This should have been a Hibbidy-Wah?! post. This could have been a JusWondering, or part of an Awful Battle, or something from InASense, Lost, but the thought crossed my mind to defend it.
WHY DID I EVER CONSIDER DEFENDING THIS?!
(images after the jump as not to offend the casual viewer… Facebookers and Twitterers, I’m sorry… it’s too late…)
"I get bold, italics, underlining, periods, and fucking? Boom goes the dynamite... and everything else!"
I didn’t think I’d get here so soon, but it’s befitting since Transformers: Dark of the Moon is finally here. I haven’t seen it yet, but moron more on that soon.
Where can I begin my defense?
He’s certainly has a knack for creating great visual spectacles.
But that argument can be countered by pointing out how shaky the fight scenes were in the first two Transformers films, or how explosions stand in for plot progression. Another issue is his childish – nay – infantile sense of humor that leaks through into his films (peeing robots and robots with balls, for example).
People really like his movies.
Do they? Do they really? Or is it the spectacle as mentioned above. Let’s run through his catalog real quick, accompanied by Rotten Tomatoes’ aggregated ratings:
Bad Boys (43%)
The Rock (67%)
Armageddon (40%)
Pearl Harbor (25%)
Bad Boys II (23%)
The Island (40%)
Transformers (57%)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (20%)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (37%)
How many are technically great movies? The Rock? How much of that was due to Nick Cage, Sean Connery, and Ed Harris, though?
He’s the eighth highest domestic grossing director up to 2009 for a reason. Hell, I have to admit I’ve seen every single one of those movies above at the theater except the latest one, and I can’t wait to see it this weekend! It looks like the special effects are really cleaned up, and I’ll be able to tell what the Transformers are doing! I’m probably even going to pay extra to see 3D, and I typically hate 3D!
I know I’ve talked shit about himmany times before, and I probably will in the future, but my biggest defense for him is that he gets people to the theaters. That’s his job and he does it well. Once we’re there, well, that’s a different story about story and content. But I’m usually content. I don’t hate his films with the same ferocity I unleash on Brett Ratner’s greasy prints or M. Night Shyamalan’s twit-twisters (I avoid their films like the plague).
Above all else, Michael Bay is a skilled, technical filmmaker.
Being a flawed storyteller doesn’t make him bad. If that was the case, I’d bitch about Tim Burton more often.
(SIDENOTE: If I can’t get convince you with any of the above, then you should know this. When he was a kid, he donated all his Bar Mitzvah money to a local animal shelter. That’s something.)
Millions of Americans are probably more than ecstatic to join in the schadenfreude that is the defeat of LeBron James and his Miami Heat at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals, so I’m taking on my biggest challenge yet. I am going to be In Defense Of one of the most indefensible players in all professional sports. So where to begin?
The Beginning
LeBron James was born in Ohio and he played for a team from Ohio. So that’s something.
Even though he was drafted?
Um… from 2006 to 2010, he lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to the appearances in the playoffs. In 2007, he took them all the way to the The Finals, the team’s only appearance. That’s pretty good.
Wasn’t that the season that one ref got busted for fixing games?
The Betrayal
When “The Decision” was made to switch teams before this past season, James took a lot of heat for the way he went about it. He has since apologized for that course of action, and even though some may have viewed it as coming a bit too late, he still did it. Remember, he didn’t have to do it at all.
All the people that were rooting for me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point.
Taken out of context, it can come off as pretentious and douche-y, but he even had to clarify this. And he didn’t have to:
Basically, I was saying, at the end of the day, this season is over and with all the hatred not only myself, everyone else has to move on with their lives as well. They have to move on with their lives and their day-to-day, good or bad, and I do, too. At the end of the day, I’ve got to move on with my life. So it wasn’t saying that I’m superior or better than anyone else, any man or woman on this planet. I’m not.
Let’s think about his decision in real world terms:
He was 25 years old
He was presented a chance to play with a team that has won a championship
That team is managed by Pat Riley who has 6 championships under his belt (one as player, five as coach)
Everybody’s mad at him because he’s a Midwestern kid that turned his back on the Midwest and made a big deal about it. He got cocky. That’s really the root of it all in a nutshell.
I heard one reporter state that when James first returned to face the Cavaliers in his new uniform, the fans could have affected his game much more by giving a standing ovation – not booing. He would have regretted his choice, potentially, rather than feed his drive to prove every one of his old fans wrong.
It’s too bad his first film has been postponed, a comedy entitled Ballers. They claim to still be developing the script, but perhaps their reconsidering just the title…
Bawlers
(There’s more Nike commercials featuring The LeBrons after the jumpshot…)
The best part of the Twilight series is that it’s closer to being over. Just like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final book in the series will be split into two films, Breaking Dawn, Part 1:
They were "thisclose" to going with Breaking Wind.
And of course, Breaking Dawn, Part 2. (SIDENOTE: If this wasn’t a post In Defense Of the films, I might have added that I needed to spell that out to the fans, but it is, so I won’t.)
Anyedward, to stand up for this pop culture phenomenon, I could use writer/director Kevin Smith’s logic:
But I’m going to go with anti-logic instead. (SIDENOTE: Again, if this wasn’t a post In Defense Of the films… well, you know.)
This is only my third In Defense Of post, so I haven’t fully developed my method of argument. But wait. I don’t really have a method for anything on this site. Moving on…
This time I want to come to Ashton Kutcher’s defense. Is he in need of arguments for him? Are you really asking that?
Dude, you're not helping.
REASONS WHY PEOPLE HATE DON’T LIKE HIM
Punk’d. He introduced not only this show, but this word, into the lexicon. Kiss “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera!” goodbye forever.
He made shitty movies. Where to begin. Um, Just Married, My Boss’s Daughter, Guess Who, A Lot Like Love, The Guardian, What Happens in Vegas, Spread, Valentine’s Day, and Killers.
He made some enjoyable movies. Love ’em or leave ’em, I really liked Dude, Where’s My Car! and the director’s cut of The Butterfly Effect. Dude, he strangled himself with an umbilical cord in the womb!
He’s produced some enjoyable TV. I wish I would have watched more of Beauty and the Geek, I’m sad there weren’t more episodes of Miss Guided, and I hope there’s another season of True Beauty.
He’s married to Demi Moore. Sure, she doesn’t look like (click here) anymore, but still…
This guy doesn’t seem to mind him, and that’s all right by me:
Or they like to smile when they fight. Either way.
So in closing, that’s five good reasons to defend him, over three reasons to hate on him. As one of the original Two Men once said over and over and over again, “Winning!”
Most of you may not know who The Victorious Secrets are by name, but last year, they won FSN Detroit’s annoying April in the D contest.
To those of you not from “The D,” April is that time of year when three of our Detroit sports teams – Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons – are supposed to be playing simultaneously… I say that begrudgingly because it requires two of the teams to make it to the playoffs, and only one has… for twenty years! (The Pistons might pull out of their slump next year with the new owner…)
Anyhoopdreams, back to the contest. Last year, The Victorious Secret won with this song:
Then they went on to win FreeCreditScore.com’ssimilar contest with this ditty:
And now you see them in these national commercials:
I WANT THEM TO COME BACK AND MAKE ANOTHER APRIL IN THE D SONG!
This is the crap that won this year:
They actually use the phrase raise the roof non-ironically…
It’s a sort of situation when you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. And yes, I’m saying that non-ironically…
It’s about that time for a new category, and this is one I’ve had an idea about for quite some time.
The premise is simple and it’s this:
Take a hated subject and write a polemic against the againsts.
I won’t argue for it. I won’t praise it. I’ll just defend it, hence In Defense Of.
So who better to start with than the one and only teen heart-throb and bane of most h8rs existence, Justin Bieber:
For example, I want to say, "With a fivehead like that I understand the bangs!" but I won't.
In the spirit and honor of this new post, I’ll begin with this:
Justin Bieber is nothing new… he’s merely the latest incarnation of a time-honored tradition.
Like the world’s oldest profession, the heart-throb is a mainstay.
“The Heart-Throb” is a product of the times, not a producer.
Much like how this nation elected a philanderer when our morals were at their lowest, an imbecile when we were most scared, and someone completely different when we wanted something completely different, Bieber is an unassuming girly boy in an era when women are seeking out effeminate, metrosexual men, for the most part.
Plus, young girls are kinda dumb and prone to clustered thinking… he was basically in the right place at the right time (on YouTube).
Much hullabaloo is also made about his hair. So… does anyone remember Joey Lawrence?
Whoa!
He started out as a tyke on Nell Carter’s Gimme a Break! but really gained fame using the above catchphrase on Blossom. Then he took a stab at a music career:
My sisters used to have their walls plastered with New Kids on the Block posters and their room filled with paraphernalia. By the time Step by Step came out, I stopped fighting with them about their obsession. I even admitted to start enjoying their music. The posters didn’t last much longer after that.
Jar Jar Binks was the beginning and the end of “Star Wars” for most. It was the clearest sign that George Lucas had lost his damned mind, and the pandering to kids that began with the Ewoks in “Return of the Jedi” (which was fine when I was a kid), had spiraled out of control. And it wasn’t just the fans that thought this.
Additionally, Rob Coleman, who was the lead on the Industrial Light & Magic animation team, warned Lucas that there was concern among the team that the character of Jar Jar was coming across poorly for the team and how the character was to be projected. Lucas told him that he especially put Jar Jar in the film to appeal to small children. After that, the issue was dropped.
So after all is said and done – why would I choose to defend Jar Jar? As he is, I can say nothing. But of what he could have been – I have to say this.
I believe in George Lucas’ out-of-touch brain, he had grander plans for Jar Jar, besides having him be at fault for giving Palpatine power in Episode II (heaven help me for writing this… all of this.) I think it was the fan backlash that shrunk Jar Jar’s role.
Even if he didn’t have better intentions for Jar Jar, I believe the series would have benefited from having a permanent sidekick for Anakin. Jar Jar, the simple creature he was, could have been used to contrast how far into darkness Anakin decended. Jar Jar could have been his confidant when he Obi-Wan pissed him off. Jar Jar could have ran interference to distract others when Anakin was hooking up with Amidala. Then, when the moment arrived where Anakin had chosen his destiny… when he wiped out all those little Jedi kids… how much more powerful would it have been for Anakin’s best bud to walk in and catch him doing such horrible things? Anakin, realizing how far he has fallen, would then lash out and destroy the mirror of his lost innocence – Jar Jar.
Especially after what Jar Jar would probably have said: “Ani, whatsa yooza doin?”
(If you’re brave enough, there’s a pic of the hotness that is me after jump…)
monkeyBLOG monkeyDO 
