To Gene, On His 81st Birthday

Dear Gene Hackman,

You are the fucking shit, sir. I cannot believe you are 81 years old today. That is straight up bogus. I remember the first time I saw "The French Connection" I said to myself "I hope that guy never dies". So far, so good Mr. Hackman. It's been about 7 years since you retired from making movies, and there is a terrible void left behind. I know if you were still acting, and someone suggested to you that they make the movie 3D you'd punch them right in the mouth. I'm sure of it. A question was once posed to me: "If you could select any actor's filmography, and all other films in existence would be destroyed, which actor would you pick?". My choice was easy, Gene friggin' Hackman. Whether it be action, suspence, comedy, drama or the undefineable films of Wes Anderson, you always bring your A-game and for that I say, you rule. I have a personal tradition where I celebrate your birthday every year with a screening of my favorite movie of yours, "Crimson Tide".

Judging Books By Their Covers: Goosebumps

You know how you can save yourself a lot of time? Judge a book by its cover. People have been advising against this since the first book came out (I will leave it up to you and whatever your religious beliefs may be to decide what that book was). I tell ya, I don't see a huge problem in it. A cover is pretty important. If it's a shitty cover, I'm not gonna want to read the book. Never before have I looked at a book and wondered "hmm, I wonder if the following 300 pages are as disinteresting to me as this picture, I've got 6 weeks to spare, let's find out". I know the phrase is used as a metaphor but I'm going grassroots with this thing and taking it literally. If you judge a book by it's cover, chances are even though you are gonna miss some of the details, you'll still walk away with a general idea of what the book is about. That's what I learned when I took a step back into my childhood and decided to review a bunch of books in a series that was crazy popular when I was a kid:

“Goosebumps”

(Fuck....yes.)

My Restored Faith In Aaron Rodgers

THANK YOU UNIVERSE!

Why Me And The Cab Driver I Had This Morning Will Never Be Friends.

As far as I'm concerned, I am renting the backseat of a cab whilst I'm in it. ("Whilst" is another word I've been trying to incorporate into the blog. Took me 60 posts but I finally did it!). I want to point out now that I'm not declaring this because I do anything obscene back there, I've been on the internet enough to know that anything you do in the back of a cab is fair game and I really don't need to showcase my skills (by "skills" I mean 5 minutes of profusely apologizing whilst weeping). The ridiculous battle of wills I had with my cab driver this morning was a result of something that, and I hope the surprised of this doesn't catch you off guard, I felt was a disrespectful slight to me and an insult to everything that I stand for. Or in this case, sit for. It's about a button, but more specifically what that button controls.

The backseat window.

 (Never has something so small, mattered so much to someone so petty)

B.P.S. Vol. 8 - The 2011 Golden Globes

For the 8th "Bullet Point Summary" and the first of 2011, I decided to write down some observations, opinions and thoughts I had while watching the Golden Globe Awards last night. I don't talk about everything, because there were times I wasn't really paying attention or I was in the bathroom, but the following is what I felt noteworthy during the event.

- Ricky Gervais is the goddamn shit. I know there are people out there who don't like him and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not everyone chooses to blog about it. I do, and it is my opinion that Gervais is awesome. Skewering the stars who are close enough to throw forks at him, rocking the monologue with a pint, the guy just came out swinging.

Christian Bale won best supporting actor. Andrew Garfield did not. That should settle many playground debates, because essentially Batman just beat Spider-Man. And Batman kinda looks looks like a wino...acts like one too. It's awesome that he thanked his daughter, but he followed that up by yelling "Oh, and Robert Deniro, whose sitting right here: Holy Shit, Man, you're the shit" Then they cut off his mic. But as the camera pulled away we saw him up there...still talking.

("Tra-la-la-la-la")

- Boom! "Sons of Anarchy" gets a big win. Katey Segal wins Best Supporting something or other and the camera cuts to Ed O'Neil immediately. I loved that. "Whoaaa Bundy"

- Dare I say Tom Hanks looked pretty pissed when "The Pacific" lost to "Carlos" for best miniseries. I have never seen "Carlos", but I am going to assume it was a big upset, because it took those guys like 5 minutes to get from their table to the stage. Hearing "The Golden Globe goes to....Carlos!" was totally worth it. Even Tom Hanks did react as he did when told he would have to star in a movie with a dog.

(Loved it. Straight up.)

- By the way, Tom Hanks has a kid Chet Hanks who is a rapper. Not making that up.

(Straight outta...a hollywood mansion)

Glee just OWNED SCOTT CAAN! Chris Colfer wins Best supporting TV actor. The camera cuts right to Jack Macbrayer for some reason. Then to Leah Michelle who is crying her eyes out. Good for this guy though. I tried to convince someone earlier today that they should watch Glee and that the songs are good with this phrase: "You should watch it. They got a dude on there that sings like a bitch. It's pretty awesome". They do. He does, and you know what? It's hard not to root for this guy. Colfer nailed his speech. Even though he kinda has a creepy Pinocchio vibe going.

(The vest isn't helping)

Alice in Wonderland is nominated for best picture. If it wins I will puke. It is the Seattle Seahawks of nominees. Has no reason being there, but inexplicably it is.

- Steve Buscemi wins for Boardwalk Empire. This is great. Combined with his award for "Best Buscemi" at his family reunion and his life time achievement award at the 15th annual "Creepy Looking Dude Awards" he is now a triple crown winner.

(So talented it's scary....Terrifying actually)

- Boardwalk Empire wins best TV Drama. Fine, whatever. At my awards, "The Bowmies" it was a 3 way tie between Sons of Anarchy, Friday Night Lights and The Wire. Even though it stopped running a few years ago, the Wire is ALWAYS eligible at the Bowmies...for any award. Last year the wire was also "Best TV Comedy", "Best Film - Musical or Comedy" and "Best Supporting Actress"

(It wins pretty much all the awards)

- American Idol promo shows all the past winners and the text comes up on screen: "They never forget where they came from". Funny with the exception of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood everyone forgot they even existed. Good luck, season 10 contestants. I look forward to not listening to your 1 single before you get bounced into obscurity.

 (Ruben Studdard actually came in first AND second place)

- Oh Shit! New Spiderman is British!? Andrew Garfield introduces highlight package for "The Social Network. He struggles to get out the words "Inspiringly Written". Hopefully he is able to say "Fuck you, Dr. Octopus, get your tentacles out of Mary Jane"

(Totally misunderstood this scene)

- Alec Baldwin drops a "I almost wore the same thing" joke to JLO talking about her dress. Lets retire that joke forever. Cool? Cool. Oh, burlesque won best song. Sure, whatever. The lady who won refers to Cher as an "eternal badass". How wrong you are, madam.

(Eternal...badass)

- Hans Zimmer should never lose Best Score, EVER! Inception score was incredible.

- Best animated film. Tough category. "Despicable Me" and "How to Train your Dragon" were amazing. But "Toy Story 3" had this award won when they announced they were making it. I fucking cried during the 10 second clup they showed when they announced it's nomination. Tom Hanks FINALLY has a reason to be happy. Guy accepts the award and asks the youthful presenters (Bieber and that 14 year old girl who is in True Grit) "Wow, were you two even born when the first toy story came out?" Fuck you dude.

- Anne Hathaway is wearing a dress she stole from a gay roman gladiator. That ain't a dress, that's armor.

- I leave for two seconds to pay the pizza delivery guy and Al Pacino wins an award. I missed the category, so I'm just gonna assume he won a long overdue award for "Best Beard Ever" for "Serpico".

- Tilda Swinton is a goddamn alien and I will fight anyone who tries to convince me otherwise. Yes she is talented, but it looks like she is just here on earth doing research.

- They have given out like 13 awards and nobody has thanked god yet. So....tough year for god i guess

- I'm super confused. Chris Evans is onscreen but he's not be hilarious and awesome. Strange. Jane Lynch wins best supporting tv actress, and Leah Michelle from Glee cries. Again. She is all about crying.

(Perhaps the easiest picture it ever took me to find)

- Whenever they go to commercial, they show clips of all the celebs mingling with each other and chatting it up before they cut. I'd love if before they cut to commercial and you saw two of them just...going at it. Imagine the controversy if at some point Paul Giamattie and....Helen Mirren were behaving as if their plane was going down.

- "IN A BETTER WORLD" from DENMARK! won best foreign language picture. YES YES YES! Way to go Denmark! The parade will run down the Vesterbro District in Copenhagen. Nobody parties like The Vesterbro district!. Classy lady accepts it. She is gorgeous for an older lady, but I'm not at all surprised. Denmark, I would assume, is just full of babes with no experation date.

(Paaaaaaarrr-tayyyyyyy!)

- Laura Linney (who I hate) beats out Leah Michelle from Glee for best tv actress comedy. Finally she has something to cry about and nothing. Nada.

- Fucking Thomas Jane is STANDING when he gets announced as a nominee for "Best Actor in a tv comedy". He is either overconfident that he will win. Either that or he was never able to get out of character for Stander.

- Jeremy Irons comes out to present an award. I know he has had a distinguished career, but that motherfucker will be Scar from the lion king to me, always!

(Kick his ass, Scar!)

- Helena Bonham Carter looks confused that she lost "Best Supporting Actress Drama". I love that. I love it alot. She's got a birds nest on her head, and so does her husband Tim Burton. Not even half joking about that.

 (those kids are doomed)

- It just keeps cutting to random people during acceptance speeches. It cut to Kyra Sedgwick who was like, asleep on Kevin Bacons shoulder. All of these cuts, and no reaction shots from Craig T. Nelson? C'mon! I know he's there. He better be.

- Robert Deniro wins the Cecille B. Demille award. Everyone gives him a standing ovation. Thomas Jane had the jump on all of them by about 23 minutes. He will not sit down. Not even in a car!

("Stander 2: Still Standing")

- Johnny Depp is nominated for both "The Tourist" AND "Alice in Wonderland". So essentially he just gets nominated for anything now eh? I can't wait until they start nominating him for shit he wasn't even in. "Johnny Depp nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Spider Man". Gonna be great.

- Johnny Depp was soundly defeated by Paul Giamatti who closed out his speech with this:"I salute the great nation of Canada and the hollywood foreign press" FUCK YEAH! He honks about montreal and how awesome canada is. I love this man. I might even go see his movie tonight.

(Believe it or not, this man just got MORE awesome)

- Every time Jeff Bridges speaks I feel the need to check my batteries in my remote.

- Natalie Portman wins for Black Swan because she is awesome. She thanks her agent (whom she has had since she was 12) for listenting to her when she said she wanted to do a role involving dance. I wanna say to that guy: Fuck you. She tells you that and you come back with a Ballet movie?! Dude, STRIPPER MOVIE!

(Like this, only 3 1/2 hours long)

- "Kids Are Alright" wins Best Picture Comedy. I don't have to puke now.

- Sandra Bullock looks incredibly disinterested in the whole proceedings. Colin Firth wins "Best Actor drama", Love Actually fans everywhere rejoice.

- Cancer survivor Michael Douglas gets a standing O. He remarks "There has got to be an easier way to get a standing ovation". Amazing stuff.

- Social Network wins "Best Picture". The end of the show belongs to Gervais though, who hits us with this:

"I'd like to thank God...for making me an Athiest" 

Game, set and match: Gervais.

Thanks for Reading

-jB

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Aaron Rodgers hates cancer....patients? (Follow up: He doesn't)

This post in painful for me to write It is perhaps a bit reactionary and there may be more details about this yet to come out, but tonight, someone has greatly disappointed me. Someone who I thought was pretty awesome and I supported in his quest to be one of the best in the game of football. For European readers, by Football I mean Football, not Soccer. The man in question is NFL Star Quarterback and Green Bay Packers sensation Aaron Rodgers. Up until about 14 hours ago, the man was my second favorite player in the NFL. He rocked the shit, for reals.

The rest of this post is moot now, because you can just click on the link below for my follow up:

UPDATE: HE STILL ROCKS THE SHIT FOR REALS

(Rocking Shit, Kung Fu Style!)

I want to point out in case any of you were curious (you probably weren't, but I'd like to give him a mention on this site) my favorite player is the BEST safety in the game (regardless of C.Bailey's opinion on the matter) Pittsburgh Steelers defensive stalwart/undisputed NFL Hair Champion Troy Polomalu. Take a bow, you soft spoken samoan shark, you.

(As much hair on his head as there is ferocity in his...fuck it. He just rules)

So yeah, what would cause me to possibly turn on Aaron Rodgers so abruptly? There are currently only two things that set me off on someone that quickly: 1. Anti-Canadian sentiment b) Being a dick to people who are sick. You can probably tell from the title of this post, he may have done the latter. And even though I consider it awful to be a dick to even a person who has a cold or flu, Aaron Rodgers "apparently" snubbed a cancer survivor. Based on the potentially biased video footage, I may dislike him more now than I dislike stupidface Jay Cutler, and I hate me some Cutler.

(Although he has a stupid face, he doesn't use it to disrespect cancer patients)

My previous appreciation/man-crush on Aaron Rodgers wasn't based on hero worship or anything silly like that. I'm a bit too old awesome to have a role model and if I was going to pick one, it WOULD NOT be a professional athelete. It would probably be any middle aged person who works at a fast food restaurant. That isn't a joke either. This might be the only serious thing I say all year, so brace yourselves: Nothing is more admirable to me than people who sacrifice and work a shit job that they hate to provide for people they love and who rely on them. I don't know the story of every older person I see working those jobs, but truthfully there is nobody I respect more. Enough serious? Let's move on. Here is what I loved about Aaron Rodgers:

The guy spent YEARS in future hall of fame Quarterback/Notorious Sexter Brett Favre's shadow. Favre was BELOVED by the Green Bay Packers fans, players, owners, hot dog cart guys, scalpers pretty much anyone in the entire state of Wisconsin would trade their kids to catch a pass from the man. He was a legend. But as humans tend to do, motherfucker was getting old and beat up so the Packers drafted a young upstart with something to prove named Aaron Rodgers. He studied under Favre for years, waiting for the old man to pass the torch and to finally get his shot. Favre said he would retire, and then went back on his word roughly 63 times in his last years in Green Bay, and poor old Aaron just had to sit back and take it. What could he say? He was a nobody and Favre was a midwest diety.

(It was also rumored he could control the weather...this was never confirmed. But fuck that guy)

So after one too many "I'm retiring...no wait nevermind" incidents. Green Bay decided to move on and put their trust in Aaron Rodgers. Even though Favre had only given them 1 Super Bowl Championship (which granted is 1 more than I have given the city of Vancouver...for now) They supported him and just heaped a metric ton of venom onto Aaron Rodgers for no good reason, the guy was just doing his job. One of the more famous incidents came when a young child at training camp told him "We Don't Love You".

(How can you not be on this guys side after that?)

But ol' #12 just kept his mouth shut, worked hard, and eventually became popular with the fans, but also one of the premiere Quarterbacks in all of football. He was my first round draft pick and cornerstone of my fantasy football team, "Pasty White Fight Night" this year. And I won the Consolation Championship (regardless of what G.Nolan has to say about it). The guy has incredible talent which is hard not to like/notice.

(He also has the strength of 10 men)

Looking back on what I just wrote and the history of his short career so far, it's hard not to see what I liked about him so much. However, as me and B.Shirlaw discussed today while watching NFL playoffs, it's not that Aaron Rodgers did something great to make him likeable, maybe it's that he didn't do anything to make him hated.

Well the tables may have  turned now buddy!

Check out this news story from the other day. Keep in mind Green Bay Wisconsin is like the Saskatchewan of America, they don't have a whole lot going for them other than their *cough* professional *cough* football team. Check out this shit (in case you aren't sure which one is Aaron Rodgers, he is the dude with his headphones in)



Aaron Rodgers, dude c'mon. If the TV news station aired it out on context, I will next do a post about how awful at their jobs they are in my "Aaron Rodgers is actually a saint" post. Clay Matthews (who is awesome btw) decimated the 1 defence Rodgers may have had. They were told about her on the airplane?! I was stunned when this was brought to my attention. Stunned, and to be honest, fucking heartbroken. I'm still trying to get over the fact that Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assualt. I spent years not liking the Packers because I dislike Brett Favre (he totally tried to cockblock Ben Stiller in "There's Something About Mary") but I was finally coming around to them and hoping they would do well. Rodgers was a big part of that. I thought he handled the situation of having to work his ass off to win the approval of the fans with class. It was a feel good story, and that's what I love about sports.

Turns out he didn't he just handled it very VERY privately. I am going to assume that Rodgers didn't see this lady. You know what they say about "assume" don't you? If you assume...you are a fucking idiot. Get some facts! (I kinda put a twist on an old, crappy saying). I'd like to point out that Packers linebacker Clay Matthews Jr. was apparently a real big sweetheart to the woman and signed anything she wanted and gave her a big hug. Which is awesome, even though a hug from him might kill someone.

(Tenderness is for pussies...hehe)

So yeah, basically my thesis statement for this post is "SAY IT AIN'T SO, AARON RODGERS!" You may have lost a fan sir. I don't care if you were listening to "Thriller" on your ipod when you walked past her, you be good to your fans (especially the terminally ill ones). Now this story has sorta blown up and will only become a bigger deal in the coming days and I hope as a result of that more details will emerge clearing him of any wrongdoing. Aaron Rodgers will apologize probably (because he has a publicist that tells him how to be a good person. Apperently they were at the rent-a-car stand at the airport when he douched up). He will sign a bunch of shit for the woman and make things right but as far as i'm concerned, in the off chance that what happened in the video is how it went down, it doesn't matter what he does. He had to take 9 seconds out of his day to make a huge impact on someone who has struggled through a lot and based on the video, guy turned heel.

(Basically, yeah)

It's messed up. I still respect his talents as a player but man, and I hope there is an explanation that excuses what he did to that lady. If it's a dude who is obviously going to sell whatever he signs on Ebay to turn a profit, that's one thing. But the only thing worse than snubbing that lady would be if she was in a wheelchair...and had both legs missing. Essentially a cross between cancer patient and Gary Sinise from Forrest Gump.

("Aaron Rodgers did what?!!")

Aaron Rodgers rules until proven shitty. As I said IF there is no reasonable explanation for this, I am sorely disappointed that this happened. I kinda hate Ryan from the Office now just because he looks stunningly like Aaron Rodgers.

(Right: Douchebag? Left: Plays one on TV)

Normally I don't really care if a musician or an athlete or someone I like has a slight tinge of asshole to them, as my reasoning is "I'm not trying to be there friend, so what do I care? I just like what they do". There is a line though, and Aaron Rodgers may have crossed it.

(NOTE: This is normally where I'd put a picture of Aaron Rodgers crossing the goal line for a touchdown to absolutely nail the analogy of him "crossing the line", but fuck that. Instead I'd like to treat you to a sampling of pictures of Aaron Rodgers not being so awesome)

That's pretty much how I feel about it. Nothing more to be said really. Although I want to point out two things. A) Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers play Jay Cutler and the Chicago Bears next week in the NFC Championship game, winner goes on to the Super Bowl.

(Still cheering for Rodgers)

And the second thing I wanted to point out is that even though that is 1 short clip and perhaps it is getting blown up a bit, it's hard to excuse it under any circumstances. I sincerely hope something else comes out about this incident or in some way this was some sort of mistake or it was grossly out of context. Regardless though, he walks right passed her. No hello, not even a head nod. What the fuck? As I said I really hope I am wrong and I would gladly do a follow up post about how awesome he turned out to be. He attends team sponsored charity events and does all those good PR things he is supposed to, but here he totally got caught with his pants down and that is unfortunate. But who knows? Maybe, after all this, these two deserve each other.

You know what, after posting this I re-watched the video and I don't think I gave enough love to Clay Matthews for how sweet he was to that lady. So here are some pictures of Clay Matthews drilling Jay Cutler.

(Good on ya, sir. Respect)

As for #12. I am hopeful this is all just one big, horribly represented misunderstanding. 

 (Cause this guy was pretty dope)


IN CASE YOU MISSED THE LINK EARLIER, CLICK HERE FOR THE UPDATE ON THIS STORY

Thanks for Reading

-jB

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