Oh No You Don’t

Let me quickly bang this out before the rage fades.

Two weeks ago I parted with hard cash to watch a film called Transformers . . . you may have heard of it? OF COURSE YOU HAVE! It’s been promoted as one of the biggest blockbusters of the year . . . yeah right. Unsaturated pure garbage! This is why I download and watch so many movies on my laptop . . . free of charge.

I’m a tough film critic, no doubt. But I didn’t expect too much from Transformers. Fight scenes and eye pleasing special affects. The movie had both . . . so why was I sat in front of the big screen getting angrier with each scene?

OK, OK! I admit I was drawn into the movie during the first half an hour. There was a good balance of action and humour, hot shots of the leading lady and feint attempts at generating a storyline. Good stuff so far . . .

Add a poor attempt at a plausible storyline, completely unrealistic stunts and interaction between the Transformers and humans, and a whole bunch of irregularities and you have the formula to making Ak-Man furious!

It was Megan Fox’s Oscar award winning performance that silenced my boos and jeers.

Example:

Funny man Sam Witwicky can not only out run a Transformer twenty times his size, with intergalactic technological abilities, but he can also get whacked 30ft onto a car and walk off unharmed, he didn’t even wince in pain, shock maybe? . . . I’m far from believing that.

I watch a scene like that and think, ‘what foolishness!’

Allow me to break down another irregularity I observed. After the first 30mins I was actively looking for them, and had no trouble finding them.

Example:

OK, this Transformer called Bumblebee can’t speak English due to a technological malfunction. So he uses the car radio to talk. Yeah it’s as stupid as it sounds. He rapidly switches between radio stations picking out words and phrases to generate sentences that just about understandable, if you care about what he has to say. I could get into why this is also unbelievable but I’ll let it slide because of the bigger picture.

The rest of the Transformers speak mighty fine English for a bunch on immigrants . . . also not a problem. We are told that they learnt to speak English from the internet. I don’t even want to know how they got on online r what they were doing, I’ll let it slide.

OK check this . . . Megatron (bad guy Transformer) also speaks PERFECT English!!! Here is the problem. When he came to Earth over a century ago he crash landed and was frozen in ice. There also wasn’t any internet at the time . . .

. . . Please offer your explanations so that I can tear them to pieces.

This movie is filled with numerous acts of nonsense. It’s hard to miss them unless you slept through the film . . . I almost dozed off a few times but was worried that I’d miss a good shot of Miss Fox.

It pains me greatly that most of the people I know actually enjoyed this film. I’m constantly finding new reason to question friendships. Transformers is a movie created to be enjoyed by children and morons. Take from that what you will.

I wish I writ this as soon as I got home . . . but Arsenal were playing and I had to watch the match. Then almost two weeks worth of ‘stuff’ happened so it almost got overlooked.

Please also note that Transformers literally went missing, couldn’t aim despite their advanced technology, and often changed their scale just to bug me. Daylight switched to night time in a car chase that lasted under a minute, nothing in-between, just bright sunshine, then high night. Captain Lennox skidded his motorbike, slid off it then slid on the road, on his back for twenty meters and used his rocket launcher (which he had in hand the whole time) to take a shot at a Transformer. ‘What foolishness’, then nothing happened, he just ran and hid in a side street. What was the point of that completely unrealistic stunt?

Did any of you guys watch and enjoy this movie? Let me know what you liked about it. Megan Fox and the special effects are both off limits as they were both unarguably great features of the movie. Wait for it to be released on DVD so you can be one of the cool people who don’t own it.

A to the . . .

Provisional Ranting

Excuse me while I break away from my natural style of blogging, to a more well know approach to being heard. It would seem that most bloggers are in fact professional grumblers. I don’t know who is handing out the certificates, licences or permits so I’ll be careful as to how I protest my issues. I don’t want the officials coming after me . . . “Licence and registration please sir.”

I want to have a little whinge regarding the fluky buggers who passed their driving test first time round.

I don’t know the procedures people go through to acquire their driving licence in other countries, but here in the UK only a few things harder to achieve. On a good day you’re more likely to win the jackpot on Deal Or No Deal than to pass you’re driving test. You see, just like Deal Or No Deal passing your diving test is pretty much based on luck, and not how well you can actually drive. I was driving way before I took my test (for the first time) so what was all the fuss about? “Give me my pink card!”

OK fair enough, my first unsuccessful attempt at the test involved me driving on the wrong side of the road, but no one was harmed so what’s the big deal? . . . Or no deal. The second and third time . . . I don’t even know why I failed on subsequent attempts; they were just making stuff up (real talk). This cost me over well £100 each time, and I aint balling like that.

When I passed on my fourth attempt I was pretty damn relieved. The examiner told me that I was even ‘lucky’ to pass . . . what a jerk. Where was the luck? I drove, you sat there and we both came back alive. Before he told me that I had passed I wasn’t even sure . . . I had pretty much done the same things twice prior and failed. There is just no correlation.

When people tell me that they passed their test on the first attempt I’m like,

“So f**king what?
You think you’re better than me?
Huh?
You wanna throw down right now?
Huh?
I’ll kick your ass b*tch!”

And I’ll do it as well, because I’m petty like that. You’re not better than me; you just got lucky on the day . . . and exhale.

A to the . . .

‘Like Father Like Son’ or ‘Mamma’s Boy’

I was peacefully watching Hollyoaks in my room this (Tuesday) evening, escaping from the realities of life that must be put on hold for thirty minutes. Just then, my sister bursts into my room, “Dad wants you.”

My pops had got back from work a short while ago. I went downstairs to see what was up, he looked smug and my mom looked quite worried. My pops extended his hand for me to shake it. As we shook he said “I’ve got you the car.”

OK, OK, back up for a second.

I’m planning to get a car before August, so I’ve been
talking about cars to anyone who will listen (and anyone who won’t). Pops
happened to be one of those who would listen, and comment, and offer advice. It
turns out that Pops ‘knows a guy’ who sells cars (at suspiciously low prices); I
don’t ask too many questions. Pops isn’t a shady character; he just works with a
lot of people that can get ‘stuff’. This is to be expected though, he works in
Hackney (there I go generalising again).

Monday Pops tells me about
this friend, he is selling a Mitsubishi for £500. I tell him I’m interested, I’d
like to know more.

Tuesday . . . “I’ve got you the
car”

Huh?

My dad is shaking my hand with a big grin. My mum looks exceedingly apprehensive, and I’m standing there bemused.

My dad put down a deposit on a car I haven’t even seen before! He was so happy that it was hard for me to even grasp the reality of the situation. He was waiting for gratitude which never came, my mum quickly wiped the smile on his face as she adopted the role of the concerned parent and began to poke holes through his ‘good intentions’. As the quarrel heated up I sat on the couch, zoned out and let my brain catch up with the occurrence.

Both parties have strong arguments.

Dad: I’m trying to help you get a ‘great’ deal. These kind of deals don’t come around too often. Why can’t your mother see this son?

Mum: How can he expect you to buy a car that you’ve never seen before? Don’t agree to anything you’re not sure of son!

So there I was, listening to their verbal grappling match. I’ve been in this position before, several times in fact and I’ve learned that the argument is rarely as important as whose side I’ll take. Especially when they both have my best interest at heart.

I know most of you are likely to agree with my mother’s argument. It would seem illogical to buy a car without even seeing it. We’re not talking about Nike trainers or mobile phones. Yet at the same time, I’m sure we’ve all been in the position where someone else gets an eye-popping bargain and we ask them twenty-one questions about it. It’s usually a case of them knowing the right people, or being in the right place at the right time.

“Why didn’t you get me one” we yell enviously. I guess my dad didn’t want this to be the case with me.

I (obviously) decided that I wasn’t prepared to shell out £500 for a car that I hadn’t even seen. So yeah, we went to see it.

My dad was too tired from work, and too angry at my mum to drive. So I had to get behind the wheel. The more you drive, the more you appreciate the passenger seat. As I drove I got a text message, which I read after we pulled up (safety first). It was from my mum:

Do not comi your self to any financial
implication you are not sean for. please.

OK, dodgy spelling, but you catch the drift.

I had a rough idea of what the car would look like when my dad told me the model. So I wasn’t too surprised as I stood in front of the dark green Mitsubishi Colt and was given the keys for a test drive. As soon as I saw the car I knew I wasn’t going to buy it. There was no mass appeal, I wasn’t drawn to it in the slightest. It had a broken side view, dodgy passenger seat and a chunky dent in the rear bumper . . . oh, and a few bolts hung loosely off the back of the roof where a spoiler used to be. I had no desire to kick the tires (that’s what you do when your checking out a car right?) so I just jumped right in, twisted the key, shifted the car into first gear and rolled on. I must admit, it was a nice drive. Smooth gear changes, and not a lot of noise coming from the car either.

After playing with the vehicle I was asked “Well, what do you think?”

I had been thinking about this question whilst driving around. I wasn’t in an elaborate mood, and knew that my fathers ‘rep’ was riding on this response. Regardless, I kept it simple, “thanks, but no thanks”. No need to waste anymore time right?

The drive home was quiet, a few words here and there. Pops didn’t show any emotion about it, but it felt like I was letting him down. It’s as if I’m saying mum was right and you were wrong (which is only true because I didn’t like the car). I couldn’t buy a car just to play dad’s advocate.

Ugh . . . so I guess I’m a mamma’s boy.

A to the . . .