Take every military campaign, alien invasion, action movie cliché, and role it into one. Mix with copious explosions and a cast of stereotypical characters. Sprinkle in a few macho platitudes. That’s the recipe for this year’s latest cinematic hit Battle: Los Angeles.
I have told this movie again and again, like a familiar story, since watching it last week. I have inspired countless friends to have a few drinks and spend a few hours easily predicting every scene. It never lets up with the macho displays. It keeps you disappointed. Plus its really really dumb. I’ll break it down for you here:
A ruggedly handsome staff sergeant once lost some good men out there, so he’s going to retire, but they will need him this one more time, because meteors that weren’t there a minute ago are headed towards the coastlines of twelve major cities across the globe. But wait! They’re slowing down before impact, and there are shadowy figures in the mist. Oh no! So, the staff sergeant is assigned to a squad of young marines, and there’s the guy with a pregnant wife at home and the black guy who has a problem with the sergeant, because his brother was one of those good men out there who died under the sergeant’s command. Then there’s the guy you know is smart because he wears glasses, and there’s another generic white guy who will eventually get shot and you won’t notice. Of course, later, a female soldier played by Michelle Rodriguez shows up, and she has all this insider knowledge about the aliens and stuff.
So, all these marines are dropped into Los Angeles to rescue civilians, under a time limit, because of course the government is going to bomb the city soon as a last resort. They save a few kids and a man and a woman who flirts with the staff sergeant, except they’re not very good at rescuing civilians, because half of them get blown up in a helicopter and a young boy’s father gets shot and dies. The staff sergeant then tells him to be brave like a marine, and it was all very tender and inspirational and crap. Naturally, the marine with the pregnant wife at home gets injured and has to be left behind so he can blow himself and some aliens up with a grenade, and the veterinarian lady performs a live autopsy on an alien and concludes that their weakness is a heart-like structure in the heart area (if it were human). At some point, the woman soldier gets alien goo in her mouth, which the other marines use as an opportunity to make a sex joke.
Eventually, the black marine confronts the staff sergeant about his brother’s death, and the staff sergeant makes a very manly speech about how he lost some good men out there, and then all the marines respect him. After that, they somehow all get onto a helicopter that will take them to safety, but the staff sergeant is really macho and heroic, so he jumps back down to keep fighting, and his troops who have a new respect for him join him and together they take down the alien base which has all of three aliens in it.
Amazingly, they discover a strategy to take down all the aliens, which is bomb their biggest ship with explosives and exploding things, because the aliens are vulnerable to explosions. After the explosions, they make it back to a tent with the rest of the military, who were hanging out in this tent the whole time apparently, and some random general dude tells them that they are radioing every city in every nation to tell them that blowing up the aliens with missiles is the key, and that they should have a nice breakfast, because they earned it. The soldiers all turn to each other and in silence, start picking up more bullets and grenades, and the general dude is like “What are you doing?” and the staff sergeant says, “We’ve already had breakfast.”
They Lost Some Good Men Out There
My Humble Opinion: Natalie Speaks Her Mind on the Important Topic
In my humble opinion, I must first express my utmost distress over the fact that you do not share the same opinion that my opinion is the only and best opinion. While this is just my opinion, it is the only correct opinion despite this opinion being brought on by the alcohol that I, in your opinion, drank heavily, but clearly, in my opinion, not to the point of intoxication because in my opinion only marijuana is consumed to the point of intoxication.
Vanderbilt University is clearly not of the same opinion that my opinions should be accepted as the sole opinion, and therefore I must profess my simple opinion that my opinion is the only morally correct opinion. My opinion is that my opinion is clearly the only opinion meant to encourage the younger un-opinionated minds to become of the same opinion and to choose to be uninformed, yet opinionated preachers of morality. I will not tolerate my opinion being quieted by wrongly opinionated people who must clearly be of the far left leaning opinion, meaning morally deranged or horribly pigeon-toed.
In my opinion, because my insane opinion is inarguably infallible because most people read my opinion and no one else’s opinion, even though I refuse to acknowledge the opinion that it’s probably because they are of the opinion that the only use for my opinion is to feel in their opinion more intelligent after failing a coloring book test because, in my opinion, you have to be correctly opinionated to even understand the complex nature of my mind to understand my seemingly long-winded, unpopular and factually incorrect opinions. The seemingly extreme popularity of my opinion only gives me the desire to shout my opinion to the wind so that my opinion may spread like wildfire to the other highly opinionated masses of the, in my own superiorly opinionated mind, beautiful state of Tennessee.
In my desire to brainwash the masses with my opinion, so that you may fall to my feet and praise my respectable and high opinion, I simply demand you to succumb to my benevolent opinion, sell your soul and forget everything you ever learned because here at Vanderbilt University. There is only room for one opinion, and that is my opinion because in my opinion it is the only correct opinion and all opinions that disagree with my opinions cannot clearly be opinions since there is only my opinion. Don’t you agree with my opinion?
Neil Newspaper Comes Clean
Hello Vanderbilt, I’m Neil Newspaper, writer for The Vanderbilt Hustler. I get no greater steamy thrill than when I hear giddy squeals of joy emanating from fellow Commodores as they read my articles. I’m sure they revel in my thinly veiled sarcasm and irony, which I deploy masterfully like a tank commander moving to flank his enemy. I subtly cloak my intentions by taking on the perspective of the group I disagree with. For example, I’m more of a coffee drinker, so I wrote an article as “Tommy Tea-bagger”. Sadly, Vanderbilt didn’t allow the article to print. I blame the Numi Tea Company. Those rapscallions!
How did I learn the sultry art of objective journalism? My step-uncle, Percival Newspaper, took me to Vanderbilt, his alma-matter, when I was twelve. He showed me the plaques the Hustler garnered during his illustrious and glorious stint as a magnanimous and beneficent editor-in-chief. He had written articles about being a bra during a bra-burning protest (Benedict Bra), which he told me, caused fire to be banned from Vanderbilt from 1969-1986. It was a good run. He had also ran a piece detailing the life of a fruit-fly from start to finish, so he could illustrate how cheap life was in the Soviet Bloc. A regular Charlie Wilson, that man. I learned almost every one of The Hustler’s standard operating procedures, including giving the football team good grades, even when they only pass for 28 yards in a half. I knew then, that this once-strapping man was to be my muse- my marble Persephone from which I would draw my inspiration. Jubilee!
I have never been a fan of tilapia. I needed to get that off my chest. What am I a fan of? Turning miniscule events and using them as a grandiose brush to paint an editorial canvas with. For example, I stepped in gum yesterday, which inspired me to write this article. What is this article? It’s about the joys of writing and the pressures of responsibility. It’s about a fear of failure and our duty as Americans to use analogies. And sentence fragments. Or maybe not.
Maybe it’s about going out on a limb and taking some risks while writing for the school newspaper, which appears stitched together and threadbare all too often. It could be about trying to provide a fresh perspective, something that’s interesting at least, to this publication. Or about an appreciation for creativity. It could even be praise for The Hustler for presenting some well thought-out journalism and critical thinking on a tough issue (BYX).
Then again, it could be about the dangers of falling right back into hold habits- the Damoclean threat of the status quo.
Sickness-Spurred Sobriety Springs Slanter to Score Scoop
Over the past few weeks I’ve been relatively ill with an as-of-yet undiagnosed disease. It made its most vicious strike the Wednesday right before Fall Break and imprisoned me in my own bed which had been feeling like a forlorn lover, because it hadn’t seen much of me lately and because my Husband Pillow™ just doesn’t fill her the same way I do.
I’ve since been to the doctor, gotten a shot and four prescriptions, and I am now on the path to recovery. In fact, today, I just finished the last of my antibiotic pills. Now, keeping in mind that the last time I drank while on antibiotics my body backfired, vomited all over itself, lost my camera, sat on my glasses, and punished me with the worst hangover I’ve ever had, I decided to avoid a repeat of said experience.
But, being the socialite that I like to pretend that I am, I still had to network at the parties to which I had already been invited and had committed to attending. The beauty of opaque Solo cups is that you can be drinking straight water and still act as crazy as a wombat on LSD, because people will automatically assume your plastic chalice contains something alcoholic. This sleight-of-liquid allowed me to blend in with the musically-stimulated orgying masses crammed into a sweaty Towers suite to bring you these journalistic expositions.
However, these sessions of not imbibing the purple-drank/fire-water/crunk-juice did give me the privileged perspective of quietly observing and explicitly judging people and, boys and girls, I’ve learned one thing: folks enjoy acting entirely too drunk for their small amounts of ingested libations. To quote myself from last night’s shambles, “I’ve been to these parties before, and you, sir, are behaving entirely too smashedly for one cup of that weak-ass punch. Get a hold of yourself, man. Men aren’t supposed to move like that. You’re making our gender look bad.”
So, know your limits, fellas. Don’t forget that, as a guy, you can easily look immensely stupid from thinking you’ve flooded your brain enough to feel invincible and fancy free. Women only get a free pass because even if they haven’t played “Slap the Bag” with our ever-classy friend Mr. Franzia, they always look sexier the more they dance. Just remember that going home alone to play “Pet the Wombat” all by yourself is not your primary yearning.
Counterpoint: Point/Counterpoint Sucks
So, for multiple reasons, the whole Point/Counterpoint sucks. First off, the freshmen don’t even know what this is. Point/Counterpoint used to be a feature in every issue where two professional scholars held a fair debate on important issues, but toward the end of last year it just became two drunkards arguing over sparkly lip gloss. We also haven’t had a Point/Counterpoint yet this year, so new readers will be startled when some useless pair of articles starts showing up in their usual tri-weekly Slant—and who is cruel enough to scare freshmen? It’s like when a second Big Mac appeared inside the good old status quo Big Mac to form the Double Big Mac. For that matter, Point/Counterpoint is probably bad for your health, too.
Let’s face it; Point/Counterpoint is NOT why anyone picks up The Slant. Who wants to read two sarcastic satirists have a duel over some issue that will probably not affect them in any ostensible fashion? Clearly, this is just filler anyway. By writing this, I feel like the olive in a martini, like Passion Pit opening for Snoop Dogg, like the states of Washington and Oregon, and even like salad at dinnertime: useless and just thrown in there to take up space.
Actually, how can this article even exist? Have I already lost the debate if this is getting printed? Everything I stand for is in vain. Arguing AGAINST Point/Counterpoint has provided a counterpoint for Point/Counterpoint. My life is a paradox. If this article is a lie, then what else is? If I didn’t debate against my own existence, would I cease to exist? Do I only exist because I am being observed? Will I vanish if you blink? Please don’t blink. Please. Don’t!
*poof*
Exterminate the Brutes: Squirrel Attack Proves Inherent Mammalian Evil
I can’t believe I’m writing about squirrels; I was supposed to write some bull about the community creed, of all things, but while walking to get some delicious fro-yo at “That Fucking Coffee Shop” under Sarratt, I was struck by inspiration. Literally struck in the form of a beastly, unholy abomination of all that is vaccinated. Yes, faithful readers, I was struck in the head by a squirrel, and with this punishing blow, I realized that enough is enough. I have put up with the shameless foraging, the poster vandalism, and the startling jumps, but I will not allow my no-no square to be breached by some strange rat-cat hybrid.
I hereby call for a public purge of all that is squirrel from Vanderbilt University. We shall start with squirrel’s most valued asset: their food source. Lace the ground with cyanide! Let no acorn go untainted. However, we must be clever in doing so; if I have learned anything in college, it is to never underestimate the fiendish intelligence of these sins against nature. The only chance we have of succeeding is if the fiends do not know we have struck. I therefore propose a massive, coordinated preemptive strike. In the dead of night, we shall move in teams across campus leaving no room for error.
Should our massive poisoning fail, we might have to revert to less… elegant means. No, I’m not talking about fire. We should instead offer a social incentive to prompt students to take action against the invasion of these flea-ridden, wall-climbing mongrels. Let it be known to all Vanderbilt students that the most fashionable items to have on campus are genuine, free trade, organically raised VandySquirrel™ accessories. By introducing VandySquirrel™ fashion into the market, we will soon begin to rake in the blood money, and once we have enough cash, we can surely solve the infestation of the squirrels! Ok, so I actually haven’t thought about what we would exactly use the money for, but I’ve also learned at Vanderbilt that any problem can be solved with a wink and a massive check, so I’m not too worried about what happens after the money.
Go forth, my soldiers! Cleanse Vanderbilt of the demons’ vile, scratchy paws!
Addressing Profanity at Vanderbilt: Watch Your Fucking Language
A recent opinion piece in The Hustler by Frannie Boyle has a taken a lot of undeserved shit for its brave stance against all the fucking profanity that’s in the media and the effects it has on today’s youth and shit. I, for one, feel that the problem might begin at our school, as I find that there is a great preponderance of dumb fucks at this school who think they can just fucking swear whenever they fucking feel like it. To those shits who think that they’ve got freedom of speech and want to fight the fucking tyranny of censorship or whatever stupid shit you’ve come up with, well, fuck you.
”So what’s wrong with a little profanity?” you might ask. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, asshole; it’s fucking rude! When I get out of my fucking bed in the fucking morning, I don’t want to hear some fucking son of a bitch ruin my fucking day by dropping some fucking inappropriate shit when I get my damn breakfast. This language is both demeaning and offensive as fuck, and inappropriate for the safe, intellectual learning environment we are trying to foster at this goddamn shitstain of a school.
Now, I’m not the only one who thinks this is a fucking problem. I was talking to this bitch, and I asked her, “How do you feel about the excessive cursing that goes on at this fucking school? Well, cunt, I don’t have all day. How about a fucking answer? Oh, that’s right, just walk away from me, you fucking whore.” I don’t know about you guys, but it seems pretty fucking clear to me that she finds this vulgar language to be inappropriate, even though she really was a fucking whore.
In conclusion, I would like to advise any dipshit who thinks that they can give the middle finger to everyone they see on the street to take that finger and shove it up his (or her) ass. We are fucking Vanderbilt! We can compose ourselves to behave at a higher level of decorum than a bunch of shit-throwing monkeys. You know, this shit just gets me fucking angry. I am so fucking pissed! Fuck all of you shitting bastard fucking cunts who say whatever the shit you want! I am so fucking pissed I ls;ahkgd just having a fucking seizures ohat klyhthe fucking keyboard. Oh, tha’tskj fucking it, someone just fucking laksfjddl;fasku used the goddamn Lord’s name in vain; I’m going to fucking smash this compu
-Harold “The Fuckinator” Stafford
The Best Worst Movies of August
Piranha
Synopsis: An earthquake opens up a trench between a lake and another lake under the first lake, releasing a pack of vicious, prehistoric cannibalistic piranhas. The piranhas, tired of eating each other, quickly devour the topless co-eds partying over spring break. Luckily, the sexy sheriff, a mother of three, is there to save the day when her idiot children take off in a boat against her explicit directions.
Rating: Half pornography, half graphic violence, this movie is a must-see for sociopaths and drunken frat boys. (-3/10)
The Last Exorcism
Synopsis: In a small, hick town in Louisiana, a teenage contortionist in a white nightgown is possessed by a demon…or is she? This movie, shot in the first person, follows the exploits of dishonest Reverend Cotton as he pretends to exorcise her demon. Boring and predictable, the cheap attempts at scares miss the mark. At least until the last ten minutes, when (SPOILER ALERT!) you witness a demon birth orchestrated by a cult, and the cameraman drops the camera. This exciting movie ends with a close-up of a rock. In the dark.
Rating: Worth it for the audible “What the ****?!” from fellow audience members. (1/10)
Vampires Suck
Synopsis: Awkward, open-mouthed teenager Becca Crane must decide between Jacob White, a hairy, cat-chasing youth, and Edward Sullen, a pale, bloodthirsty immortal. If you have any sense of humor, or perhaps are a little tipsy, you will love this hilariously accurate take on the popular preteen fantasy. Guest appearance by the Black-Eyed Peas.
Rating: IMDb vastly underrated this movie at 3.3 out of 10. With its vague, underdeveloped characters, poorly-shot action sequences, and excess of blinking and mouth-breathing, Vampires Suck far surpasses the original Twilight. (15/10)
OHARE is an O-WHORE
Housing, you’re a deceitful streetwalker. Seeing as how you ran off so quickly with my money and my room key after we had our intimate moment at the end of last year when I finally got lucky enough to end up with the housing assignment I actually desired after three years of getting elevator shafted, your initials should change from “OHARE” to “O-WHORE,” with the new acronym standing for Office of Withholding Happiness Over Resident Empathy. I suppose I should have stopped trusting whore houses years ago.
Here’s the story: the day after my older brother and I traveled half the world with our taste buds in the local, international beer tavern in celebration of his birthday, he and I drove up to Vandy to move my shit into my suite. Still slightly hungover and suffering from cottonmouth, we stuffed every inch of my mid-sized car with stuff and began to roll out on Dubs – and by that I mean blaring songs that fit into that particular subgenre of Reggae – blaring them, because we could only hear sound from the front two speaker. The back two were muffled by bedding, clothing, and the gigantic, hot pink, stuffed bunny I had just won at the state fair. I named him Mr. Rogers and gave him a sweater vest.
Anyway, nine hours, bad Taco Bell, bland Subway, and two tanks of gas later, we pulled up in front of Towers at exactly 11:15 p.m. My genius plan was to arrive at such an unusual time so as to avoid all of the human traffic and have free range of the elevators, so that we could quickly and stealthily move Mr. Rogers into my room without a heightened risk of embarrassment.
No such luck.
I swiped my card and opened the Towers door, fully expecting to be warmly embraced by the wonderful Housing Keymaker who would grant me access out of the Matrix and into my room, but as you might have already guessed, that didn’t happen. I flashed my gold card to Mr. Smith, the badge-wielding doorman, registered my brother on the official “If someone gets raped in this building tonight, harass this guy first” list, and smiled kindly to the girl working as a reeve behind the counter. When I asked her for my room key, she told me that she was actually quite powerless and couldn’t give me my key, or really even do much of anything at all besides open the front door when people have too much shit in their hands and reset the alarm when people exit through the side doors. But she was really nice while telling me of her utter lack of utility.
She turned around and knocked on the magic door behind her and found someone who pretended to be useful: one of the RAs of the building. This second girl was less kind, less attractive, and far less helpful. (O-WHORE, just whom are you hiring these days? You could at least sugarcoat the wallet raping.) After ten minutes of waiting on the phone while she called her superior, housing homegirl informed me that O-WHORE reserves the right to give residents their room keys at their own discretion after 10PM. Since she didn’t feel like giving me my key, even though it was chillin’ in the little box right in front of her, she wasn’t going to do so. I should’ve just snatched the shit up right then and there, but that would’ve just been really awkward as I’d make multiple trips in front of her back and forth to my car.
After making repeated idle threats of getting her fired, I stuffed my tail between my legs, suppressed my manly pride and anger, grabbed Mr. Rogers, and called my friends until I found a floor upon which my brother and I could crash. The next morning, as we attempted to move all my shit, we were forced to wait in elevator queues as long as Great Depression bread lines, and we weren’t even getting anything for free.
So, O-WHORE, I hope you’re happy with yourself for finding a new way to unnecessarily annoy me…once again. I hope you get gonorrhea from all of your hussy activities, so that it burns every time you piss. Oh wait, we’ll just substitute “gonorrhea” for mold and call it even, because you already have that, and you’ve infected enough underclassmen already. Bitch!
Slant Movie Reviews: The Machine Girl
Every year there are a few glimpses of genius. 2008′s would be the excessively violent and over-exaggerated Japanese flick The Machine Girl. From one look at the poster, you know this is clearly a big ripoff of Planet Terror, and I’m not saying that it isn’t, but it’s more. It doesn’t have zombies, but it goes above and beyond the call of duty. The B-movie mantra is pushed to every facet of the film from the opening scene to the final credits.
The “plot” is as follows: a group of high school bullies who follow a Yakuza leader’s son murder a girl’s brother, so she swears revenge to kill them. If you can deduce from the title and the poster, something happens along the way to spice it up a bit.
The acting is bad (most of the female roles are models/porn stars including the moms),the costumes are bad, the soundtrack is bad, the set design is bad, the dialogue is bad (the writer/director made pornos also), the action is bad… the only thing that is not terrible appears to be the budget, but this and the rest makes all of it INCREDIBLE! But it’s not bad like The Room bad, it’s intentionally bad. Everything is so over the top, that even the most disgusting violent brutal deaths are hilarious because of the obvious cheaply made props or prosthetic dummies. The melodrama is so thick at times that it spews out like the gushing fake blood hoses from seemingly every character’s body. If you thought Kill Bill set the bar for fake blood, this movie does an Olympic high jump over that bar and then impales someone with it.
I haven’t laughed this hard for the duration of an entire movie in a long time. All in all, I give it five donuts out of five!
I’m thinking of making it mandatory Slant watching material, and if you disagree with me, then you are a no-good hypochondriac recluse who constantly pees on the hall’s toilet seat! Did I mention that the spiritual sequel to this is called RoboGeisha?
Yeah, this movie is awesome.
