Student is way too obsessed with Craigslist.

August 26th, 2007 John

Orange, CA - Student is way too obsessed with Craigslist.
Scott Byrer, a Chapman University student, and resident of the Fontainebleau apartments is way too obsessed with Craigslist. After getting a coffee table and an entertainment center for free from Craigslist, Byrer has been repeatedly telling everybody about it. “He told me twice in 10 minutes that even though it cost no money, his new entertainment center was ‘Money’” said his girlfriend Jacklyn Brown. Byrer defended his pro-Craiglist stance saying “Dude, make sure you check out the free section, there are some serious dealios on there.” Byrer also added that he bought three office chairs for a dollar each.

-John

john@addictedtowords.com

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The Poseidon Adventure

August 15th, 2007 John

It was a lazy summer evening last night, which obviously calls for a terrible OnDemand movie, and in that sense Poseidon lived up to it’s godly name. Let’s be honest, I don’t think anybody thought that this was a good movie other than Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly who says “It’s a buoyant, old-wave disaster pic for a generation of well-conditioned thrill seekers charmed by the revelation that Richard Dreyfuss really is the Red Buttons of our day.” What? I don’t even know what Red Buttons is, and I’m pretty sure my generation isn’t charmed by the revelation that Richard Dreyfuss is apparently the Red Buttons of our day. Nevertheless, this quote seems positive and I couldn’t find anybody else that liked this movie.

Here are some things that stuck out to me:

***SPOILER ALERT***

1. Dylan Johns is the main character, played by Josh Lucas. He looks like the love child of Matthew McConaughey and a young Paul Newman, which was just weird. I felt like I was watching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof spliced with clips of Failure to Launch, which would probably be about as good as Poseidon if somebody actually did that.

2. Dylan Johns is a name that is actually two first names. For that I give this movie points. I always laugh at those names.

3. Dylan Johns was always laughing at totally inappropriate times. When the Johnny Drama character (which I will get to later) was getting all angry up on the over the fiery water and trying to fight Kurt Russell and disrespect his daughter and all that stuff, Dylan just starts laughing like a maniac. It’s awkward. By the way that scene was hilariously foreshadowed 30 seconds earlier by Drama taking pulls out of his flask and Dylan telling him very dramatically to take it easy.

Another example of this was towards the end of the movie when Maggie thought her son had just drowned and was having a motherly breakdown. Dylan swims up with her son on his back and just starts laughing like a maniac. First of all, if that was his idea of a joke, thats a terrible joke. Not funny. Second of all, if he was laughing at her breakdown that’s just weird.

4. A wonderful moral comes out of the aforementioned scene with Drama. He taunts Kurt Russell, cuts his daughter in the line to safety, and makes a big scene about how his nickname is Lucky Larry. He then gets knocked into the fiery water by some giant fiery falling block and promptly dies. This brings up two important morals:

1. Don’t mess with Kurt Russell, he is too awesome.
2. Don’t ever A. make up your own nickname, or B. if you have a nickname, don’t make a big deal out of it.

5. Kurt Russell is so awesome, his parts in this movie were the only bearable parts. I loved him pulling a stoic Bruce Willis from Armageddon move and sacrificing himself so his daughter’s boyfriend wouldn’t have to die. Even better, he did it without so much as a word. Even his silly drowning was kind of funny, which is essentially him doing a lot of thrashing and making weird sounds, before pressing the needed button (after he seemed dead too!). Not what i’d expect somebody drowning would look like at all. Let’s take a look at some recent awesome Kurt Russell memories:

1. Grindhouse. As Stuntman Mike, he took creepiness to new levels, plus he had a car that was 100% death proof. Unless you shoot him.
2. Miracle. Acts circles around everybody else in this movie (granted most of them were first time actors, but the Goalie wasn’t, he used to be Rachel’s boyfriend in Friends and Kurt Russell seriously out acts him). (Note 2nd reference to a boyfriend of Rachel’s in Friends on my website.)
3. Solider. I don’t think too many people saw this, but if I remember correctly, he ripped a guy’s eyeball out, which seems like something Kurt Russell might do in real life for some reason.

6. A ridiculous pattern developed in this movie that was so predictable. Guaranteed they would get into a sticky spot and then wouldn’t get out of it until the VERY last second before they died either by explosion, electrocution, or drowning. It got filthily predictable to the point where I could predict how and when they would get out of every single situation.

7. I realize that rogue waves exist and can seriously damage or sink a ship. But I would bet my bottom dollar that there has never been a rogue wave breaking in the middle of the ocean like that. It perfectly crested over the top of the ship before flipping it over.

8. I felt bad for Valentino when he died, but I was apparently the only one. Richard Dreyfuss (Red Buttons 2?) kicked him off his leg and Valentino fell down an elevator shaft, got impaled on a sharp spike and then had the elevator fall on him while being on fire, and the thing was, nobody cared. Not even for a second. Nobody took a minute to think about Valentino. He waited to go last across the elevator shaft, basically sacrificing himself! He was a stand up guy, and nobody cared that he died or that Richard Dreyfuss kicked him to his death. Later on when people die, a much bigger deal is made of it, but nary a second thought about Valentino.

9. I watched the credits at the end and there was about 800 stuntmen. There definitely weren’t that many stunts.

10. Kevin Dillon basically played Johnny Drama, but went by Lucky Larry instead. He even had a similar lame nickname. It was like Bizarro World Johnny Drama. I kept expecting somebody named Tortoise to show up with movie star Prince Mace and his manager “B”.

11. When the ragtag group of lovable, yet flawed, survivors make it out of the ship, how in the world is there a life raft waiting there for them? I’m sorry, but that’s just absurd.

12. What was Dylan even doing on the ship in the first place? He gave some sketchy explanation about taking people’s money professionally. You know it’s bad when your sketchy explanation about something sketchy even sounds sketchy. Something tells me his purpose there was much more sinister. I guess we’ll never know. Darn you, rogue wave!

13. It bothered me when the water pressure finally got too much and cracked all the windows in the main room and killed all the people. First of all, the ship had sunk like 3 feet further at that point. Is that really enough added pressure to break all the windows? Second, they were at maximum 50 feet under water then. Why did not a single person survive that? I would go over by one of the windows, use my belt to brace myself for when the water comes rushing in, take a large breath, then wait for the room to fill up. That would take maybe 30-45 seconds. Then you just swim out, another 30 seconds. That’s a long time to hold your breath, but if you were faced with death, I have no doubt I could pull it off. This just seemed weird that nobody even thought to try.

14. I found it ironic that the ship flipped back rightside up again just before it sank.

So there you have it. Probably safe to skip this one.

-John

john@addictedtowords.com

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