Nightmares

THIS CREATURE LIVES UNDER YOUR BED AND WILL COME OUT WHEN YOU ARE SLEEPING AND SINK ITS TEEHT INTO YOUR THROAT!

Sweet dreams!


IMPORTANT UPDATE:
CopyEyedKakashi: those are not very big
CopyEyedKakashi: the jew shark
CopyEyedKakashi: it distracts u by looking funny and biting
CopyEyedKakashi: but its really stealing ur money

Music Tuesdays: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Forget All the Timelines I Put Up

Justin King and the Apologies.
I love this band. No doubt about it, I love this band.

My mind isn't functioning today, so long short and inept description of how the band sounds. Listen and find out. They are good. Trust me.


EXTRA:
Justin King himself is an incredibly acoustic tap guitar, with a strong argument leaning on the best.



Skip to about a 1:40 into the video and watch the song "Locomotion." Insane!

TADAAAAAAAA... it's... gone!

I'd like to take this opportunity to fully express my feelings on the Dark Knight. As all five of you know, I was not as taken with the new Batman movie as pretty much every other freaking human being was.
To pretext my thoughts: It is easily one of the greatest super hero films ever made, one of the greatest ACTION movies ever made.
But it still didn't live up to the hype for me.
That being said, I saw it for the third time yesterday. My friend had not seen it (what's up with that?) so we caught a late night showing at Harvard Square. Each time I have seen it, I have liked 4/5ths of the movie even more than before. I catch the subtle foreshadowing, I understand more of the character emotions, and for the life of me, everytime I see the Joker's magic trick, I giggle uncontrollably like a fat, middle aged woman watching Everybody Loves Raymond. The movie is chock full of those balls-to-the-wall epic scenes where even though you KNOW what's going to happen, it still shocks you when you see it on the big screen. I mean, when that huge fucking truck just flipped over? Fatness!

That being said, the ending of the movie gets worse and worse everytime I see it. Like clockwork... And I can't figure out why. Sure, there are a LOT of reasons that the movie could have let me down. I mean, the fact that two-face was such a weak, one-dimensional villain compared to Joker didn't help. The awfully weak ending dialogue about how Batman "wasn't a hero, is what the city needs" was so corny and forced, I was left wondering if Keanu Reeves had managed to get some creative input in the film. Maybe I was getting too tired of Christian Bale's voice, who is taking the whole "Keaton-esque" voice thing a little too far (it sounds like someone took a cheese grater to his vocal chords). Maybe it's because I didn't fully grasp the ideology behind the film where Dent is viewed as this grand uncorruptable figure while Batman can pretty much be a anything the town needs, and why they couldn't just say Dent died of AIDs but HAD to place the blame on Batman. The film did drop in terms of dramatic quality, where right after Batman goes through a convuluted maze of a skyscraper battling dogs and terrorists and the SWAT team while hundreds of lives on two stranded ferries hang in the balance, we are treated with Two-Face being football tackled by Batman for a finale. Whoopee.

Or maybe it was the fact that Rachel Dawes was killed in the middle of the movie. And that sucks. Because I have the biggest crush on Maggie Gylenhoff. I know, she looks like a doberman, but I would ravish her. Just, whoa, you don't even want to know the things I'd do with her. My girlfriend doesn't bother to read my blog anymore, right?

I'm exaggerating though, the film pretty much came full circle and the ending wasn't THAT bad. Sure, it was the weakest part of the film, but why in the world do I leave the theatre disapointed everytime? I looked at all the previously mentioned flaws, and they really don't hurt the movie that much. So what annoys me so much about the ending?

Well, after that third time, it finally dawned on me, with the help of my friend. After seeing the film, I asked him what he thought. He said it was great, but it never really ended. I asked him what he meant, and he said he felt like there should have been more. The Joker was still alive, Batman was on the run, the city is demolished, it wasn't really an ending at all. There was no closure. And he's absolutely right!
I'm not really HATING on the ending, but I want to know how it really ends. The story was only half told! The reason for this is obvious: Nolan had said even before the second movie was complete that the third movie would still be centered around The Batman vs The Joker. Heath Ledger's character said it himself, "This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever." The movie may have been over, but the battle between The King of Crime and The Dark Knight had only reached intermission. The third installment was going to be the finale!

Of course, the big kink in the plans right now is that Heath Ledger is dead.

And so, let the rumor mill begin. Depp as the Riddler, Hoffman as the penguin, Cher as Catwoman. I'm sure this would make for an epic movie, really, it can't possibly not. Those guys (Cher probably has a penis) are some great actors, and Nolan goes on personal missions to one-up each of his previous films. No matter who is cast and who the villain is, I for one have little doubt that the third installation of Nolan's Batman will be fantastic.

But it will ruin the second movie for me. Not bringing back the Joker would mean that the ending for The Dark Knight was utterly incomplete: it lacked proper closure, and the Joker character never really got his dues. It also means that the Batman triology (it looks like it will stop at three) will not end with the strongest villain going out last. That's a damn shame.
And what amazes me the most? Not one single person has considered bringing the Joker back. Is Heath Ledger really a sacred horse? Look, I'll admit, for arguments sake, he is the best Joker. Jack Nicholson's variant, while stupendous, was also very different, and simply wasn't as captivating as the role Ledger played. Chances are, no matter who Nolan casts, they wont do the job that Ledger did.
But why should we care? With all due logic, no matter what story Nolan can concoct, it wont be as good as what he was originally planning, so it's give-or-take. Did we stop making super-man movies when Christopher Reeves got paralyzed? Did we stop The Matrix 2 when Alliyah's plane crashed? It's sad, the world has lost talent, there's no taking away from that, but these are movies. Their sole purpose is to give us an escape from reality. With all due respect to the late Ledger, the show must go on. I truly feel that the next movie should be centered around the Joker, even if no one else on this planet thinks so (hell, there are some that say the Nolan's Batman should die with Heath). I feel we haven't gotten the ending we deserved, and I want to hear out the story to the end.

There are others qualified to play this role. And who knows, maybe Nolan is plotting a Batman 4, waiting for some time to go by before he revives Batman's "destined enemy." My fingers are crossed. I'm serious.

edit: OH there are spoiler warnings in there. So uhm, don't read it if you haven't watched the movie.

True ultimate power

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-joe-biden-vice-president-barack-obama,0,4044104.story

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MS Paint > Photoshop

My friends' at Blag by Popular Demand have issued an insane statement that we, at Jolly White Giant, think we should respond too (although there is only one guy at Blag by Popular Demand... and I'm the only person who posts on this blog... but using plurals makes it sound like more business-like, you know?). THEY claim that MS Paint is a useless tool that pales in comparison to Adobe Photoshop. They claim that MS Paint can only create monstrocities and really should only be used for copying and pasting and nothing else. WELL WE AT JOLLY WHITE GIANT CHALLENGE THIS STATEMENT; and we go one step farther to say MS Paint is a FAR MORE LEET PROGRAM THAN PHOTOSHOP!

You disagree?

WELL WATCH THIS!


WELL HOW ABOUT THIS!!


EH? EH? EH?


HOW ABOUT THIS!!



I rest my case. MS Paint is a wonderful program with boundless possibilities and if you have hours and hours of free time on your hand, you can make some totally leet shit. That will get you laid. Probably by fat chicks.

Music Wednesdays

Now I wont normally post live performances when I'm giving an example of a band, but it's a must with the John Butler Trio. These guys perform so well together that I would almost be doing you a disservice if I posted one of their music videos.

The John Butler Trio isn't an unknown band by any means, they're one of the biggest bands in Australia, drawing huge crowds whereever they go. Yet, for some reason, they can't take off in America. They have a very easy-going, psychedelic rock sound that probably wouldn't translate to much radio play, but to be so unknown really shocks me. It's almost a purely guitar driven band, with the drums only providing a very simple beat and the bass strickly (yet loudly) following the guitar. Regardless, John Butler is easily one of the best guitarists in the world and both his rhythm and his riffs are just mindblowing. Oh man, especially the riffs. He hooks his twelve string acoustic up to every effects pedal imaginable... the sounds he can make with a wah and a slide could make even the best jam band guitarists blush. Please give this guy a listen!


BONUS:
John Butler also has just incredible solo stuff, worth a look in itself. It's a little quiet, so there is another video of the same thing if your speakers wont go up that high (cause this song is meant to be played as long as possible) but sadly the video is off with the audio so it's a bit too odd watching it.


If you enjoy, please comment on my blog, do not AIM me that you liked it. You know who you are.

A REASON TO WATCH THE OLYMPICS

TOO much money

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY SHIT!

Tallest skyscraper in the world is almost complete in Dubai. Yes, the same Dubai that is famous for making all sorts of expensive shit. It's pretty crazy, and there are some far better aerial pictures at Gizmodo, the place where I pretty much get all my information at.

This is deffinitely where I want to take my next vacation.

Music Mondays

Hands down, there is no creepier folk-indie band than Okkervil River. For Real, Westfall, It Ends With a Fall, Red... soft melodies with rough guitar and soul gazing vocals (can vocals gaze your soul?) create for a little spine tingling experience. Their more upbeat songs, like Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe and The President's Dead is more instrumental and speedy but keeps those crazy vocals. It's sort of like Interpol: no matter what the guy is singing, you're always like "this is creeping me out." Similar effect here.

Give them a shot!

Pretending to be rabblecopter for the night

Look Dark Night! Funny! Batman!!!