SNL: Alec Baldwin

Alright, so SNL has been a huge source of comedy for years and years, mainly through an all-star cast and offensive and outlandish humor, however, some people can't seem to get a joke.  Last SNL, Alec Baldwin appeared in a mustache and uniform claiming to be a pilot, and made a "public apology" to himself.  This was a reference to an event that had happened earlier where he was kicked out of a flight because he didn't want to stop playing words with friends.  The airlines apparently don't know how to take a joke, especially a funny one.  They responded as if their entire profession had been ridiculed, and apparently the majority of the people offended, were not anywhere on the flight.  American airlines is, however, expected to be grouchy since they are going through a tough time right now, but seriously, if that was the case, they should focus on themselves, not "offensive" comedy from SNL.  When you get down to it, the point is comedy is hard to come by today.  There is the fairly easy genre of slapstick, but you can only drop anvils on people's heads and have people smack into painted tunnels so many times before it isn't funny.  There's also an immature genre, but seriously, fart jokes on South Park... well, not really funny unless you have the mental capacity of a two year old. Humor that is considered to be more sophisticated takes good time, energy, and thought to create, and what's even worse, it needs to be re-thought of fairly often.  The only reason that is so is because if you use the same material over and over, eventually, you'll end up like Jeff Dunham.  What I am saying is, if you are offended by good comedy, realize that it is merely a joke. 

Muppets

So, in case you don't know what this post will be about, please read the tittle.  Over the break I did go and see this fantastic movie, so I have decided to highlight some of its many great features.  for one, the musical numbers were verry original and the entire movie had a verry classical original muppet feeling.  I for one did watch the old muppet show, so alot of the humor used really did come from the old show, but was fresh enough to be new and funny.  The acting was well done for puppets and the storyline was creative enough to keep me hooked until the end.  Over all, a fantastic movie worth seeing more than once.

earlier every year

So this week I have decided to talk about Christmas comercials.  to start, yes, I realize that companies call them holiday commercials, but believe it or not, Santa hats are the most often worn clothing item on holiday commercials, and Santa comes from Christmas.  Politicaly correct and actually correct are not the same people.  Two, every year a new record is set.  This year, I believe the earliest commercial for christmas was about K-mart layaway, before Haloween, which was a little spooky.  (sidenote: the K mart lightbulb was wearing a Santa hat)  Even now, before Thanksgiving, I find it hard to find a channel that doesn't have one christmas commercial.  I believe that after thanksgiving, a huge boom in commercialism as Charlie Brown might call it, will happen, and everyone will be in the Christmas spirit... in November...  That's just saddening...

HISHE

So this week I have decided to review HISHE.  For those of you who are not familiar with this, it is an acronym that stands for How It Should Have Ended.  It is a website that makes comical cartoons that point out certaint things in movies that should have changed the entire plot.  The website is funded by Starz media, but originally started out on its own.  I personally like this site due to the many random facts it points out about movie plot lines which many people often miss.  Recently, HISHE has been redoing endings for videogame plots as well, which I believe is not as funny, but still retains some good humor.

Captain America

So this week, I red boxed Captain America, and was impressed.  Not only was the acting great, but the plot was interesting enough to get my attention, but simple enough to not over-complicate things.  The real thing that surprised me was that this movie was a set up movie.  This means that the movie was really just made to pathe the way for another movie, in this case, the Avengers.  Most set up movies are generally not the greatest, like the second pirates of the caribean.  The movie set up for an extrordinary third movie, but was simply not outstanding in many ways.  Captain America had a solid story line that was fetched far enough to be captivating, but reasonable enough to be believeable.  All in all, Captain America would deffinitely be a movie I would buy. 

Winnie the Pooh

So yesterday me and my friend Alex decided to redbox the new Winnie the Pooh movie, and I decided I might as well blog about it.  To be honest, I was impressed at how much it reflected the original cartoon.  The only questionable thing about it was the character of Rabbit, whos voice was a bit off and behavior was way off. I also felt the movie was short, but at the same time the amount of plot given in the movie was good for what it was.  All in all, I would say that the little jokes and the classic feel of the movie would deffinitly make it a keeper. 

X-MEN first class

Allright, so this week I decided to go out and redbox the movie X-Men first class, and I was surprised when I saw it.  The movie took my understanding of the past X-men movies deeper, and I was blown away by its many aspects, such as its phenominal acting and stunning visual affects.  The most impressive thing I believe about the movie was how the plotline tied in with both fictional and real-world events, also adding to the validity of the movie.  All in all, I would suggest buying this.

Immortals

So, this week I have decided to write on an upcoming movie called immortals.  My first thoughts on it were that it looked like a crazy mix of 300 and Clash of the Titans, and that it mostlikely wouldn't be that good, yet despite that, I have a crazy impulse to go see it.  This may have to due with the fact that it is a stereotypical action movie that gets everyone's attention, but I believe it is because it looked like a new idea, which got me thinking, new ideas may be extremely common.  If all ideas are presented in the same way, then it would be really easy for people to miss a great idea.  This led me to the fact that hidden somewhere in our reppettitive modern culture are great ideas.  So just a quick wrap-up, Immortals doesn't look amazing, I still want to see it, and my viewpoint on new ideas still hasn't changed. 

Disney: Out of ideas, there's still media hype.

So this title may not be obvious at first, but it definitely fits the post this week.  Disney has recently released into theaters and on bluray the Lion King 3D, and there has been a lot of hype about it, from both the media and people.  Now, I believe that the fact that Disney is re-releasing a very old movie means they aren't striving anymore for new ideas, they are simply sticking with what's comfortable with them.  The only problem with this is that people are looking for something new and exciting.  Disney gets around this using media hype.  The Lion King 3D had commercials on about every five minuets (obvious exageration) and social networking sites were all talking about this movie, untill after it was shown in theaters.  Despite the reusing of ideas, media hype is used to boost something simple into something better. 

Terra Nova

Alright, so due to the recent claims that I am unoriginal I decided to mix things up alittle and review a show that is new to FOX.  (If you couldn't tell, the show was Terra Nova)  The essential idea of it was people traveling into the past to escape their present and our future.  I was impressed by the character development and creativity of the show's plot.  So far, I am keeping up with the show, which actually means alot to me.  It is clear that this show has captured my attention, but to say I am a true fan, I would need the show to continue, but as of right now, Terra Nova has a good start.

Castle: original as ever

Alright, so despite the late hour I needed to stay up to to write this I must say I am impressed.  In most mystery shows I am usually able to figure out  who the culprit is but tonight's Castle definitely threw me a curve-ball.  The show was about a vigilante killer who used a sword to cut someone in half, and since I unfortuneately refuse to spoil the ending, I still must say the killer made perfect sense and I didn't suspect him at all.  This leads me back to the idea of writers simply being lazy and not coming up with new idea's. To be original is not diffcult, as shown with shows like Castle, and I still stand firmly on the belief that new ideas are capable of coming from anywhere.  To conclude, I would like to go as far as saying that when people say, "It's all been done before."  that we have only scratched the surface of new ideas.

Hype

Alright, so from my past posts, people can figure that I watch Castle.  Now tonight is the season opener and lately I have been hearing alot of hype about it.  To start out, is media hype really worth it?  I believe that depending on how it is used hype could be good or bad.  If the hype is just the media trying to get people excited about something they do not care about, then it is not worth it.  Despite this, there is good hype, like comming out with extra things people will buy or read or watch because the people are already excited.  So overall, if I am saying anything, I'm saying that we should be more careful on what we listen to and become obsessed with. 

Swat

Ok, so this week I will be reviewing a song called "swat it like a bee" by Dustin Tavella.  I can't believe I am saying this but, it is not half bad for a rap.  The lyrics are creative, the music sounds good, and I can understand the majority of the lyrics.  Most raps that I hear either have gutteral sounds, rambling, or words you can hear but they don't make sense.  If this is where rap is headed, then I have no problem with it anylonger, just as long as it is creative and catchy.  Here's the link to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-7XNnpHQOc

J.R. APPROVED

For real this time

Click here for podcast

Sorry

Hey, I messed up, here is the real link.
http://modernmedia.podbean.com/mf/web/38zz7a/POD.mp3

Podcast

So, I made a podcast instead of blogging.  Whoop-dee-doo. Here's the link.
http://modernmedia.podbean.com/mk/web/38zz7a/POD.mp3

Ideas

Now I know that most of my posts are critical, however, this past week, I was impressed with a show that I watch.  The title of the show is Castle, and I must say that in a world of dying ideas, this show had life.  Since I do not wish to give away plot details to the episode I watched, I shal remain as vague as possible, only being able to say that there was a plot twist beyond worthy of M. Night Shyamalan.  Upon seeing this, I felt encouraged and reasured that there are new ideas in this world, it just takes someone bold enough to present them.  The media I see today is full of copies, repeats and unoriginality, however, as long as one show remains original, there is still hope. 

Music

Songs are things that everyone hears every day, except for deaf or uncultured people.  In fact, I would go as far to say that one couldn't go for an hour awake without hearing a song of some sort.  (Note that you should be awake.)  I believe that songs are a wonderful thing, however, I don't agree that all songs are music.  Music is something that a person plays or sings.  It involves talent, and creativity.  Songs now-a-days are talentless, and generic.  Most singers are auto-tuned, most instruments are electronic, and each song is practically the same.  A catchy electronic riff with an auto-tuned voice singing the same word over and over is not music.  To add to this, singers get so exploited that they usually don't make more than a few big hits since people get tired of them.  So the next time you listen to a song, think about whether it's music or not. 

Media Obsessions Continued

Alright, so last week (aka the post bellow) I wrote critically on the media obsession of the royal wedding, however, there is a new media obsession.  This obsession is over the death of Osama Bin Laden.  Now I am less critical of this due to three certain things.  1: The relevance to our lives.  The death of a leader in the world's most well known terrorist group is a huge relief for many, and has changed people's lives more than a wedding in another country between a royal prince and some lady.  (Note my care on such details) 2: the media has not gone overboard with information.  Every article found on the royal wedding went down to details like who was invited, where in Osama's case, every article released information such as where, when, and how the death happened.  3:  the simple fact that after Osama’s death, I have not heard a word from the media about the "happy couple."  nuff' said.

Media Obsessions

Alright, so recently I was given an assignment to find an article to write about, but in every place I looked, I mainly found articles on the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.  Using the following article (http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/04/10/attend-royal-wedding/) I decided to write on media obsessions, or fads, if you will.  Whenever anything that is usually of little importance occurring in the world, all of modern media decides to write on it. I wouldn't be as annoyed by this specific event, but it mainly pertains to England, and it seems that all of America is watching instead.  The article I read even went as far as to tell us petty details such as who was or wasn't invited.  Now I don't think that this is always the case for some media obsessions.  For example, when there was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, all of media covered that, but that is okay considering it was more of a disaster that may have had a great impact on the world.  All I am really saying is, I believe that the media's focus is off in today's world, and once we realize this, we can also find our own priorities to be out of focus as well.  My name Is Joseph Readdy, and I approve this message as well.

Welcome

Alright, to start I would just like to say thank you for actually reading my blog.  This is probably the one time I will ever say this so I might as well get it out of the way.  This blog will be all about modern media (duh) and how it should be done.  You see, there are many people who use quotes like, "It's all been done before."  And in my personal opinion, that's just people giving up on creativity.  I know that this quote can't be true; otherwise movies like Inception wouldn't exist.  While today's cinematography goes up, people's ideas seem to go down, but I will not accept this.  Either all of America's writers are on strike, having extreme writer's block, or being really lazy.  My name is Joseph Readdy, and I approve this message.