(Not) Magic Mike

While reading some of the reviews of Joss Whedon's smash hit The Avengers, I wondered if some of the film critics out there completely missed the point of the movie. The Avengers simply wasn't made for stuffy, snobby film connoisseurs. It was made for fanboys and nerds. It was made for average Joes who were looking for a little escapism and spectacle. Was it a great film? It depends on how you look at it. If you were an 11 year old boy, it was probably the best movie ever. If you were one of those film snobs who would rather watch The English Patient than sit through another noisy blockbuster, it probably wasn't your cup of tea. The important thing to remember here is that it wasn't supposed to be.

Films, like most art forms, are designed to appeal to a certain audience. Keep this in mind.

So, I went out and saw a movie called Magic Mike yesterday. Magic Mike is about male strippers, and let's just go ahead and establish one thing: I am not this film's target demographic. I'm sure about this. While I wasn't uncomfortable watching it, most of the time I was sitting in the theatre just waiting for it to be over. It was not unlike a trip to the DMV, in that respect.

I found myself analyzing the movie, though, and as I watched it I kept wondering who the intended target market was.

Advertisements for the movie make it seem like the plot would revolve around dance sequences wherein guys with visible abdominal muscles would gyrate and wiggle for extended periods of time, much to the delight of people who are into half-naked dancing dudes. I was expecting a hyper-stylized male revue of a movie, with little focus on plot or character development, based on the commercials and previews I had seen.

However, I was aware of one thing that made it hard for me to believe this movie would be some kind of fun romp through repressed lady fantasyland...

Steven Soderbergh directed Magic Mike. Soderbergh is a weird and unpredictable animal in the film world. On the one hand, he directs stuff like Ocean's Eleven, which was totally fun. On the other hand, he directs stuff like Haywire, which was a colossal pile of shit. Haywire was marketed as an action movie, starring real-life professional fighter Gina Carano. It was supposed to be a spy thriller, with an emphasis on ass-kicking fight scenes. Soderbergh thought it would be a good idea to take a film that had all of the perfect ingredients for an action film and use them to craft a pseudo-dramatic, disjointed mess. It wasn't an action movie. It wasn't really a spy movie. It wasn't a drama. It wasn't anything, really. It wasn't funny, or smart, or exciting. It just kind of went nowhere.

This is exactly what was wrong with Magic Mike. It had the perfect ingredients to be summer fun for women. Channing Tatum isn't going to win any awards for acting (ever.), but he's a good looking guy with tremendous talents as a dancer. He's eye candy for the ladies, and that's exactly what women are coming to this movie to see. People are expecting to see Tatum and Matthew McConaughey (who essentially plays himself in this film) and that one dude from True Blood take off their clothes, expose their chiseled midsections, and wiggle.

Unfortunately, this isn't what Magic Mike gives to its audience. It plods along without direction or purpose, at times wanting to be a drama, or a romantic comedy, or an exploitative skin flick, but it never commits to being any of these things. It tries (half-assedly) to be too many things, and it ends up disappointing on every level.

Because Magic Mike won't commit to a style, it ends up void of all fun, and is a meaningless film. I don't mean meaningless in a good way, either. If it had been an hour and a half of Channing Tatum dancing, that would have appeared meaningless, but it would have delivered some stupid fun for a specific audience, which makes it meaningful on some level.

I can't believe I was disappointed in Magic Mike for failing to be what it was advertised to be, but that's how I feel. I went to see Haywire expecting to see an action movie and left the theatre wanting to punch Steven Soderbergh in the throat. I imagine there are several women who are similarly disappointed in Magic Mike. 

There is a ton of highly sexualized entertainment out there for guys. I'm talking about quality stuff. The entertainment industry knows what guys are into, and they deliver. The entertainment market is saturated with fantastic violent and sexual guy-oriented books and movies. Can we get a little equality for the ladies? I read "50 Shades of Grey" and was disappointed in the shitty writing and laughably pathetic characters. I watched Magic Mike and felt bad for the ladies who paid to go chill out at the theatre for a couple of hours and watch some good looking dudes play into their fantasies. Is some decent, high-quality entertainment too much for them to ask for?

Lebron and Jesus

Last night, I watched the 6th game of the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals at the ESPN Zone in Anaheim. One of the great things about watching high-stake sporting events at bars or restaurants is sharing the experience of spectatorship with a bunch of random, drunken strangers.

My favorite patron of the ESPN Zone was a guy in a Seattle Seahawks jersey who would exclaim, "Jesus!" or, "Jesus loves Lebron!" whenever Lebron James scored. For those of you who didn't see the game last night, Lebron had an exceptionally dominant performance, scoring 30 points in the first half, and finishing with 45 points as the Miami Heat absolutely destroyed the Boston Celtics.

So, at least fifteen times during the first half of the game, Seahawks guy would offer up his commentary on the situation, which meant saying, "Jesus."

He wasn't saying it the way I would've been saying it, either. I am guilty of blasphemous utterings of the name "Jesus" when stuff happens. In fact, once during the game, Lebron threw down a thunderous dunk and I said, "Jesus. That guy is so explosive." My use of the word wasn't out of praise or reverence to Jesus Christ. It was mostly out of admiration for Lebron's tenacity and aggression during last night's game. One could easily replace my use of the word with other words, and the meaning would be identical. For example, "Holy shit. That guy is so explosive."

Seahawks guy kept thanking Jesus for Lebron's performance, and he kept on repeating this idea that Jesus was somehow intervening in the game, assisting Lebron in defeating the Celtics. You know, important stuff for an alleged deity to get involved in.

Two thoughts struck me because of Seahawks guy's exclamations.

First off, how about giving credit where credit is due? Namely, how about praising Lebron for Lebron's performance? How many hours has Lebron spent working on his skills? How many hours in the weight room, or running sprints, or shooting free throw after free throw? How many hours of tape did he watch in preparation for the Celtics? It's not like Lebron just woke up one day and saw a vision from Jesus telling him to be an NBA superstar. The guy has worked his own ass off to get to where he is. Sure, he's gifted genetically, but to suggest that Jesus somehow designed Lebron specifically to be an exceptional basketball player just seems so petty and stupid. It borders on offensive, when you really think about it. This notion is disrespectful to Lebron, and to the work he's put into making himself an elite athlete.

Second, what would this idea suggest about Jesus? If there's a deity that's interested in interfering in the affairs of men, and who is powerful enough to supernaturally change the outcome of human events, then what the fuck is he doing messing with the NBA Eastern Conference Finals? Doesn't he have better shit to do? While Lebron was doing his thing in Boston, how many children died of starvation in third-world countries? How many women in America were sexually abused? How many acres of rainforest were destroyed? How many politicians made backdoor deals to fuck over innocent people in the pursuit of power? There are so many shitty things happening in the world at any given moment, and it's bullshit to assume that Jesus gives a fuck about a basketball game while there is undoubtably some kid at St. Jude's who is dying of cancer and praying his ass off for relief from the searing, agonizing pain that his illness causes... but Jesus has to make sure Lebron is going to make his next free thrown. Sorry, people with real problems. Jesus has to make sure a millionaire pro athlete wins a game. A GAME! It's a game, people. Seahawks guy believes that the creator of the universe is preoccupied with a goddamn basketball game.

I didn't say anything to Seahawks guy. I just tried to pay attention to the game while he enjoyed the idiotic, self-satisfied notion that God has a favorite basketball team/player, and that it just so happened to be the team/player that Seahawks guy wanted to win on that particular night. Maybe Seahawks guy is right? If you look around the world, it would make a lot of sense that, if there is a God, he pretty much just spends his time focused on shit like sports and who wins country music awards and stuff like that. He certainly doesn't seem to care about things that cause real human pain and suffering.

D.F.F.

I saw a guy on the freeway today with a sticker on his car that said "DRINK FIGHT FUCK" and it immediately raised some questions for me...

The big question - the one that stands out the most to me - is this: Is this guy the most highly developed person of all time? Or is he essentially a neanderthal? Is this unnamed commuter an example of a fully realized human being, or is he the most underdeveloped, least evolved person in southern California?

One sees a lot of thought-provoking individuals on the freeway. People make some baffling decisions when it comes to their vehicles. I don't get the whole stick-on chrome fake vents that people stick on the fenders of their cars, for example. Whenever I see those, I wonder what, exactly, those weirdos were thinking. I'm not a professional designer. I look at my car and I assume that the good folks over at Honda did a better job designing it than I could've. I remember what it looked like the last time I tried to draw a car. Nobody would want to drive the piece of shit I drew. What I'm trying to say is that most people aren't exactly qualified to enhance the aesthetic quality of their vehicles. Still, people try.

"DRINK FIGHT FUCK" guy (or, as I will refer to him from now on, "Mr. DFF") got me thinking. Mr. DFF was driving a white Chrysler 300 with dark tinted windows, and I didn't get to see his face, but as soon as he zoomed past me on the freeway, carelessly cutting people off and zig-zagging through traffic, I began paying more attention to the oddities on the road and making a concentrated effort to see the faces that belonged to various cars.

For example, a huge F-150 that was in the fast lane decided to cut across all six lanes on the freeway to get to an exit, and I had to get a look at the obnoxious piece of shit who basically cut off an entire freeway in one maneuver. A woman, who was definitely Mexican and almost certainly a type II diabetic, was driving. She had fat thumbs. Seriously. The fire engine red F-150 had a spoiler above its tailgate that was at least a foot tall, as well as various stickers for elementary schools (apparently their kid is a "superstar") and one of those chrome Jesus fish things.

We all know that the addition of a spoiler instantly makes a car way faster.

What's the attraction to chrome, anyways? I can kind of see how it looks good on a Harley-Davidson, but seriously what is up with people putting the chrome accents on their cars? Have you seen the ridiculous vent things I was talking about earlier? They have got to be the tackiest thing I have ever seen on a car. I actually get mad and start hating the drivers of the vehicles that have them. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check this out:

Oh, for fuck's sake...

Observe. Notice that this is a Pontiac Grand Am, which is a colossal piece of shit to start out with. Second, check out the accents on the hood. Even the goddamn windshield wipers have chrome on them. I honestly want to find the driver of this car and kick them to sleep. Have you ever seen a Ferrari with chrome accents on it? No, you haven't. Wanna know why? I'll tell you why...

Ferrari owners, generally speaking, have made pretty good life decisions. Something must have gone the way it was supposed to for the Ferrari owner. 

Take another look at that Pontiac. If you're driving a Pontiac Grand Am, something has gone horribly wrong in your life. You've made a bad decision or two, and now you own a piece of shit car. You're probably too stupid to realize the depth of your poor decision-making skills, which is why you leave your trailer park, walk into an Autozone, stumble into the "accessories" aisle, and pick out chrome accents for your car (in between bites of your Slim Jim, obviously). 

Anyways, back to Mr. DFF...

This guy's life revolves around a central philosophy, which consists of a mere three words. Kudos for brevity, Mr. DFF. He has his priorities, and they are (in order):

DRINK: Now, some of Mr. DFF's friends have undoubtably told him that he needs to get help for his rampant alcoholism. His liver is nearing failure at an alarming rate, as steatosis has caused his overburdened liver cells to accumulate large vacuoles of triglyceride fat. He gives zero fucks, however, and he is dedicated to his lifestyle.

Pictured: Mr. DFF's sad, sad liver.

FIGHT: After consuming a half dozen tall boys of PBR, Mr. DFF moves into phase two of his ritual. It's time to fight! As we all know, alcoholics are generally highly skilled badasses who prove their manhood in parking lots and bars all across the world by fighting... well, whoever, I guess. His finely tuned motor functions are lubricated and his fragile psyche has been reinforced with a glaze of alcohol-induced bravado, so it's GO TIME MOTHERFUCKER!!!

FUCK: After having handed out several cans of whoopass, it's time for Mr. DFF to retire to his boudoir with a lady or two. Mr. DFF emerges from his walk-in closet wearing his leopard-print kickboxing pants, and dims the lights as he prepares to get. it. on. If there is anything that the classiest of ladies love, it's a drunk, sweaty, bleeding douchebag. You know, I think it's actually pretty selfish for Mr. DFF to place the fighting before the fucking. Unless he has superhuman stamina (and he probably doesn't), he's going to be all pooped out before he gets to what should be the highlight of his night. The odds that he'll be able to devote an appropriate amount of attention to a woman (or man... I don't want to assume anything about Mr. DFF's sexual orientation or preference) are pretty slim. 

Go get 'em, Mr. DFF!

It may sound like I've made up my mind about who Mr. DFF is...

You couldn't be more wrong. I'm sitting here and thinking... maybe Mr. DFF is the pinnacle of humanity. Perhaps his simplistic ideology, driven by a combination of evolutionary impulses and probable childhood sexual abuse, is a type of psychological breakthrough. He doesn't care about making the world a better place. Mr. DFF isn't preoccupied with the things that stress out most people. All of the existential questions that plague me aren't exactly a concern for a guy whose motto revolves around the accumulation of liver diseases, brain damage, and STDs. I wonder what life is like for Mr. DFF. He's a caveman in a modern world. He's a glimpse backwards to a simpler time, when humans weren't so stressed out by our own intelligence. 

Is Mr. DFF a genius? By reverting and by shutting off his brain, has he outsmarted all of us? Has he found a simpler, more pure way to charge through his existence, unencumbered by the problem of his own potential? Is he some kind of Zen master who has made peace with his own animal nature?

Maybe.

Although the odds are pretty good that he's just another asshole on the freeway.

Form vs. Function

This is David Gandy. He is the number one male model in the world. He is the current face of Dolce & Gabbana, and there is a 50-foot tall billboard of him in Times Square. This is an example of our culture's ideal male body. He certainly has aesthetic qualities that are classically appealing, but this body type isn't an accessible goal for many men. For many years, I've listened to female friends complaining (justifiably so) about the damaging nature of media-imposed body standards. Women have complained about the negative emotional impact that various images have had on their body image for decades. Let me assure you, men struggle with the same problem.

I spent a lot of time preoccupied with my body image. I grew up watching action movies in the 1980s, which meant I idolized guys like Stallone and Schwarzenegger, who had larger-than-life physiques. I wanted to be muscular like those guys, so I started lifting weights when I was 16. I played a lot of basketball when I was a teenager, so I was pretty thin, and I wanted to change my appearance. I desperately wanted to mold myself into what I thought a man was supposed to look like.

So, I hit the gym. Surely, through some hard work and perseverance, I could look more Schwarzenegger-esque over time, I thought...

It didn't happen, though. I gradually got bigger, but I was never satisfied with my progress. Because my goals were primarily aesthetic, it didn't matter if I was actually healthy or not. All that mattered was the image in the mirror.

Over time I got discouraged with this pursuit, and I stopped enjoying going to the gym. I found workout partners, and I would enjoy the competitive workouts that we would have, but I would end up looking in the mirror at the end of the day and I wasn't happy with what I saw. I still compared myself to the guys in Muscle & Fitness or Flex magazines.

It took years of this before I finally started to realize what I was doing wrong. I was so engrossed in the pursuit of an unattainable type of artificial perfection, I utterly failed to recognize the source of my happiness in my workouts.

This is Brian Shaw. He currently holds the title "World's Strongest Man" after winning the 2011 WSM competition. He doesn't have visible abdominal muscles. He isn't especially gifted, aesthetically. However, if you need help moving a couch, or pushing your car to a gas station, this is a good guy to know.

At what point did our society start valuing form over function? What makes David Gandy's body "better" than Brian Shaw's? Who decides how beauty is defined?

Once I stopped caring (as much) about how I looked, and started caring a whole lot more about what I can actually do, the gym became a sanctuary. My physical appearance varies from day to day. Some days I look in the mirror and think I look great, and other days I look in the mirror and wonder what I did to deserve my genetics. No matter how I feel about how I look, when I go to the gym and it's time to deadlift, 200 kilograms will always be 200 kilograms, and I can either lift it, or I can't. There is tremendous comfort in this constant stability. My evolution from wannabe bodybuilder to amateur powerlifter was a difficult one. It was hard to overcome my vanity and my insecurity. It would be deceptive for me to pretend that I had fully overcome either of those things.

All I know now is that there has been great freedom in letting go of societal influences when I consider my body. I am less anxious. I am not as self-conscious. I know that I don't look like a model. There was a time when I did look like a model, and it was miserable. I hated counting calories and working to maintain a low bodyfat percentage. I felt trapped in my body when I lived with my mind constantly stressing about how I was perceived by other people.

I'm writing about this in hopes that it'll help any of you who struggle with a negative perception of your own body image. I'm hoping that you may be encouraged to find alternative ways to assess yourself when you look in the mirror. It is nobody's place to tell you how you should look or how you should feel about yourself. We must make honest assessments of ourselves, and oftentimes the media is an obstacle to honest communication with one's self.

Think about what you can do. Think about who you are, and what your unique offerings to the world may be. Forget about what a magazine says about who you should be, and decide for yourself. You'll open yourself up to a whole new world of experiences once you decide who you want to be.

An atheist protecting a cross?

I’m an avowed atheist; I believe that religion is detrimental to the advancement of the human species. I dismiss all religions as merely man-made fairy tales, and it is my belief there is no redeeming virtue or practical benefit to be found in any religion. Simply put, to quote Christopher Hitchens, religion poisons everything.

It may offend people to read statements like this, but that’s OK with me. It’s OK for people to be offended.

I’d like to emphasize that point. Many people truly believe they somehow have a right to live without having to confront opinions or values different from their own. Let’s get one thing straight: You do not have the right to not be offended.

Religions offend me for a variety of reasons. When I drive past a church on a Sunday morning and see smiling parishioners spilling out into their communities, it bothers my conscience. I find it to be deeply disturbing. But I acknowledge and appreciate their right to the free exercise of their religious convictions, and that those rights are justly protected by the law. It would be wrong for anyone to attempt to take these rights away.

So, at what point do the nonreligious decide it is time to object to religious practices? Many atheists have fought legal battles against government endorsement of specific religious institutions or practices. Some of these battles have been legitimate and some frivolous, at best. An example of a frivolous skirmish is currently taking place just north of here.

At Camp Pendleton, there is a hilltop memorial dedicated to the memory of marines who died in Iraq in various engagements throughout the last decade. This memorial, which was erected on Veterans Day last year, is a 13-foot tall cross. The existing memorial was built to replace a previous one, which was destroyed by a fire. The original memorial was built by a group of marines in 2003, who put it on the hilltop before leaving for Iraq. Three of the marines who built the original cross were subsequently killed in combat. A group of Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans and the widows of the soldiers who built the original memorial carried the new cross to its current location.

This is not OK with Jason Torpy, president of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, who has objected to the memorial.

According to Torpy, “No cross or statue of Jesus represents military service.” In a written statement, he continued to argue, “Military service is being exploited to secure unconstitutional Christian privilege.”

However, according to the Camp Pendleton public affairs office, “The memorial cross activity… was conducted by private individuals acting solely in their personal capacities. As such, they were not acting in any official position or capacity that may be construed as an endorsement of a specific religious denomination by the Department of Defense or the U.S. Marine Corps.”

Torpy has taken issue with this, arguing that knowledge of the memorial was akin to official approval. Torpy has posed the question, “Would they allow that for anyone else who wanted to put up something for atheists?”

This type of position is how atheists have earned a reputation for being obnoxious. As an atheist, this bothers me. Atheism is, by definition, the absence of religion. There is currently no equivalent symbol that atheists could (or would) place on a hilltop to memorialize fallen comrades. If there were such a symbol, our laws would provide equal protection for such a symbol to be displayed.

There is no place in this nation more sacred than Arlington National Cemetery. I don’t care what anyone has to say to the contrary. In the United States, there is no ground more hallowed than that place. When I visited Arlington, I was overwhelmed with solemnity and gratitude. The weight of the sacrifices that have been made by service members is incalculable, and that is all I thought about when I walked through that special place, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of gravestones, the majority of which have crosses on them. I would have to be thoroughly solipsistic to take offense at the presence of crosses in memorials to soldiers.

When I see a cross on a hilltop at Camp Pendleton, I have freedom in how I interpret that symbol. I can see a symbol of torture and oppression, responsible for untold misery and suffering through the last 2,000 years, or I can see the meaning that this symbol carries for a third of humanity. For most people, the cross is a completely harmless symbol that gives hope and meaning to their lives. I completely disagree with their position and the cross is a disgusting thing to me; but how big of an egomaniac would I have to be to attempt to ban the display of crosses, or other religious symbols?

It’s disappointing the atheist community feels the need to resort to litigious action instead of promoting a more healthy dialogue. The problem of religion will not be solved in the courtrooms.

The Hero America Deserves

Thespian.

Environmentalist.

Animal rights activist.

Martial artist.

Musician.

Producer.

Reserve deputy sherrif.

Add all of these together, and what do you get?

Steven Frederic Seagal.

Pictured: Steven Seagal, preparing to impregnate an endangered panda. He's just trying to help.

I spent a good chunk of my childhood watching Seagal's masterful portrayals of a complex range of characters, and I'm sad to say that it appears his movies are fading into obscurity. Over the last decade, Seagal has had limited (meaning absolutely zero) commercially successful films. He has released over twenty direct-to-dvd films, continuing to do what he does best.

What, exactly, does he do best?

It's hard to describe what Seagal does. It's best to watch. He has an uncanny ability to do devastatingly violent things to people in a highly, uh, violent way. The guy made the most over-the-top action movies of the 1980s, which was an era of unprecedented production when it came to over-the-top action movies.

Pictured: An action movie from the 1980s that was literally Over The Top.

Seagal had an unlikely string of hits in the late '80s, culminating in the classic action thriller Under Seige back in 1992. He hasn't had a substantial hit since. Why hasn't he had a hit since then? What went wrong? Hollywood had stumbled upon a surefire hit movie formula wherein a giant, balding, functionally illiterate (probably), Aikido master with limited verbal capability beat the ever-loving dogshit out of people for an hour and a half. I don't understand why Steven Seagal didn't star in every major action hit over the last twenty years.

Sadly, Seagal's career essentially fizzled and died twenty years ago. Let's take a stroll down memory lane and identify the top five movies of his career, starting with...

Pictured: Marked For Death

To summarize the plot of this sublime film (wherein Seagal makes origami figures out of several Jamaican thugs): Seagal's family gets killed by the unluckiest drug dealers of all time. Truly a classic of the late 1980s action film canon, Marked For Death is a highly enjoyable bad movie. It's well-paced and competently directed. Fortunately for the audience, Seagal doesn't really attempt anything resembling acting, and the social commentary is kept to a minimum (there are obvious "drugs are bad" hints sprinkled throughout the narrative, just to be safe). He pretty much just beats the shit out of a lot of people, which (let's be honest) is exactly what we, the audience, have come to see.

The highlight of this viewing experience is the highly nuanced way in which Seagal dispatches the head bad guy, named "Screwface" (of course). He whoops the guy's ass, repeatedly cuts the guy up with a ninja sword, breaks the dude's spine, and throws him down an elevator shaft where he gets impaled on a giant spike... I feel like I'm forgetting something... Oh, yeah. He also shoves the dude's eyeballs into the back of his head, for good measure.

Next up, we have...

Pictured: Above The Law

This movie has Pam Grier in it. It was actually Seagal's first film, and one has to wonder how the hell this career got off the ground in the first place. Also, inexplicably, Seagal has way less hair in this movie than in any other movie in his illustrious career. No worries, though. We all know that practicing Aikido causes ever-thickening hair growth for middle-aged men. 

Imagine it's 1988. You take your sweetheart to the movies, to go check out a fun summer action flick... 

Now, I haven't seen Above The Law in a few months (yeah, months), but I am pretty sure that Seagal snaps a dude's arm so that it's facing the wrong direction. He does this with the same careless disregard one might show when breaking apart a turkey carcass on Thanksgiving, after you're done carving the thing and you're trying to get it to fit in your trash can. As far as I know, this type of violence was absolutely revolutionary. Chuck Norris or Jean-Claude van Damme would kick a bad guy in the face, and the guy goes down. Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger would shoot people, and they would just drop. In Steven Seagal's films, starting with his very first one and continuing on to his present direct-to-dvd endeavors, at some point he is going to get his hands on a bad guy and you, the audience member, will watch him wrench bones out of sockets and snap limbs with reckless abandon. The bones make delicious crunching sounds. The faces of Seagal's victims twist and contort in agony as the scream in vain for mercy. What was going through the shocked minds of audience members back in 1988!?

By the time 1990 rolled around, audiences knew what was coming, so there was no excuse for people to actually pay money to go see...

Pictured: Hard To Kill... presumably a movie produced by people who had seen Above The Law

Hard To Kill has the distinction of being the movie with the single greatest line of dialogue in the history of cinema.

You just can't top that. So, anyways, the movie is about a cop (surprise!) who is out for revenge (surprise!) against the assassins who tried to kill him. Seagal begins stretching the limits of an audience's ability to suspend their disbelief in this film, but we forgive him for it because we all secretly enjoy watching him snap limbs like some kind of deranged chiropractic school dropout. 

Coming in at number two on our countdown to the greatest film in the celebrated career of America's greatest action hero is...

Pictured: Sadly, the only film featuring Steven Seagal AND Gary Busey

This was the most commercially successful movie of Steven Seagal's career, by far. It was really well made. It had a huge budget and several really good actors (also, Steven Seagal). Tommy Lee Jones was in it, and appears to seriously enjoy himself while playing the villain. Under Siege has also held up surprisingly well over time, and is very watchable, even by today's standards. 

Seagal plays a disgraced former Navy SEAL who is now a cook onboard a soon-to-be decommissioned battleship that gets taken over by terrorists (led by Jones). Seagal turns from docile cook to one-man wrecking machine in a hurry and saves the day. Shockingly, Seagal doesn't snap a single bone in this film. He kills people in horribly violent and ridiculously creative ways, but nary an ulna was molested by the master of man-on-bone violence. Disappointing.

Finally, the moment you have been waiting for...

The greatest Steven Seagal movie of all time is...

Pictured: Probably the best movie ever.

This is the one, folks. This is the pinnacle of a twenty-five year career as an action icon. 

The story is simple. A tough Italian cop searches the neighborhood for the psycho who killed his... Friend? Brother? Partner? I don't remember. Who cares? As is often the case, the journey is more meaningful than the destination, and this journey involves Seagal mercilessly and gleefully battering dozens of thugs. It's the most over-the-top movie of the most gloriously over-the-top period in action movie production (1980-1994). In the final fight alone, Seagal beats up William Forsythe with a salt/pepper shaker, a frying pan, a corkscrew, a kitchen knife, and (maybe?) a rolling pin. Seagal tears through New York like a giant greased-up, leathery tornado for 91 minutes of ridiculousness. 

This film boasts Seagal's best action work, coupled with the rare treat of Seagal actually trying to act. He actually attempts an accent! It's fantastic and totally unnecessary. Seagal really explored the hell out of virtually every Italian stereotype in this film, and his commitment to godawful acting really shows. 

So, there you have it. If you should choose to sit down on a Saturday and have yourself a Steven Seagal movie marathon - and you should - these movies are unquestionably the ones to view. Seagal's so-bad-they're-good movies reveal parts of the American psyche that are easy to forget about. His films are a window into a bygone, simpler era where a man could snap more limbs than an obese New Englander at an all-you-can-eat lobster buffet without audiences freaking out about it. 

No CGI. No special effects. No attempt at actual storytelling or self-awareness from the protagonist... 

Just fun. 

By the way, if you think that what Steven Seagal does to a limb causes pain, you should see/hear what happens when he gets his hands on a guitar.

Pictured: Seagal playing a tune for his best friend, who happens to be a tree.

The Real Trayvon Martin Tragedy

One month following the death of Trayvon Martin, it seems less is known about what really happened. As is all too often the case in these scenarios, information surrounding the actual events that took place in Sanford, FL has been manipulated to the point where it is virtually impossible to know what the facts are. Let's take a look at who the players are in this ever-unfolding drama.

Pictured: George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin

First of all, there is George Zimmerman. This man has been vilified, and marches have been staged in protest of his actions. He has maintained his assertion that he is an innocent man, merely acting in self-defense. More on this later.

Second, there's the person who isn't around to tell his side of the story. Trayvon Martin has become a martyr in the eyes of many, but what did he die for? Pictures of a bright-eyed, innocent teen have been all over major television news networks, newspapers, and websites. T-shirts bearing his image are being sold, and his death has sparked a movement... towards what, exactly, I am not sure.

The whole story is a colossal clusterfuck. Nobody knows what really took place, and an endless stream of opportunistic politicians and would-be movement leaders are jumping on the vague narrative and twisting it to suit their agendas. Anti-gun people are loving it. Racists are loving it. Presidential candidates are loving it. There are so many people profiting from the death of this kid, it certainly seems like there are very few people who are actually occupied with, you know, seeking actual justice.

For those who may have forgotten, justice is what happens when all of the facts are researched and some type of fair and reasonable resolution happens. Reactionary cries of "racism!" or "trigger-happy cracker murders innocent black teen!" don't exactly hasten the process. The water has been muddied up, and that is exactly what is profitable. A clear-cut court case doesn't necessarily offer as many opportunities for political or social advancement as a confusing tornado of inflammatory rhetoric.

Pictured: Someone who isn't helping.

So, what really happened? This is a tough question. A better question might be: "What can we know?" 

Well, we know that a kid was killed. 

We know that he was shot to death by a man who was over ten years older and over one hundred pounds heavier than him. 

We know that a 911 dispatcher can be heard clearly saying, "We don't need you to do that," after hearing Zimmerman say that he was following Trayvon.

We know that Zimmerman said the words, "This guy looks like he is up to no good. He is on drugs or something," on the 911 call. 

We know that Rev. Jesse Jackson said that Trayvon Martin (who he referred to as a "martyr") was shot in the back of the head.

We know that the Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Trayvon Martin assaulted George Zimmerman, and that Zimmerman shot him in the chest at close range.

Given what we know, what can we infer from this information?

Well, we can state with absolute confidence that George Zimmerman is a huge idiot. We can't conclusively state that he is a racist, but we can safely say that he is a dumbass. There is a difference between being a generally stupid person (which is what it looks like Zimmerman is) and a specifically stupid person (by which I mean a racist, whose stupidity is focused on a specific belief that black kids in hoodies are universally up to no good). Maybe Zimmerman is a racist. It's hard to say. It would be great if people could zero in on dealing with what they can and do know, instead of spending so much time on speculation. The overwhelming majority of media coverage surrounding this tragic night essentially boils down to speculation, and it reveals the sad truth about this incident, or what I like to call The Real Trayvon Martin Tragedy.

The real tragedy here is the ongoing tragedy. I'm not diminishing the horrific nature of the death of Trayvon Martin, but the events following his death have been truly disgusting. Rather than steer the dialogue following the death of an unarmed teenager in a positive direction, the American media machine has been content to do what it does best: MAKE A LOT OF NOISE. It's stupid and it should be beneath us, but, tragically, it's not. Our culture eats it up. People march, with great seriousness and heavy emotion, but without any real purpose beyond jumping on the bandwagon.

Are there problems with Florida's Stand-Your-Ground law? Yeah, probably. We could be talking about it, if we weren't so busy trying to make a martyr out of a kid who was probably just a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Was George Zimmerman wrong? Yeah, probably. Was he legally wrong? Maybe not. We could be having a productive dialogue about it if people would stop dismissing him as a racist before they fully research the man.

Our knee-jerk reactions to troubling issues demonstrate (repeatedly) the widespread lack of emotional maturity in American media culture. Accurate information is not as important as up-to-date information. Rational dialogue is secondary in importance to simply having SOMETHING to say.

Will there be justice for Trayvon? The way things are looking... No. There won't be justice for George Zimmerman, either. The teachable moment is fading fast, and nobody is learning anything because people aren't stopping to ask questions.

Oh, and Geraldo Rivera should be ashamed of himself.