. Why the hell can't people just write their own shit?

Special K

So I'm watching tv, right? And this ad for Special K comes on. This woman reaches for something, and a button pops off her blouse. Now, my first thought is, "Oh shit, get your needle and thread honey! It's sewin time!" But Commercial Woman's first thought is, "I need to lose weight."

What?

This skinny bitch does not need to lose weight. She is skinny. Her weight appears healthy, at least to me. But oh, wait! This isn't a health issue, this is an image issue. I forgot, the only reason a woman could want to lose weight is to look good, because the only thing she's got going for her is her looks. She is, after all, a woman.

I am so fucking tired of seeing skinny women (and it's almost always women, with the exception of Jared from Subway) in weight loss commercials. They are already skinny. They do not need to lose weight. Gah. I'm gonna go eat some cookies.

Women can't legally be president!

Linkage. (thiefed from feministing)

This guy is so full of shit it's not even funny. The only part of the Constitution he references in this article is the nineteenth amendment, which gave women the right to vote. It's like he thinks the Constitution is all amendments or something. Well, turns out, there's a little section before the amendments that says who can and can't be president.

Now, throughout Article II, the president is referred to as "he," but that by no means limits the presidency to a man. This was written back in the day, before women's lib and all, so the language used was predominantly masculine. The pronoun used for all humanity back then was also "he." Does this mean the founding fathers believed all the people in the world were male? No. It means they wrote how they were taught, from their male perspective.

So does the Constitution specifically prohibit a woman from becoming president? Well, here are the requirements, let's see:

Article II, Section 1, [5]
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. [emphasis mine]

This part of the Constitution, listing the requirements to hold the office of President of the United States, does not use the word "he." It uses "person." The language is entirely gender neutral.

The idea that the nineteenth amendment actually prevents a woman from being president is ludicrous. The Constitution has historically given people rights, not taken them away. This moron need to actually read the Constitution for what I assume would be the first time.

Hallo World!

I'm new to this blogging thing, so anyone who reads this will have to bear with me as I stumble through what will probably be a quagmire from which there is no escape. What I'm not new to, however, is rambling. Expect rambling. The name of my blog is Feminist Nerd, so expect a lot of ranting on both feminist and nerdly issues.

So, here I go!