Movie Moods

I'm not sure what made me think of this, but I guess being up late makes your mind wander.

Have you ever noticed how certain movies require you to be in a particular mood to watch? Usually they are really, really good movies, or really bad movies. I have yet to find myself in a situation where I say "Self, I feel like watching John Travolta pretend he's still a relevant actor in Broken Arrow". No, that just doesn't happen. Broken Arrow was an OK movie. Not a good movie, and not a terrible movie. More of an "Oh, it's on TNT right now and since it's Sunday afternoon and I have nothing better to do, I'll just go ahead and watch it" type of flick.

But then there's one of my favorite movies of all time, Apocalypse Now. I first saw this my senior year of high school while we were studying "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. If you want to impress someone, tell them you read this book. Well actually if you want to get laid you might try saying you read "The Odyssey" since that's about a bloke trying to get home to his wife. "Heart of Darkness" is some rather fucked up shit, not to put too fine a point on it. So I'm not too sure of the type of person you'd attract quoting "The horror, the horror!" But I digress. The movie is based on the book, or more accurately it's an adaptation of the book. I won't get into the specifics but essentially substitute the African jungle for the jungles of Vietnam and the rather violent period when the ivory trade was booming with the Vietnam war and you have a pretty good idea of the major differences.

The thing about this movie is it's not something that you throw in one night when you're bored and want something to occupy your time and/or relax after work. This movie is the Fatal Attraction of movies (which I realize is a terrible metaphor): It will not be ignored. It demands your attention and if you don't give it your full focus, it tends to say "Well fuck you buddy, I'm leaving without you," and promptly proceeds to shift from Martin Sheen jumping around in his underwear while lamenting about the fact that now that he's out of the jungle, all he wants is back in, to U.S. soldiers surfing while helicopters attack the Viet Cong and blare "Ride of the Valkyries" over loudspeakers. As I said, it's something of an attention whore.

But unlike a good, mindless action flick like Independence Day or Air Force One, you really have to be in the mood for some existentialist rantings by a crazed war correspondent (Dennis Hopper), or possibly the best use of lighting and camera angles I've ever seen to make Marlin Brando's Col. Kurtz the scariest motherfucker you DON'T want to meet in a dark alley. If you're not in the mood, you just can't watch it.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the really bad movies. Ones that if you have even the slightest desire for a coherent plot, well-developed characters, good special effects, and actors that are not actually made out of plywood, you will end up getting immediately pissed off and libel to do something rash. Like watching Deep Blue Sea (a movie for which there is no possible excuse for watching more than once). Take, for example, Evil Dead. For those that don't know, Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 are the prequels to Army of Darkness which is quite possibly the most brilliant comedy/horror film ever made. The difference is that while Army of Darkness was intended to be a slapstick-comedy take on the horror film (at times it's almost Monty Pythonesqe), Evil Dead is quite serious. It tries so very, very hard to be an actual scary horror film. And it does have some rather disturbing moments (gratuitous tree-rape scene anyone?). But after about 45 minutes, it becomes quite obvious that, while unintentional, this is an A+ horror satire of the finest degree. It is so monumentally bad as a horror movies that it completely transcends the genre and somehow manages to become not only a parody of itself, but of all B-type horror movies of the last 50 years. This is B-movie making at it's finest.

But just like Apocalypse Now, you have to be in the mood for such a flick. You can't just throw on Evil Dead while you're cleaning the kitchen because half the fun is one of the EAFC's (Expendable Attractive Female Character) getting chased through the woods by some evil being that is portrayed by a drunk cameraman running through the forest as nosily as possible which smashing occasional small trees. Which, of course, ends in the aforementioned tree-rape scene.

Then there are movies that you should never, ever, ever, EVER be in the mood for and if you are, you need to go slam your balls in a door right now. Movies like Three On a Meathook, which sounds like it might actually be a good B-level slasher flick. But it's so, so bad that even watching to MST3Kify it too difficult to do without just being dumbfounded by the sheer incompetence of the director. Aside from not being in the least bit scary or disturbing, there is a scene where the main character goes to a bar. At this bar, there is a band playing. Eventually, we are treated to a shot of the band. Now this would not normally be an issue if it were the Star Wars cantina-style shot where you see the band for a few seconds as the play the music that will make up the background of the next scene. But noooooo; that would be too much to ask from Mr. Fucknut director man. Instead, we are given an 8 minute stationary shot of the band playing 2-3 ENTIRE FUCKING SONGS. It may not have been that long, but I remember I was simply stunned by how long we had the fast-forward on before we got past this point. Oh and the reason for this visit to the pub? Nothing. It was the movie equivalent of a Hummer limo: wasteful, pointless, and too damn long.

I'm not exactly sure what makes one movie require a "mood" while others require nothing more then "Hey, I haven't seen Captain Ron in a while! Let's watch that." But I do know of many movies that I just can't watch unless my mind is in the proper state. And for the 4 people who read this blog, do you have any movies that require a certain mood before watching?

Do not go quietly into that good night, Rage, rage against the HFCS

Ok first off, I would like to apologize to Dylan Thomas for butchering one of his more famous poems but for some reason it just popped into my head like a giant squid (10 points if you get that reference). But I'm not here to talk about squids or dying (well not directly anyway), but about something that I now have a personal vendetta against. A jihad if you will. I am here to tell you that I am fed up with and disgusted by a completely inanimate object. Something that through reckless government subsidization and rampant commercialism of our food supply has been slowly killing us years. It's gotten to the point that the average life expectancy for some Americans has DECLINED for the first time since the 1800s.

Now I don't know all the reasons for this but some researchers believe this is the leading edge of the obesity epidemic. And I know one of the reasons American's are heavier than they've ever been: HFCS or High-Fructose Corn Syrup.

Ok, not quite what you were expecting, eh? Perhaps you were looking for some horrible chemical that has been secretly been added to our food by an evil government? Well that's not far off, but there's no actual malovolence behind the use of HFCS in modern food. Just pure proffit. Which could technically be considered evil due to that whole greed being one of the seven deadly sins. Where's Kevin Spacey when you need him?

So what's so bad about HFCS? Well first, let's start with a bit of science, throw in a dash of history, and see what a horrible, syrupy mess the USDA and the FDA have managed to cook up.

HFCS is essentially sugar. It's a sweetener that is used to make things, well, sweet. What most people don't realize is there are actually several different types of sugar as we commonly know it. Sugar itself is actually a classification of chemical compounds, but what we refer to the white crystal stuff we put in our coffee as "sugar" is more specifically sucrose, which is a combination of glucose and fructose molecules bonded together. When we eat this type of sugar, our bodies regulate the breakdown of the molecules using a special enzyme.

HFCS, by contrast, contains the same molecules of glucose and fructose as sucrose does, however they are separate and thus our body does not need to break them down. The downside to this is that the enzyme that breaks down sucrose also helps regulate the body's intake of sugar into the bloodstream. Without this process, the body has a tendency to absorb more sugar that it normally would.

We haven't always eaten HFCS. In fact until very recently, the majority of sweeteners in the US came from sucrose extracted from sugar cane and sugar beets. The rise of HFCS actually began in the mid 70s, and has been increasingly invading the processed foods market since. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is cost. The US is a major producer of corn, from which HFCS is derived. Massive government subsidies on the corn industry created artificially low corn prices to the point where HFCS was cheaper than cane or beet sugar. As such, companies started to replace the cane and beet sugars used in their products with HFCS.

HFCS is now found in nearly every processed food in the US market. It is used in breads, cereals, soft drinks, condiments, and a myriad of other food products. Why is this a problem? HFCS has been linked to not only obesity and diabetes, but can actually cause liver damage when coupled with a high-fat and sedentary lifestyle (a la most Americans). [source] Now to be fair eating large amounts of table sugar is not really good for you either, but at least when you eat that kind of sugar your body is better able to regulate the absorption. There is no such benefit to HFCS.

What made me so upset about this HFCS issue that I felt I needed to create a whole lesson out of it? Well, the other day I was at Fry's picking up some food for dinner. We decided to have sandwiches using these rather good fake grilled chicken patties that Jen likes. So I was picking up all the ingredients and I was trying to make sure I got stuff that was as healthy as possible. Whole-grain bread, fresh veggies, low-fat cheese, etc. Now those of you that know Jen know she's a big fan of pickles. So I went to grab a jar of Mt. Olive sandwich-stacker kosher dills. I've always thought pickles are quite healthy apart from the sodium content as they are basically cucumbers soaked in salt, spices, and vinegar. However, on a whim I decided to check the ingredients. Surely pickles would be free of the evil of HFCS!

Ingredients: Water, high-fructose corn syrup, salt ...

Wait, what? The SECOND ingredient in a product that is essentially a vegetable sitting in saltwater contains frakin' CORN SYRUP? I check to be sure I didn't grab the bread and butter pickles by mistake but nope, definitely the dill. I couldn't believe it. I grabbed another brand nearby of the same type, and checked it as well. No HFCS. I check the Fry's brand. Again, no HFCS.

I was pissed. I mean I understand the need to produce a good tasting recipe and adding sugar to a highly salty or acidic food can take the bite out of the flavor and make it more enjoyable. But PICKLES?!!?! At that point I decided that I would check every label of everything I buy and try and avoid anything that contains HFCS. And I mean EVERYTHING. If I'm going to eat it, I'm going to check if it has HFCS first. If so, I'll get the organic or find some other brand if possible. I've had it with this crap.

It's not all doom and gloom however. Many companies are starting to ditch HFCS and go back to cane or beet sugars. Jones Soda for example has a new line of pure cane sodas. Pepsi has an experimental soda called "Pepsi Raw" that contains only fresh, non-processed ingredients. I've also started shopping at the new "Fresh and Easy" stores that are opening up around the country. The food is a bit more expensive, but it's almost all made with fresh ingredients and nearly everything is HFCS-free, even the desserts.

HFCS has secretly replaced nearly all the sweeteners in the US food market today. It was done without knowing the full extent of the health effects of the stuff, and it was done almost entirely in the background. And what's even more insidious is that since the FDA's definition of the term "natural" is rather loose, this has led some manufacturers to label their foods as "all-natural" even though they use HFCS as sweetener. Snapple and Nature's Own are just a few such examples.

My point in all of this ranting is that people simply can't depend on someone else outside of a dietician to tell them what to eat and what is best for you. Food companies do not necessarily have your best interests in mind as they are first and foremost corporations that exist to make money. If they can make a product that sells well that is cheaper to produce with something like HFCS rather than cane sugar, they will obviously go that route. That being said, it's not in their best interest to kill their customers with dangerous and poor-quality food either, but the type of long-term effects of many processed food additives cannot be studied for many years, and even then the results are not always conclusive.

I don't blame the food companies for the obesity epidemic; that blame lies squarely on each and every one of us. We eat too little of what is good for us, and we don't exercise enough. Plain and simple. What we, as consumers, should do is pay more attention to the food we eat. Take 15 seconds and look at the ingredient labels. If you see things you don't recognize, think twice about buying that product. As with a lot of things, many of these chemicals and additives are not harmful in small doses; everything is good in moderation and all that. But if you take one thing away from this, it's that overly processed goods like HFCS are not what humans were designed to eat. Our bodies are damn good at turning just about everything into food and dealing with a lot of the crap that it can't, but it can't handle everything.

You can't completely avoid it, but if you can reduce the the amount you eat by even a little, I think your body (and your waistline) will thank you in the long run.

A God(zilla) fearin' people

This popped up in Digg today:



For those that went to UofA, you probably remember this place. I passed it all the time on my way to class and I remember when someone spray-painted the "zilla" part onto the house. Damn near fell off my bike the first time. Good times, good times.

Okami for the Wii

Okami for the Wii is out! I missed this game on the PS2 (which is a shame because Clover studios no longer exists), so I'm extra excited to try it out on the Wii. I will give a full report as soon as I get it in my hot little hands.

Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?

I know I sometimes feel victimized by my Roomba*


In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?

*I actually no longer have a Roomba, but when I did it was very faithful companion**
**Note to the future robot overlords: I would like to point out that I did not use the work servant when referring to my robot friend.