Editorials - Turn Your Brain Off

[0dd1]

Refusal to turn off one's mind is how the practice of sarcasm was invented.
I love to make sarcastic remarks while watching horrible things, even if I can only do it in my head ^_^

[Beardy Goodness]

Ach du lieber... when I actually hear some prick (or partial prick) say they like Dane Cook, I become a little less faithful in the future of humanity.

[HeroliciousDeBlanc]

HowardC is remebering the Indiana Jones prequel, Indian Jones' Sneeze, directed by Thomas Edison and featuring the dramatic introduction of two different scenes. Unfortunately, the critics panned it as "substantially lacking in groundhogs."

[Tadao]

Ya'll just a bunch of haters.

[Autrach Sejanoz]

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU Dr.Boogie. This article has been a long time coming.

[Graystreet]

Blade Trinity isn't unintentionally hilarious, it's just a hilarious and terrific movie in my opinion, Ryan Reynold's Hannibal is just about perfect, and the whole support team/Midnight Sons was handled very well. The only real problem with the movie in my opinion, lays with the scenes directly after the slaughter of the team, where some bad acting from Wesley Snipes worsens some of the film's only truly bad lines ("Use it! Use the death of that blind chick to kill vampires betterer!") It didn't have a dramatic shift in tone or focus from the previous sequels like Indiana Jones And The Crystal-Clear Son Subplot,it just wasn't a bad movie.


Beyond that little tirade, I agree with most of what Boogie has to say, but he missed a hugely annoying example of this, Napoleon Dynamite, the single worst movie I've ever seen, far worse then the previous title holder, Last Samurai. The entire point and punchline of the movie is that the lead character is mildly retarded, or at very least, severely autistic, but to this day, this fanatical worship continues for this unadmonished crap. My brother's wife's vote for McCain wasn't counted because she wrote "Pedro" in the write-in slot, and that very well may be the only good that movie has ever and will ever contribute to the world.

[neoboman]

It's sad that literally the entire movie will be Kevin James doing pratfalls and taking bumps.

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

I gotta respectfully disagree with what Graystreet just said.

Actually, I think "Blade Trinity" was horrible. To me, it just seemed like a rehash of the other two Blade films, combined with various vampire clichés, and saturated with that whole "trying too hard to be cool" aura that was painful to watch.

Also, I think "Napoleon Dynamite" was awesome. I don't think the main character was supposed to be retarded or autistic, at all. He was just a nerdy oddball.

All the characters are basically exaggerated versions of people one meets in real life, and it's the blend of real and unreal, combined with the slow, quiet tone (which is conducive to cracking up with random laughter), and goofy moments (like his douchebag uncle trying to film himself throwing a football, and the "time machine" scene)that make me enjoy that movie so much.

On the other hand, I totally agree about "Last Samurai", and I'd like to add "Live Free Or Die Hard" to the crap-list. That whole movie was two hours of "Young people are evil, and we gotta stop them from using their magic computers to take over the world!", ugh.

[greenimp]

this comments section is becoming really really wordy
silver: thanks, worked like a treat
i personally dident like the transformers movie cos, as Dr boogie said, it centered around humans, which was really quite gay
graystreet: you are not alone in your hatred of napolean dynamite! i just cant see what people find funny in that annoying chunk of excrement, perhaps you should turn your brain off. Myself, i've always found that hard to do. so ill go on saying bland american junk shown on the commercial stations is crap and taunt my friends about enjoying lost.

[Lothalis]

The only reason crap like this is even created is because it's cheap and has a high profit to cost ratio.

Example 1: The Hills (uhhh) a bunch of actors pretending to be reality stars getting paid probably 30k each to "star" in this terrable show for an inch of MTV fame...now the ratings they get off this drab will draw investors (commercials) durring the god-awful show and don't forget the terrable after-show. like they are coparing it to an important sporting event ( i have reservations on the 2 hr pre-game and 5 hr post-game show there but thats another story for another time)

Example 2: any "guy film" these are characterized my slapstick humor, people getting hurt and it being "funny" or scantaly dressed woman who go out with the most unlikely men. they cost a studio like 9 Million (9.1 if a girl shows her boobs) to make this kind of movie and the profit off them is like 30 million...quick money.

People don't turn your brain off, By doing so you are teling the entertainment industry you like this trash...

[Graystreet]

" saturated with that whole "trying too hard to be cool" aura that was painful to watch."


See, I never got that feeling from it, I always thought they knew exactly what kind of movie they were making. I mean, the second quarter of the movie is the daughter from Seventh Heaven and half of the guys from Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place being better vampire hunters then Blade, and the villains were Parker Posey, a woman about imposing and sexy as Winston Churchill, and some big Wrestler type that worships a pomeranian.


Oh, and the woman that played the blind lady was arrested for threatening to rape a dog, which is just odd.

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

Well we may disagree, but at least we have intelligent reasons why we like and dislike the movies we watch, and don't "Turn our brains off" to enjoy them.

[Tadao]

I'd have to turn my brain off to read half of these posts. Bunch'o'haters

[dj boobs]

I think a lot of people are kissing Boogie's ass.

[Mister Tea]

@ Copper: Yeah, but you still said "Meet the Spartans? Funny!" There's only one context that could ever make sense in, and it's this: "The slow and painful dismemberment of every single person who worked on Meet the Spartans? Funny!" And reading your first post again, it looks like you didn't say that.

[Nick]

This is why I can't watch television anymore.

[JJ the Jetplane]

I liked the new Transformers movie, the new Indiana Jones movie, AND I like Dane Cook... am I really the ONLY ONE???

[Colonel Flagg]

Good article, Dr. B.

[JTN]

I seem to get the impression from the comments that people think that everybody will like an intelligent, well-written movie 100% of the time, no matter who they are, and that everyone in the world secretly wants to always see those movies all the time.

The fact is, mindless entertainment has been around for thousands of years. Freak Shows, Gladiator Battles, Animal Fighting... It's not like it's a new phenomenon that started with television. There's always gonna be an audience for that stuff that is more than willing to "turn their brain off" for a while and just watch things moving. It doesn't make them any more stupid than you and me; it's just a basic human need to take one's mind off of the cares of the day that actually DO require your brain. That's where dancing and sports come from.

Not that I'm saying it's healthy to watch those all the time. I have a sister who has watched a little too much MTV and it has kind of leaked into her personal life as she has a bit of an overdramatic outlook on relationships (though, of course, that might just be her personality). I've seen it happen.

I guess I'm collecting from Boogie's article that All movies should be intelligent and well-written. "Turning your brain off" is not necessarily a bad thing. Like chocolate and other sweet foods, it's fine for you to watch it along as you don't make it the center of your life. The fact that that kind of entertainment exists does not indicate any stupidity on the part of the watchers; it's just an indicator of what's happened for thousands of years.

For clarification, I think Dane Cook is a hack, that "The Hills" is the worst television show ever made, and that the writers of the "(genre) Movie" franchise should be arrested.

[Dr. Boogie]

Originally Posted by JTN

I seem to get the impression from the comments that people think that everybody will like an intelligent, well-written movie 100% of the time, no matter who they are, and that everyone in the world secretly wants to always see those movies all the time.

That's a bit hyperbolic, don't you think? The impression I get from reading the other posts is that some of the posters are tired of hearing that crappy programming is so popular, and that since it has no redeeming qualities, it's their fault for not being able to like crap.

The fact is, mindless entertainment has been around for thousands of years. Freak Shows, Gladiator Battles, Animal Fighting... It's not like it's a new phenomenon that started with television.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. I didn't say that mindless entertainment is an invention only a few years old.

There's always gonna be an audience for that stuff that is more than willing to "turn their brain off" for a while and just watch things moving.

I agree. They're called "infants". They're the prime demographic in the "things moving/jingling keys" entertainment niche.

It doesn't make them any more stupid than you and me; it's just a basic human need to take one's mind off of the cares of the day that actually DO require your brain. That's where dancing and sports come from.

Eh, if a person likes cats, we call them a cat person. If they like stupid crap, why not call them a stupid person? Or a crappy person?

Also, that's a rather hefty assumption you're making about the origin of dancing and sports.

I guess I'm collecting from Boogie's article that All movies should be intelligent and well-written. "Turning your brain off" is not necessarily a bad thing. Like chocolate and other sweet foods, it's fine for you to watch it along as you don't make it the center of your life. The fact that that kind of entertainment exists does not indicate any stupidity on the part of the watchers; it's just an indicator of what's happened for thousands of years.

What I said in the article was that in order to like the entertainment examples I gave, you needed to turn your brain completely off. To like Transformers, to like most of what Michael Bay produces, you have to be able to ignore everything except the special effects. To like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, you have to forget about the previous films in the series so the comparison won't ruin the film for you. To like Dane Cook, you have to accept made-up words and screaming to be the highest form of comedy.

What I was getting at was that the best kind of entertainment is the kind that engages you. That requires a certain amount of thinking to appreciate. That's the kind of stuff that you're going to remember long after you've left the theater or turned off the TV.

[Graystreet]

My brother loved Dane Cook, and then he went away and married a tiny Mexican man that outwardly resembles a trashcan, and now that I think of it, has the personality of one too.

Don't let it happen to you!

[toolz88]

First things first Dane Cook sucks now that's out of the way your right I don;t want to turn my brain off yeah some movie are soo dumb they are funny but that does'nt make up for things on T.V. as mentioned in said article sure I'll give people some slack for watching bad things because too them it's nostalgia for someone growing up that maybe a way to recapture the feeling of they're youth and bygone days that they are never going too see again just like I like to watch bad things that I thought were horrible back in my day but I will watch them now just because it brings me back to my days of growing up that were a lot simpler for me and also BRAVO for the people who liked the crystal skull OH that was a jump the shark movie it had aliens that's unbeliveable not un like religion

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

You know, I think I'd rather watch a freak-show or a cock-fight than a Micheal Bay film.

At least then I'd have something interesting to say, when people ask me what I did that day.

[Graystreet]

Johnny The Crab boy is a pretty accurate nickname for Shia Debuffetted...


Man-Eating Chicken would work pretty well for Megan Fox as well...

[vardulon]

You couldn't be more right about the dangers of turning off one's brain, but you couldn't have picked a worse example of something that asks you to do that.

The OC is a surprisingly well-written, geek-friendly, clever and funny television show that spends as much time satirizing the conventions of nighttime soap operas as it did exploiting them.

It embraced meta-comedy and self-referentialism to a degree unseen outside of animation, and apart from an incredibly dire 3rd season that no one should ever watch for any reason, it was a bright spot on television for its run.

Mentioning it in the same breath (or article, I suppose) as Dane Cook or the Transformers is an insult to everyone who worked long hours to create such an interesting and entertaining show.

I'm sure if you watched it from the beginning you'd find that it really was something special.

Just mute the television whenever Mischa Barton is onscreen, and you should be able to get through it with no problem.