Boned Wars


The Clone Wars

Ugh. Clone Wars is the latest installment to the Star Wars saga from our good friend Executive douche bag George Lucas. Taking place in between episodes II and III, Clone Wars starts off with our heroes in the heat of battle. A new character to the franchise is introduced when Ahsoka Tano, a young padawan learner, is sent by Yoda to relay the message that some shit is going down on Coruscant. Through a hilarious mix up, Ahsoka becomes Anakins apprentice. Much hilarity ensues.

Later, it is revealed that Jabba the Hutt’s son has been kidnapped by the Separatists, and in order to gain the Hutt’s trust so that the republic will have control over trade routes in the outer rim, they send Obiwan, Anakin, and that dumb bitch out to recover Jabba’s son.

Lets start from the beginning. Let me take you in the mind of a person that just spent $7.50 to witness an abomination to all things holy. First you see the Lucas Film logo and you’re like, “Awesome?”. Then you see the A long time ago in a galaxy far far away… Next the Clone Wars logo scales up in a recognizable fashion, but to a dismal arrangement of the Star Wars theme. The suckitude at first is like, well it is Warner Bro.’s, I am sure they could not get the rights and so on and so forth. So right from the start, it is bad, but not unbearable. Then…

BAM! It hits you. Right in the face. A big piece of shit. Instead of the a regular panning up of glorius plot, you get this stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid narrator describing the events taking place during the clone wars. I could not have been more pissed. I think I said “What the fuck,” just a little too loud, being that Sean, Kevin, and I were the oldest people in the theater, besides the elderly couple who were there without any little kids. This troubled me greatly.

On to the characters. Ahsoka is so dumb. They could have made her not so dumb, but they insisted on making her very dumb. That is about as simple as I can put it. And it’s not just her. Basically everyone is dumb. Obiwan, Anakin, the writers, the old people. Everyone. The writing was so bad, it made the prequel trilogy seem like a Shakespearean masterpiece. Every character after every line had some witty retort. Regardless whether it was funny, timely, or even made sense at all, they were there. And the nick names. R-Tooey, Snips, Sky-Guy, and Stinky, just to name a few. Sean and I agree that Sky-Guy is the one that hurts the most, but I feel that R-Tooey is a close second. Though I do commend the writers for dropping a much needed D-Bomb in the middle of this mess.

I thought the movie looked great. The action scenes were great and didn’t stretch too far from what was in the prequel trilogy because all of the CGI. The problem with the visual aspect of the movie came when there was close ups. Which was about two thirds of the movie. The faces looked like inanimate wood carvings and the dialogue looked no better than Team America. Which I guess they were going for, which I do not understand either.

With all the talented people in the world, it is a shame that something this bad was made from material that so many people love. I really think they could of made something at least worthwhile.

Albummed

Dear God! Another Rock Band post!

As most Rock Band players know by now, Rush’s Moving Pictures did not make it to DLC this week. That’s right, for the first time since the game launched, we didn’t have any new music to download on Tuesday. Kinda makes you realize how spoiled we are on the stuff, doesn’t it?

Harmonix says they’re sorry and that the album will be up in a few weeks. They say there’s some sort of technical issue. I’m guessing the song “YYZ” being instrumental is messing a lot of stuff up, but I can’t say that for sure.

In it’s place, they uploaded three songs by some band called Locksley. They are pretty cheap, but who the hell is Locksley?

In light of this sad week, Harmonix announced the albums that would be made DLC in the coming months. They are Foo Fighters’ The Colour and the Shape, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing’s Shocking, Megadeth’s Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying and Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Texas Flood. They also said they would be doing another greatest hits, this time for No Doubt. Sure, I really look forward to playing several of those albums, but my first reaction to learning this?

What happened to Nevermind?

Diggin’ It

It was just yesterday that I attended the sold out first show of the Oasis 2008 “Dig Out Your Soul” tour at WaMu theater, and I got a lot on my mind. Promoting their upcoming album Dig Out Your Soul due out in the U.S. on October 7th, I’m here to give you my play-by-play experience of viewing those infamous bad boys from Manchester for my second time.

Before the Show
Arriving in Seattle to the sound of my Oasis playlist in the car, we arrived at WaMu at about 5:00p, a half hour before doors would open. Just narrowly beating Mariners traffic of which there was very little “Hey-Oh!” you know because no one goes anymore. Anyways, being that the show was reserved seating we decided to screw waiting in a line, and instead went over and got some of those over-sized hot dogs with the caramelized onions on them. The dogs were fine and pretty filling but there was this irritating asian guy yelling “Peanuts!” right in front off us and then birds defecated on my brother and my dad, so we decided to kill some time in line and at 5:30 headed inside.

I usually like to get a shirt or some kind of souvenir before the show, before the crowd gets to big and forced myself into a mob of people buying shirts and posters while Paul and my dad went to go get some Red Bull. I only had two people in front of me, but these two ladies bought over $200 dollars worth of stuff and since Wamu’s credit taking devices were broken, the two had to find an alternate way to pay. By the time it came to my I picked out a very basic red shirt with the Oasis logo at an outrageously overpriced $35 dollars, I was pissed but I didn’t want to walk away empty handed after being suffocated in a mob.

A little later we all met up and decided to head to our seats, we made our way to the left center section and sat down in row 24. Definitely not as good as row 3 the last time I saw Oasis, but still some pretty respectable seats, even if they were like $65 dollars each. At this point there was only about a half hour before the show and now we would play the waiting game.


First Act: Matt Costa
Opening up the show was solo singer/songwriter Matt Costa, whom I knew beforehand for his song Mr. Pitiful which strangely enough he didn’t play. Taking the stage with an acoustic guitar and his guitar bound friend Mitch, he looked to be a nice change of pace after listening to the deafening house music of WaMu. His music for the most part was pleasant pop with a few bluesy numbers in-between accompanied by a very strong voice. I liked a handful of his songs and wouldn’t mind hearing a couple of cuts off of his last album. He didn’t play for very long, but long enough for an opening act. He finished his set with a fun acapella piece took a bow and thanked the audience. I was disappointed that he didn’t play the only song I knew him for, but it was still enjoyable.


Second Act: Ryan Adams and The Cardinals
Next up was Southern alt-country/rock singer Ryan Adams, not to be confused with Canadian superstar Brian Adams. A lot of people seemed to be pretty big fans but I frankly had no idea who he was. I did some research before the show to find out Adams and his band had been on Letterman like a billion times, but I honestly wasn’t looking forward to their rock/country stylings and after watching them I knew why.

Ryan Adams and The Cardinals were boring, boring, boring, I had absolutely no fun. In what seemed to be a neverending performance I couldn’t find a single song I liked except maybe this song that kind of sounded like that “Who Do You Love?” song from those Sam Addams commercials. They did a lot of unique harmonizing but I got to say Ryan Adam’s probably has the worst voice in the group and I found his laid back “I’m so cool disposition” to be annoying. They were getting a pretty positive reaction but not from myself, my dad or my brother, I just couldn’t wait for it end which thankfully about 45 something minutes later it did.

They ended their set somewhere at about 8:30 and after the house lights came on a whole crew of guys rushed the stage to set up Oasis stuff, who would soon take the stage.


Final Act: Oasis
Finally at 9:00p the lights dimmed and the anticipation started to set in. People were trying to chant “Oa-sis! Oa-sis!” but it just sounded bad, too difficult a name to chant I guess. Soon enough a sweet light show hit the stage with four large screens flashing imagery to the tune of Oasis’ “Fuckin’ in The Bushes” playing on the house speakers (which is usually how they’ve started their shows since about 2000) and not long after; Liam, Noel, Andy, Gem and new drummer Chris Sharrock took the stage to roaring applause and opened the show with “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.”

The energy was high as Oasis banged through a collection of both new and old songs. The last time I saw them their top priority was playing all the tracks off their new album, but with Dig Out Your Soul not coming out until October, they only played about four new songs which was fine for me, cause I got to see a lot of songs I didn’t see last time.

They seemed to play a lot off of Definitely Maybe but after I wrote down the whole set list later I’d say it was pretty diverse. There were four songs from Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, three from Don’t Believe the Truth, two from the B-side compilation album The Masterplan. one from Standing On the Shoulder of Giants, one from Heathen Chemistry, none from Be Here Now and four new songs, so it was definitely mixed up. I rather enjoyed all the new stuff and couldn’t be more excited for the new album, but I could talk about that kinda stuff all day.

The audience was pretty enthusiastic and not too annoying from my vantage point, except this one guy who after every song would yell “Fuck Off!” I couldn’t tell why he was doing that but his friends thought he was pretty funny, some people I’ll never understand. One hilarious highlight was during Noel and Gem’s acoustic rendition of “Don’t Look Back In Anger”” when the audience, who sang quite poorly, sang the end of the song during an extended guitar break. Noel laughed and said something about Australians maybe but fun was had by all.

The show ended with an epic performance of “I Am the Walrus” which was damn heavy and a fitting end to a truly epic rock show. After our hearing returned, my dad, Paul and myself took to the rain drenched streets of Seattle filled with fans singing loudly and homeless people trying to sell their homemade inventions. We were quick to leave and after a half hour of muddling through stormy Seattle picked up some McDonald’s chow, as is our tradition after concerts, and headed home.

Set List
(Intro) Fuckin’ in the Bushes
Rock ‘n’ Roll Star
Lyla
The Shock of Lightning (New Song and First Single)
Cigarettes and Alcohol
The Meaning of Soul
To Be Where There’s Life (New Song)
The Masterplan
Songbird
Slide Away
Morning Glory
Ain’t Got Nothin’ (New Song)
The Importance of Being Idle
Wonderwall
Supersonic

Encore
Don’t Look Back In Anger (Acoustic)
Falling Down (New Song)
Champagne Supernova
I Am The Walrus

Raped in the Face

Hamlet 2

I guess this cements Forgetting Sarah Marshall as the best comedy this summer, despite coming out in April. Hamlet 2 is the latest comedy from director Andy Fleming of Dick fame. While it certainly is not great, I believe (unlike the rest of Cat Fancy) that if seen with the right mindset, this film can be enjoyed.

Dana Marschz (it’s difficult to pronounce) is a failed actor and high school drama teacher. He always loved acting, but he was never very good at it. More so, he’s seen movies like Mr. Holland’s Opus or Dead Poets Society far too many times, and seems to believe he can inspire his students just like those fictional teachers. When the drama program is in danger, Marschz decides to save it by putting on a play he wrote, “Hamlet 2.”

A lot of this movie doesn’t work. The lovely Catherine Keener and questionable David Arquette go to waste. The two teacher’s pet kids are painful to watch. It’s never explained why the other students, especially Haywood, suddenly care so much about the class and the play. The Elisabeth Shue stuff is just kind of weird.

However, Steve Coogan is great. Almost all the laughs in the movie come from him. For some reason, I found the things he said and the way he acts a lot funnier than my peers did. Also, when we finally get to see the play, it’s really funny. I think we all wish we could have just seen a lot more of that.

So, really, Hamlet 2 isn’t anything great. It’s really stupid, really crude, really offensive. But it was fun for me, and I’ve got to be true to myself.

Decidin’ On Biden


It was just earlier today that Barack Obama revealed his running mate for the 08′ Election, and it’s none other than senior U.S. Senator Joeseph R. Biden Jr. Selected for his experience in foreign policy, national security and appeal to the common hard working american. Were all excited here at Cat Fancy, for what should prove to be one of the most important and exciting elections in years and hope for the best. I suppose you could of got far more information from just about any other source, but we like you to know that were aware of the world around us… Like can you believe their planning on making a David Beckham Musical? These are the issues that we face in our day to day lives.

T3: War Scenes

In honor of the epic scope of hit film Tropic Thunder, I present you with a very run-of-the-mill list: the top war scenes in film:

10. Klendathu – Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers may have had little in common with the book it’s based on, but campy action films hardly ever get any better than this. After the bugs destroyed Buenos Aires, the earthling decided to retaliate by attacking the aliens on Klendathu. During this epic battle we see thousands of troops get ripped to shreds by monstrous aliens. They made one terrible mistake: they assumed their insect-like enemies weren’t intelligent. And it’s all awesome.

9. Thermopylae300
This battle consitutes almost the entire movie 300, but that’s fine because it’s surprsingly cinematic and very fun to watch. You see, this giant dude Xerxes had conquered much of the world, and he wanted Sparta. The Spartan king, Leonidas, wasn’t having any of that. But without the backing of his government, or something, he couldn’t send the whole country to war. So instead he takes 299 of his best dudes with him and holds of the Persian army for a long ass time. Guess what? It’s pretty sweet.

8. Hidetora’s Third Castle – Ran
“Ran” means “chaos” in Japanese, and in no scene is that chaos realized any better than in the intense destruction of Hidetora Castle. Hidetora had split his kingdom amongst his three sons, one of whom protested the idea and went into exile. Sadly, Hidetora’s sons treated their father as a burden and a threat when he stayed with them in their seperate castles. Hidetora then settles into his third castle, which soon comes under attack by the combined forces of his two sons. His soldiers die, his concubines kill each other, and Hidetora tries to kill himself, but cannot. Truly horific and awe-inspiring.

7. Germania – Gladiator
Gladiator starts on a high note when the Roman forces, led by General Maximus, take on forest-dwelling barbarians in the very first scene. We see plenty of brutal kills and intense fighting, as well as grounbreaking CGI. This film went on to bring back the epic genre, inspiring plenty of imitators. Hell, Ridley Scott himself tried to do it again with Kingdom of Heaven, which had a pretty sweet battle too. But there can be only one.

6. Final Battle – Seven Samurai
Kurosawa’s lengthy masterpiece is topped off by a grueling, multi-day battle between the samurai and the bandits. For 1954, this battle is really intense and violent. We see heroes and villains die all the way until the tragic ending, when Kambei’s claim to have never won a battle rings truer than we thought it would.

5. Stirling – Braveheart
A bunch of really manly men take on the British in the best, and most remembered, battle in Braveheart. Mel Gibson is very manly and cool here, which makes the violence all the sweeter. And who doesn’t feel something when he yells, “They may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!”

4. Ride of the Valkyries – Apocalypse Now
Robert Duvall loves the smell of naplam in the morning. He also loves to surf. So he orders a bunch of helicopters to blow up a settlement on a beach so he can get his surf on. The level of destruction is immense and the insanity of the whole thing is insane. Work the Wagner music in there and you’ve got one memorable scene.

3. Helm’s Deep – The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Thousands, hundreds of thousands of ork soldiers storm Helm’s Deep, the last stronghold in Rohan. The men stand, ready to fight to their deaths. Then a stray arrow takes one ork down and all Hell breaks loose. This is probably the best fight in Lord of the Rings, despite that battle in Return of the King being bigger. Gandalf is always better than ghosts.

2. Hoth – Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Irvin Kershner’s masterpiece. When we left our heroes in A New Hope, we thought for sure they were unstoppable. The Empire’s best weapon was taken out by a small squadron of fighters, after all. Then there was Hoth. Giant walkers destroy the rebel base as the snow speeders are reduced to crazy tactics to have any hope at stopping them. The rebels retreat. The Empire wins. And we’re blown away.

1. Omaha Beach – Saving Private Ryan
The quintesential war scene. Few films capture so well the confusion, strategy, horror and brutality of a battle like this opening scene from Saving Private Ryan. This is arguably the most realistic WWII has ever been on film, save for maybe Band of Brothers. It even gave veterans flashbacks. If you watch this scene and don’t believe it when people say war is hell, you might have a mental problem that is irreparable.

You Better Squatch Yourself


Well it didn’t take long for scientists to discover that the so called bigfoot corpse, that I wrote of in an earlier post, is indeed a costume. Beginning with a hair analysis sample, in which the hair is burned, Squatch’s fur melted right into a ball proving it to be synthetic. Not long after that, as the corpse thawed out, it was discovered to be no more than a well made rubber costume.

I’m no where near surprised that the corpse was a costume but what truly puzzles me is, “Why did these guys do it?” I guess the obvious answer would be for the recognition, even it did end up making them look like a couple of con-men, I guess any publicity is good publicity. Though there’s no way they could of made any dough on this stunt, buying the costume and the materials had to be damn pricey, doesn’t seem likely that the scientists could of given them all that much for it, I guess they’re just a couple of nuts.

I have no idea how these guys managed to get this kind of attention, especially the press conference they got but you gotta give them props for their ability to convince people of what they’d supposedly found. I hear they have a website where they detail all of their Bigfoot ventures, so that might be worth checking out for more on these two “explorers”. There you go, thought I’d just put some closure to this little story, life goes on.