Guys, This Is Totally a Good Movie

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I’m as surprised as all of you, but I really enjoyed How to Train Your Dragon.  I didn’t see it in theaters because, you know, I don’t get excited about cartoons, and the title of the thing doesn’t promise much, but it’s a real movie.  It just happens to be animated.

It’s funny, exciting, the characters are all more than punchline machines, and the voice acting is that perfect blend of big and lesser names who are all perfect for the characters they play.  It is, essentially, the anti-Shrek, which is a movie that represents everything I hate about modern, disposable, crude and ugly CGI cartooning.

Some of the shots in this movie are quite honestly beautiful.  There’s some real art in here.  There’s real danger, too.  The stakes never feel flimsy, and the battles aren’t won without sacrifice.  At the end of the movie (SPOILERS) the main character loses a limb.  That’s some pretty serious shit for a mostly funny kids’ film.

I wasn’t planning on ever seeing it, and I sat down with my roommate to watch it just because I was bored.  I haven’t been this pleasantly surprised in a long time.  More of this, please, Hollywood.  Less Shrek and Megamind.

TALES OF BLOGTRONIC: Kurt Russell (Part 5)

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The previous chapters are here.

——-

As Kurt Russell steamed and flexed, the air in the roadside shithole was more hot and tense and aroused than Glenn Beck in a sauna with a black guy.  “I’m surprised you don’t remember, Kurt,” I said.  “It went kinda like this.”

Flashback!

It was a thirsty day in that sweltering Bangkok whorehouse.  I was tending bar, one of the many odd jobs I’ve taken over the decades in my never-ending search to figure out exactly what the fuck is wrong with you effed-up humans and your effed-up humanity.  I was learning quite a bit in my time in the brothel, mostly about Asian sex fetishes, which are for the most part pretty friggin’ amazing.

Here comes Kurt Russel.  Yeah, the famous actor.  This was around 1988, so he’d already made a lot of his cult movies, like that one with the guy and the other guy, and the dogs, and the eyepatch, and a houseboat.  I might be mixing up a couple of his movies.  I suffered a pretty major data stroke around then (it’s something that happens to robots who don’t watch their electricity intake), and for some reason it mainly scrambled up my memories of 80’s era film and television.  Not music, though, so thanks a lot, health problems: I can still remember DeBarge with crystal clarity.

Russell wants a drink, because he just got done doing some pretty disgusting things with an old whore and her four daughters, and he needed a refresher before he went back in.  “Hey, look at you, you’re a robot,” he said.  “Well, robot, what I would really like right now is a delicious ice-cold Royal Crown Cola.”  He smiled at me and winked, because we weren’t sworn enemies yet.  But that was about to change…

“Sorry, film star Kurt Russell, but we only serve New Coke here.  How’d you like a tall glass of—”

Well, I don’t remember much after that, because Kurt Russell was furiously headbutting me over and over again, slamming my head against the bar, and I soon lost consciousness and—

Wait, holy shit!  I just remembered that I woke up the next day with no memory of who Max Headroom was!  Fuckin’ Kurt Russell was responsible for my data stroke!  Why didn’t I realize this before?

“You motherfucker!”  I picked up a cybernetic midget and threw it at Russell’s head.  “To this day, I still think Cyndie Lauper was in Desperately Seeking Susan!”

He just shrugged.  “Not my fault your programming couldn’t take a little gratuitous violence.  You know, in certain blind taste tests, RC Cola beat out New Coke pretty consistently?  You should have read the writing on the wall.”

“I wasn’t involved in purchasing!  I was just the bartender and part-time sex aid!”

“Well, now that your flashback reminded me of why I hate you so much, you’re about to become a full-time death aid.”

I paused, thinking.  I looked around at the people watching our showdown.  “That didn’t make any real sense, right?  Death aid?  What the fuck is that.”

Dubois Alabammy, the notorious master of disguise, bank robbery, and sodomy, adjusted his Shirley Temple curls.  “BLOGTRONIC’s right, Mr. Kurt.  That was pretty weak.”

“Well,” said Russell, “what’s not weak are my fists, people.  And they’re going to fuck up BLOGTRONIC so bad he’s gonna long for the good old days of my beating his memories right out of his skull.”  He gestured the door.  “After you, robot.”

I spit on the floor, which isn’t easy when you don’t actually have saliva glands.  The best you can do, really, is intentionally case a temporary lubricant leak as close to your mouth as you can get it, like from your neck or something.  It’s a pretty laborious process, but I think the effect is worth the effort.  “You just said the magic words,” I sneered, and I stepped out of that dusty little shithole into a big, hot dirty and sunbaked shithole that people call “Texas.”

Kurt followed me.  “It’s about time,” he said, cracking his knuckles.

“Indeed,” said I.  “We’ve been stretching this out for way too many blog posts as it is.  Right, Bustin’?”

Bustin’ McChops shrugged.  “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, guys, but come on, really…”  He rolled his hands in the universally accepted sign for “wrap it up.”

“Are you ready to die, BLOGTRONIC?” Russell asked as a tumbleweed bounced by and a vulture flew overhead and a rattlesnake hissed and a cougar snarled and a horse whinnied and lightning crashed and a car backfired and a baby cried and somebody stepped on a cat and a one-man-band tripped down the stairs and landed in a box of rusty springs.

“Eh…”  I thought it over for a bit.  “Not quite yet.  Let’s hold it off until the next installment.”

I caught the gaze of Bustin’ McChops.  He was hissing murder through his eyes.  “Youuuuuuuu…FUCKER,” he growled.

TO BE CONCLUDED

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If I ever become a serial killer, they won’t have to look much beyond my Tumblr crushes to work up a victim profile.  (Shortgirl, it looks like you’re in the clear, but the rest of you brunettes better avoid walking in the park alone for the forseeable future.)