Fritzland

This is my second attempt at a Cracked.com photoplasty competition. This time around called for rejected themeparks/rides. My mind immediately went in this direction. Enjoy.

UNSW Animation

This is my first ever animation, so be nice. It was an assignment for a graphic design class, so be nice.

The Hangover Part II Review

I don't consider myself to be a mathematician. A stoned, limb-less camel would put my adding and subtracting skills to shame. But if you have no problem with extending me the courtesy just this one time, allow me to sum up Todd Phillips' second foray into the Hangover universe with the following equation:

'The Hangover' + New Setting = 'The Hangover Part II'

If anyone has seen this film (which by now I'm sure is most of you) you'll know that this is not at all an exaggeration. I would even go as far as to call 'The Hangover Part II' a remake of its predecessor. If you look at it in this light, 'THP2' could be considered one of the most creative ideas to hit the cinema world in the last 50 years. This remake stars all the original actors playing all the same characters, was directed and written by the same person and has been released a mere two years after the first movie. This is just something that has never been attempted before. Kubrick-esque, one might say.

Even with this astonishingly brilliant idea, amazingly, Phillips just doesn't manage to pull it off. How earth-shatteringly disappointing. If I was Phillips, I would have taken the 'Fast and Furious' route and simply called the film 'The Hangover'. It might have been a little confusing initially, but people would still have mindlessly dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into these rich, white businessmen's prick-filled pockets. Even if they called it "Don't Watch This Piece of Shit You Fucking Ignorant and Predictable Sheep (who also have rabies and the sheep-version of Syphilis)" we still would have turned out in droves to see it. 

This is you.

All your favourite characters have returned, playing your favourite characters from the first movie. We have Bradley Cooper, who reprises his role as as the cool, level-headed Phil; again serving no purpose other than to look pretty and drive the narrative forward. Then we have Ed Helms' Stu; the neurotic, whining whinger who yet again (oh no!) has had something unfortunate happen to his face. The final member of The Wolfpack is Zach Galifianakis' Alan, which of the three mentioned here is the character who has changed the most, but not necessarily for the better. Whereas in the first movie Alan was a slow but likable beacon of hilarity and well timed one-liners, here he is nothing but a reprehensible, annoying, and tragic figure who is (by default) responsible for a couple of the film's biggest "laughs" only because the rest of the material is so face-palmingly dry. 

 
Sure, it's all set in Thailand this time (whoop-de-doo), but the paint-by-numbers formula remains the same. Instead of the baby, we have the monkey. Instead of roof-bound friend Doug (who reappears in a few brief, unfunny scenes), we have the missing 16 year old step-brother of Stu. Sure, Ken Jeong's Mr. Chow has some chuckle-worthy moments, but there's only so much of his schtick that one can take. The film even has the balls to end in the EXACT same way, with the main characters sitting by the pool looking through the photos on a camera before cutting to a musical montage of those photos during the credits. It all just feels very, very tired and if I'm honest: insulting. The one new character who seemed promising, played by veteran character-actor Paul Giamatti, is painfully underused and too quickly forgotten. None of this was helped by the film's 110 minute running time... which honestly felt a lot fucking longer.

About this long.

Trust me, I understand the hypocrisy of this review. Here I am calling everyone who paid to see this film sheep, when I too paid to see it. I'll say it now: "I am a sheep". But that doesn't mean I'm proud of it, nor do I want anything like this to happen again in the future. The truth is, the only reason Hollywood keeps churning out this repetitious, unoriginal bullshit is because we keep on paying to see it, and in greater and greater numbers. In our uncertain economic times, every now and then people just want a tiny skerrick of familiarity. Something that they know. Something that doesn't challenge them... because they are sick of being challenged in their real life.
 

I am hesitant to call this film the 'death' of modern cinema, but it is most certainly an improperly attended and gangrenous amputation of it. Don't worry, I won't put up a picture of that.

Ooops.

My Phirst Photoplasty

This is an image I created for a Cracked.com 'Photoplasty' contest called "What Happened to the Characters After the Movie Ended". Those of you who know me well have probably heard me rant on numerous occasions about the fact that Jigsaw, the main antagonist of the 'Saw' films, is completely and totally 100% dead for 4/7 films. This image is a riff on that. Hope you like it, and I'll update the post if I get featured on the site (which is highly unlikely).

Drawn-Out #5 'Snail'

Nowra Boys Lyrics

Just thought I'd cut to the chase and give everyone what they truly desire: the lyrics to the Nowra Boys song in their entirety.

*This works better if you actually listen to the song whilst reading the lyrics. Just do a quick YouTube search.*


Intro:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha .

*Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang*   NB!

Nowra boys. Yeah, we ain't backin' down. We ain't backin' down fo' no-one.

Not even GS. Jay Moon. LK. Young Jayden.

Yeah, get ready to throw it up. Coz Nowra Boys in the house.

Yeah. We ain't backin' down for no shitty GS.

Fuck you.

Chorus:

2541, Nowra. 2541, Nowra Boys. 2541, Shoalhaven. 2541, remix.

2541, Nowra. 2541, Nowra Boys. 2541, Shoalhaven. 2541, brudda brudda! 

Verse 1:

Whoa!

The GS you think you're the best, but you're not.

The Nowra Boys aren't impressed. Matter of fact, we are the best.

You mess with me, you mess with the lot of us. 

Kick you in the teeth, kick you right off the bus.

Talk to me like that? Talk to the lot of us. That's right.

I'm gonna punch you in the lip. Watch your fool colours drip.

You talk shit. Ya get split. Take my word, you get hurt.

That's right. Nowra Boys are comin'. That's right.

Repeat Chorus

Verse 2:

GS, you think you're the best. No need to lie.

I'm so fly, stand strong, last longer in every round.

This is our town. NB have got the crown.

What are you gonna do when you roll us, coz we toss.

Holla, black duster won't give a fuck. It's time to get crunk.

Time to get drunk. Throw it up.

NB in the sky. Throwin' so high you don't even know that you're

flowin' like SHOALHAVEN RIVER.

Repeat Chorus

Verse 3:

Nowra Boys on the crime. Yes we do it all the time.

Fuck you, GS. Stab you right in the neck.

We Nowra Boys fo' life. That's how we do, that's how we roll.

Yeeeaaaaahhhhhhhh!

But we got LK and Mooney and Young Jayden.

That's how we roll coz we in Nowra Bay, because we ride

and we roll coz we're best.

Got all the money. Fuck you, GS!

Repeat Chorus

Epilogue:

Yeah.

This is the end of the song.

GS, we're gonna send this out to y'all.

Yeah, just remember Young Jayden, LK.

JAAAAAAY MOOOOOON.

We ain't backin' down fo' no-one... no-one...

NOT EVEN CLOWNS (Like you, GS)

No fuckin' around.

NB. Yeah. Nowra Boys.

We're the bessssssssst.

NB, NB!

 

Drawn-Out #4 'Dignity'

Drawn-Out #3 'Just'

Drawn-Out #2 'Mislead'

Drawn-Out #1

I've become quite fond of photoshop, so I thought I might try my hand at a few short cartoons. Let me know what you think of this one, and if you like it, I'll upload some more. Enjoy.

The Internet Hates You

In our modern age, it makes no sense for TV programs to air weeks, or even months, after they are aired in America. Anyone with a half-decent internet connection can download entire seasons of shows with the click of a button (I personally choose not to do so, but that topic is for another day). These downloads are ad free (as long as you don't count the "Lose weight without exercising" banners) and can be viewed mere moments after their original airing.

Now. Say you own a company and you want to advertise on television a fantastic and revolutionary new product. You're not going to debut that advertisement during a show that was shown months ago in America, because it's almost a certainty that a large chunk of that show's loyal fan base would already have watched it online. While it is cheaper to purchase the rights to an "old" show, the ad-space is also sold cheaply, so the station makes less money.

I am just gonna get straight to it and talk about 'Survivor'. You all knew this is what I was referring to. 

"The tribe has spoken, BIYACH."

Channel 9 has been showing Survivor for over 10 years, but it is still making the mistake of attributing the show's low ratings to the concept that very few people actually like the show. However, some seasons were ingeniously put on at 10:30pm on a weekday. Maybe this was the reason for the low ratings. The last few seasons have been shown on Channel 9's sister channel GO!, and not everybody has digital TV. Maybe this was the reason. Maybe showing Survivor: Gabon six months late had something to do with it.

But if the internet didn't exist, I wouldn't care about all this in the slightest.

I am such a huge fan of this show, that if there's a possibility that a website will offhandedly reveal to me information from episodes I am yet to see, I will NOT use it. I am not exactly sure what episode they are up to in the US, but I don't want to find out in case something gets ruined (Wikipedia, I'm looking at you). This means that I can't even use IMDb until this season has finished, just in case they reveal the winner on the homepage (which is exactly what happened to me during 'Fans vs. Favourites'...uggggghhhhh!) I was once also linked to a Survivor charity auction on eBay which revealed the winner, so I can't use that website either.

In conclusion: Channel 9, stop showing endless bloody repeats of 'Two and a Half Men' and get your shit together.

p.s. Up yours, internet.

Ultimate Irony

Wow. This is my first post ever! Please tell your frie

I'll cut the bullshit and get straight to it. 

The 'ultimate irony' that I'm referring to is that fact that in this post I'm going to bitch about a blog I have to contribute to for eight weeks that discusses the readings for a university 'media' class... and I'm choosing to do this through the medium of a blog. People have murdered and resorted to cannibalism over less irony.

My first couple of blogs I actually kinda enjoyed writing, because my tutor assured us that they were completely informal, and could be as long or as short as we wanted them to be. So, being the jack-ass cynic that I am, my posts were jam-packed with dry, witty jokes that stem from my many grievances with society, which I then attempted to relate to the texts (every now and again). I knew that if I wrote straight-up essays on the theoretics of modern media, they would so boring that they'd put 'The English Patient' to shame, and nobody in my blog group would bother to read it. Anyway, this shit was meant to be informal, right? 

Wrong. A few weeks in our tutor informs us that the quality of our work would be lucky to receive a 'pass'. We're not engaging strongly enough with the texts and focusing too much on the peripheral issues. So basically, we actually DO have to write essays. And if the blog posts are getting too long, we should cut out everything that doesn't relate strictly to the readings themselves. 

Yeah, that's totally what we were told at the start of semester.

If I was assessing you on your ability to make an already shitty class shittier than Halle Berry's 'Catwoman', you'd receive a full scholarship.