I'm not a political scientist. I know that might confuse a lot of you who have been reading this blog for awhile thinking that this was a blog about politics written by a prominent political scientist. Nope! I just happen to share Thomas Hobbes's opinion that Glenn Beck smells like farts. But so, I'm obviously not qualified to speak with any authority about the health care debate. Not that you need to be a political scientist to speak thoughtfully on the subject (oh boy, here come the rhetorical knots and the self-conscious loop-dee-loos), but I'm probably even less informed on the whole subject than your average regular scientist (those who study chemistry, biology, and Weird Science). I do think that children deserve health care. That seems like kind of a no-brainer to me. They are children after all. Tiny, helpless, wolf-suit wearing children. I also think that poor people should have health insurance. They are poor. There are a lot of things in their lives that are perpetual sources of misery. Their ability to remain among the living should not be one of them. Actually, you know what? I really think everyone deserves health care. It's 2009, you guys. If we can have realistic looking dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movie, surely we can fix people when they are broken.
But I understand that the issue is very complicated (kind of, I mean, people are making it very complicated on purpose), and certainly this PSA in which Heather Graham stars as the Public Option is not helping anything.
Haha. Thanks, Terrence Howard! You've always got the best reminders.
A Terrence Howard Reminder: You Gotta Feed Your Baby Human Food, Not Newspapers
A Terrence Howard Reminder: There Is No Such Thing As Doubles Tetris
A Terrence Howard Reminder: Pants Go On The Bottom, Shirts Go On The Top
A Terrence Howard Reminder: Stay With School
A Terrence Howard Reminder: You Gotta Try Harder Not To Get Rabies Next Time
A Terrence Howard Reminder: You Gotta Admit Hustle And Flow Was Overrated
A Terrence Howard Reminder: Not Everything Is A Sandwich
A Terrence Howard Reminder: Clean Your Asshole Sometimes!
It's just nice to see a famous movie star who hasn't let his Hollywood celebrity keep him from giving weird billboards back to the community. (Image via FilmDrunk.)
This is a very important Public Service Announcement, obviously, and all American children should have to memorize these 11 types of strangers, as well as the exact scripted thing that they say each time (any deviation from the script means it's probably safe to get into the car). Although, I'm pretty sure we could use a new name for Hero Trap since huh? Hero Bald Fashion Photographer Who Prefers Shooting In A Parking Lot For The Natural Light Trap? Total Hero Trap.
But also, there are a few strangers that the video missed, and they are important. You know, so that the children don't get raped.
I'm a few days late on this, obviously, but that long weekend wasn't going to enjoy itself. Anyway, this is the new German PSA about AIDS that people keep sending in to tips@videogum.com. It is basically the 9/11 PSA of German PSAs about AIDS, and it is also NSFW.
Yikes. What a terrible ad! Although it would be funny (not funny) if everyone stopped overusing the term Nazi when they thought someone was being overbearing or malicious and started using "pandemic incurable retrovirus." You know, like, "Jesus, my algebra teacher is such a pandemic incurable retrovirus about showing your work on the daily five-point pop quizzes she makes us do every day before class." Or, you know, like, "the DMV is staffed by a bunch of sadistic, half-literate pandemic incurable retroviruses." You get it. Not to mention the classic Seinfeld character, the Soup Pandemic Incurable Retrovirus. Wouldn't that be hilarious? Ugh. This lady knows what all that which I is talk about. (Get it? She is not a professor of smarts.)
First of all, I am SORRY about this. But that's the way it goes. Some mornings you wake up and it's a video of a cat eating all the birthday cake, and some mornings you wake up and it's this. That is life, jump into it. Anyway, a Brazilian advertising agency released a poster for the World Wildlife Fund earlier this week that swept the Internet. It featured a hundred planes pointed at the World Trade Center, and it was awful. I mean, I think we all support the cause of the World Wildlife Fund. Most of us. There might be a few who are like "I just hate wildlife, I think it is the way I was raised" (hating wildlife is taught in the home). But the rest of us are like "Yay! Wildlife!" But invoking 9/11 to protect wildlife? That seems odd. And by odd I mean horror-barf. That seems horror-barf.
Well that was just a poster. Now imagine that they made it into a video.
Look, the message is a good one and the cause is completely respectable. Besides, Mr. Wayne is very influential these days. So maybe a completely disingenuous plea with America to do something that is completely contrary to everything that made him famous (i.e. with everything that made him someone worth listening to in the first place) will work to encourage students to put down the face tattoo needle and pick up a book (or rather, to encourage legislators to put down the face tattoo needles and pick up the education reform pens? Who is this PSA even for?). But you would think that at the very least they might have used a take that didn't literally sound like he was blindly sounding out a cue card that he didn't understand. I am sure there were a million takes. "That was great, Dwayne, now could we try the line about this being the time for bold educational reform without the styrofoam cup full of codeine? What's that? Sure, you can hold the styrofoam cup full of codeine behind your back."
Bonus: Bobb'e J. Thompson would like you to stay in elementary school:
Let's be honest, there is nothing funny or clever about this, just as there will be nothing funny or clever about the movie for which this is a limp viral marketing ploy. Parodies of PSA's are tired in general, but this one is particularly bad. The mind of Diablo Cody needs a nap! And if there is one single person in the entire world who shouldn't ever say shit to kids with low self-esteem who feel like the world was not made for them, it's Megan Fucking Fox, even as a joke. A joke for which she received a paycheck. This is actually gross the more I think about it. It's so boring and lame and blatantly pandering and tone-deaf and ugly. I mean, I'm not such a stick in the mud as to actually say "remember Columbine," but I just overheard some other stick in the mud say "remember Columbine" and he kind of has a point. (I know that no one is going to shoot up some school because of this stupid thing, but that doesn't make it any less tasteless, especially since it's already just a piece of junk anyway. Ugh fuel on the boo fire.) Just make a poster of Megan Fox's tits for your stupid monster movie and shut the fuck up.
Here is a short PSA explaining how sexting can embarrass you in Spain.
Just to clarify, I understand how sexting can embarrass you. When you sext (I am a grown man, and I type words like "sext") a naked picture of yourself to a 14-year-old cartoon of a human being (I don't mean the animated PSA, I mean actual 14-year-olds, who I think we can all agree are cartoonish and not actual human beings) he might plug his phone into his computer and now everyone will see your picture when they log on, as they do every morning, to NiceTits.org.spain or whatever. I get that part. No one wants to have their picture on NiceTits.org.spain. But, and maybe I am old fashioned (at the very least, I am old), why are children sexting in the first place? That is the part that I don't understand. Shouldn't they be busy having actual sex? This is just like "cybersex" all over again, which I did not understand. Put down the gadgets, nerds! They're in the way!
In any case, if you can understand this:
Riesgos del sexting. Cuando una imagen tuya sale de tu teléfono, pierdes el control sobre ella para siempre. ¡Puede acabar en Internet a la vista de todos o en los teléfonos de gente que no querrías!
Either do or don't do what it says. I'm not sure. (Thanks for the tip, Matthew.)
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