Off-topic movie review: Joyful Noise

Joyful Noise is a Glee for old Christians so they can feel hip.

Which is, you know, cool because it means there’s a market for that. I guess.

Remember in the movie 9 to 5 when we used to say “That Dolly Parton sure is a piece of work.”?

Well, now we say, “That Dolly Parton sure has had a piece of work.”

Bless her heart.

But that’s a little off-topic.

Off-topic movie review: Breaking Dawn, Pt. 1

Watching Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 is kind of like getting a drill bit through the skull: Sure, you can recover … but you could lose your sense of taste.

OK, I get it: vampires and wolves are on two sides of the food chain and humans are the snack in the middle. I get it: that there’s an uneasy peace between the two sides in this part of the world,  and the tension between peace and all-out war is as thin as a plot line. I get it.

But to clothe that undercurrent in some high-school-romance-teen-and-pregnant-baby-mama-drama-indy-music-video does a disservice to each of those adjectives.

But, at least in this one we learn that there’s at least one part of his body is alive and well …

But that’s a little off-topic.

Off-topic movie review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Kill it.

Moral lessons from Rise of the Planet of the Apes:

First, if you have the opportunity to rescue an ape from extermination, don’t. Kill. The. Ape.

And don’t give any gruff about how it isn’t the ape’s fault, that it was the bad drug that exterminated the human race.

Kill. The. Ape.

Because if the unethical researcher didn’t have to worry about the ape, he’d know that making the drug take an aerosol form is a very bad idea. Very bad. Like zombie apocalypse bad.

And that’s the second moral: Don’t make drugs aerosols.

Aerosols kill brain cells. Aerosols also makes it easier to smarten up apes who can’t naturally place breathing masks over their faces.

So, there you go:

• Kill the Ape
• Don’t Make Drugs Aerosols (and especially don’t sniff them).

Feeling bad for Batman & Two Face

See this? This is the DC Universe Legacy Edition of the Arkham City Batman and Two-Face action figure two-pack. It’s in the toy section at Target.

Know why you should feel sorry for these two little guys? This:

Right there, in the upper right-hand corner: “Adult Collector.” That’s code for “Never take this out of the box or else it will lose ‘value’.”

So we should pity Batman and Two Face. Labeled by society they sit in the toy section, watching all the other “normal” toys get bought by children. But not these two. No, they’re saddled with a tag that society places on them. And this tag says “No Playing!” “Handle With Care!” “I’m a Collectible!” “I Might Be Valuable Someday (but we both know I won’t)!”

They can’t be touched. They will never feel the wind on their half-faces. They’ll never mix it up with a Transformer.

No, these two are bound for shelf, located in a self-proclaimed “man-cave,” where they will sit until they eventually become available via a “Just Got Married” yard sale.

If we’ve learned anything from Toy Story, people, it’s this: there is a fate worse than death. It’s called packaging.

5 lessons from ‘Water for Elephants’

You know, once in a while, a movie comes along that motivates you to be a better person, to actually read the book that inspired the film.

Then there’s movies like Water for Elephants.

But, there’s still things to be learned. Here’s 5 lessons one can take from the film:

1. Being single and hanging out with married people can be awkward. Especially for vampires.
2. If your boss starts making out with his wife while you’re still in the room, leave. Just leave.
3. Finish school.
4. Elephants aren’t dumb, they speak Polish. And never make them mad.
5. The old adage is true: don’t dip your trunk in someone else’s water pail. (that’s an old adage … right?)

What lessons did you learn?