Late-night Mallrats Salvation.

     I thought I was going to endure another boring-ass night of late-night premium cable viewing. It's one of those moments where no matter how many times I scroll through the channel guide, I find nothing that would hold my interest, at least until Star Trek: TNG comes on, which will not be on until 3:00AM. So I figured "screw it" I planned on resorting to my DVD collection or view something on Youtube or Spill.com, until I came across Kevin Smith's Mallrats on one of the Starz! channels. My spirits were up high and I was ready to laugh my ass off...again....for the seven hundreth time!!

We all know that this is Smith's 2nd film after the low budget Sundance hit that was Clerks. Sure it was box office flop and recieved poor reviews (well, not too bad since it has a 50-something rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but it gained a strong cult following over the years and became a well-regarded entry in Smith's "Askewniverse" Films, which were, at it's time, the irreverent, foul-mouthed, crude humored equivalent of today's Marvel Cinematic Universe. Like those films, past events are referenced (Julie Dweyer's passing, the unhinged sexual activities of a Cousin Walter, etc.), characters are crossing over (the always omnipresent Jay & Silent Bob), foreshadowing (the orangutan at the end of this film had a prominent role in Jay & Silent Bob Strikes Back), and the reconcilliation of the film's tones being slightly off-kilter (Clerks and Clerks 2 have fairly realistic settings, Mallrats and J&SBSB have a pretty cartoonish, but riotious tone and Dogma was religious fantasy-cum-bitting satire), with the exception that none of these guys have armored suits, gamma-induced mutations, or godly powers with guys named Loki being invol.....oh, wait, never mind..

The point I'm trying to make is that these are normal, hopeless, hair-brained and otherwise shiftless guys that we could connect to and laugh at as well, being that those qualities make them acceptable targets. It's just a idiotic but neverheless fun movie with a few moments of brilliance that revolves around two guys getting over their respective break-ups by heading to a mall, where they plot to win their girlfriends back, discuss the sexual activities of superheroes, and run afoul of one of the gf's dad. The conversations they hold are hilarious of fucked-up proportions and their actions are morally uncompromising, and that's what make this film a great late night viewing.




Mallrats and Dogma are courtesy of Universal Studios and Lionsgate Entertainment respectively.

Ren's Friend Advice: Ditch Aaron.

    Hey folks. Ren is here and I got some insane, jerkass wisdom (or wis-dumb) to share with y'all. With all have friends in our lives. They're there with you through the best and worst of times, shaped you in some ways, and helped you out. Then we also have friend's that fall into the "dysfunction junction" territory. We still have the aforementioned traits, at times, but we like to crack jokes on one another, battle each other on who can drive to In-N-Out Burgers first, and play some pretty shitty games on each other as well. Among these games are "Ditch Aaron". I know what y'all thinking; "What the fuck is that?" Well let me school ya. Ditch Aaron is named for a very "distinctive" member of our five-man band named Aaron Lacy.

Well, seven actually.

                              

He's pictured in the middle, sitting between me (wearing the black and gray jacket, looking pretty lost) and Lance, and holding a laptop, looking up with a borderline creepy stare. That among other things are his key characteristics (bad driving, overeating, lack of impulse control, etc.) but we'll delve into that next time but get to the game. It involves a group of friends leaving a fellow man behind when he is frequently distracted by the opposite sex to the point that he disregards his comrades. This action can apply to anyone of the group, especially Aaron. Whenever we are out and about (usually to a mall) and Aaron trails off to try to mack to a girl, Jeremy, our group's (de-facto) leader, initiates the game by saying "Quick, leave him". Before you know it, we stormed down the escalater and out of that motherfucker like if we had stolen something, then jumped into the car and started it up before Aaron caught up with us, just so we can drive around him in circles, taunting him. It wasn't the first time this has occured; there have been many great stories told of this on-going game.

It may sound like cold blooded torture, but for us, it was epic. In a way it was Karma directed at him, for his repeated attempts hooking up with chicks by coming on very strong. So we had to keep him in line and calm him down hormonally. But still, Aaron's a determinator. He does not feel remorse, he cannot be reasoned with, he will not stop until you are defiled. To make a long story short, never leave your fucking crew behind just to get lucky for selfish reasons or else you will be left behind. Never! Have self control in your game. Allow the target....I mean girl have some space. With that said you can continue to use this tatic to get back at your own horn-dog buddy. I mean it; do it. It can happen to somene at the club and your pal would say "Hey, brosky. Ronny has a massive hard-on and he's talking to those girls. You know, the ones with jealous bfs. What should we do?" Then that's when you would say "Let's pull a Ditch Aaron on him."
"Who the fuck is Aaron?"
"Don't worry about it, let's just leave his ass."
So fellas, if you're looking to screw with your own boy, take this cruel act of hilarity in consideration.

Introduction

Hello, everyone. This is Ren speaking. It's a bit odd that I'm up at 3 in the morning and blogging away for the first time. So I figured "screw it" and embraced typing and sharing my thoughts on everything I know. So..deal with it. If case you didn't paid enough attention to my "about me" info, or if it didn't come through at all due to crappy site errors, I'm an aspiring screenwriter (I specialize in comedy-drama), a college student (well junior college actually), movie watcher (just saw Inception again), and occassional smartass. Then again, I'm more of a habitual smartass, and you guys will expect a lot of this on many future posts on films and daily life. Enjoy!!