The Dukes of Hazzard (2005)

I absolutely love this movie. Say whatever you want about the cast, plot, or whatever but this one is going down on my list of all-time favorites. This film did for the Dukes of Hazzard T.V. show what the Brady Bunch movies did for that classic series. While the spoofing was more subtle in Dukes than it was in the Brady Bunch movies, I honestly believe that it was meant along the same lines.
With that said, the reason that I like this movie as much as I do is for the absolute purity of the stunt driving. You can literally turn off the volume and watch this flick based on the quality of the driving alone. In this era of CGI – which is so over-done these days – seeing a knock-down, drag-out balls to the wall stunt movie is an absolute refreshing change.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a stuntman. My mother planted the seed in my head one day when I was about 8 years old. I was playing in the yard when she came outside with a T.V. Guide magazine in her hand and told me that I would make a good stuntman. She handed me the magazine and pointed out an article about the stunt world that included tips on how to get into the business, as well as how some of the major Hollywood stunts were performed. A year later I was practicing my falls and staging fake fights with my brother Ken. The dream faded over the years, but my admiration for these “crazy” people never did – especially stunt drivers.
I loved movies like Smokey and the Bandit, Hooper, Bullitt, Ronin, and who could forget that scene with Gene Hackman in The French Connection driving like a mad-man under an elevated commuter train through Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Movies like The Road Warrior and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World were just as amazing for their stunt work as well.
As far as The Dukes of Hazzard movie is concerned, the 1969 Dodge Charger R/T (a.k.a. the General Lee) is the real star of the film. When Dodge introduced the Charger in 1966 it was met with luke-warm acceptance. In 1968 the body style was revamped to the more familiar style, but it was the 1969 Charger – complete with a bulletproof Torqueflite 727 3 speed tranny and an optional 426 cubic inch, 425 H.P. Hemi – that elevated this vehicle to legendary status. This was one of the most powerful and beautiful cars ever built during the 1960’s muscle car era. It dominated the competition by regularly eating Mustangs, Chevelles, and Corvettes for lunch, and looked great doing it. Nothing on the road in its day could match it – nothing. For me, this is the iconic muscle car. Watching this car being thrown (literally) through the paces in the Dukes movie is the closest thing to vehicular pornography that I can imagine. Every time the tires spun launching that car into another chase scene the hairs on the back of my neck stood up like Marines at attention. The chase sequence through ‘Atlanta’ – especially the shot of the car driving sideways the entire way around the traffic circle – was pure art in motion. The stunt drivers (including the likes of Benjamin Mullens and Cord Newman) are absolutely insane, and it was they who made this movie great.
Like I said earlier, you don’t have to appreciate the rest of it if you don’t want to, but if you love fast cars and balls-out stunt driving, put this movie on, turn down the volume, put your favorite Heavy Metal play list on the MP3 player, and enjoy. You’ll be glad you did.

Jesus Returns: Holds Press Conference Asking Mankind To Stop Putting Words In His Mouth

Yeah, I know – I’m going to hell. I’m a blasphemer, etc, etc, yadda yadda, yadda.
Look, I don’t want to use this forum to discuss my religious beliefs, but I am getting a little sick and tired of religious people trying to dictate morality for everybody else. Anyone with enough money and support can open a church or ministry and interpret God’s laws, wills and actions in any fashion they please. They can preach whatever they want (you don’t have to like it, but the First Amendment gives them every right) to whomever they want. Of course, all this “sin” we’re all supposedly living in is drummed up constantly in order for these money-hungry phonies to justify their existence.
The only way I’m going to believe a word of what any religious group, philosophy, or doctrine says or professes to be God’s will is if Jesus comes back and holds a press conference to tell me directly. The same goes for Muhammad, Buddha, Krishna, Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. I don’t take anything on faith – if you want or expect something from me, then you had better tell me yourself because all this ‘telephone’ and ‘grapevine’ hand-me-down information is ridiculous to the point of the extreme. Too many cooks spoil the meal – and clog up the kitchen.
I’m mainly talking about the wing-nuts that go to the extreme in their efforts to control the world. People like Robert Tilton, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Miss Piggy & the Disco Cowboy over at TBN, and let’s not forget Jim & Tammy Bakker are an example of the tame members of the “crazy” religious right. These sleazy snake oil salesmen have been making a living selling Jesus to the masses and tending to God’s wallet for years, but a new breed has joined them recently that quite frankly scares the hell out of me.
The ‘worshipers’ at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas have single-handedly taken it upon themselves to denounce homosexuals “in God’s name”. To these freaks of human nature, the death of “fags” is a good thing, and most likely done by the hand and/or guidance of God himself. They operate a web site (http://www.godhatesfags.com/) where they attempt to spread their message of bullshit, hatred, and intolerance due in large part to their self-described extra-special understanding of ‘God’s word’ in the Bible.
For a group that purports itself as “Christian” to outwardly & forcefully preach hatred, intolerance and bigotry is so hypocritical that it blows my mind. These Westboro Baptist Church tard-clowns should be ashamed of themselves for the pain and hurt they have caused the families of the military funerals they protested, as well as the comments that their ‘leader’ Shirley Phelps Roper made regarding the poor innocent Amish shooting victims. This woman actually says that God operated through the heart & hands of Charles Roberts (the scumbag that killed the young girls) to kill the girls as punishment for them & their families not worshiping God the ‘right’ way. She also has stated that God is using IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) in Iraq to kill soldiers as punishment for a nation that celebrates homosexual behavior. While referring to the latter, she said that “this was God’s favorite way of punishing America” for our supposed unholy behavior (and God told her this when, exactly?). What this moron is actually trying to say is that she along with her father and the handful of people that make up their congregation are the only ones who are worshiping the ‘Lord’ correctly, and that everyone else in the world has it all wrong – and will drink of the cup of blood and fire in eternal damnation (or some hocus-pocus mythical ‘wrath of God’ nonsense).
Then you have people the likes of James Dobson, who presents himself as a “Christian Psychologist” – whatever that is. This guy is one of the many evangelical Christians that live under the notion that homosexuality is something that can be “cured” like alcoholism or diarrhea. These zealots focus and fixate over things like homosexuality and pornography to the point of total obsession. They spend countless hours of radio & television air time preaching the evils of those things that they deem as “against God” and condemning everyone who fails to live by their standards. Of course, the one thing that every single one of these people firing bibles at sin like they were bullets from God’s gun seems to forget is that the bible also says that it is God’s job alone to judge others, not man’s.
Now, if you know me at all, you would know that I am the last person in the world to be preaching ‘cultural understanding’ and the like, but the bottom line here is the fact that gays and lesbians do NOT “choose” the lifestyle. It is just a simple matter of nature that exists – like it or not. Every single one of my gay friends has said that they didn’t choose to be gay – they were born that way. None of them ever remembers waking up one day and making a conscious decision, one way or the other, regarding their sexual orientation. People do not choose a gay lifestyle any more than an animal might choose its class or breed. To say that there is some sort of “Homosexual agenda” is even more retarded. Like the gay community is running around secretly attempting to turn everybody into one of them (it kind of reminds me of the 1956 Don Siegel film ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ where people were duplicated and replaced with a compliant and subservient version of them selves in order to serve the ‘whole’). Paranoia strikes deep…
I don’t particularly care one bit what a person’s sexual orientation may be. Who a person is ultimately is all that matters to me. What you do in the privacy of your own bedroom is nobody’s business but your own as far as I am concerned. If a person feels like reading a pornographic magazine then that is their business as well (as long as they are of legal age!). Just because some uptight ‘Christian’ deems these things evil doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to follow suit. If you don’t like pornography then stay out of adult books/video stores. If you are offended by certain things you see on television then turn the channel (or turn it off and read a book). If you don’t like the things that Howard Stern says then don’t listen to him. Telling the rest of the world that they can’t or shouldn’t either is NOT your place. I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions and leading my life the way I choose – as long as I’m not hurting anyone else. Besides, if Jesus ever did come back and He saw what all these idiots were doing in His name, I seriously doubt He’d be too happy about it!

Get Your CRAP Off My Screen

(This picture is completely fictitious, and in no way represents an actual broadcast. It is merely designed to illustrate the ridiculous lengths that modern broadcasters would go if given the opportunity. Click on the picture to see the full version)

Did you know that you are an idiot? Well, if you ask any modern television broadcast company, they certainly think you are. The proof is in the answer to a very simple question: “Why does your company feel the need to put your logo on the bottom of the screen?” Ninety-nine percent of the time the answer will be that they do this so that their viewers can remember what channel they are watching. To me, that sounds a lot like “Our viewers are far too stupid to remember or even know what channel they are watching, so we need to remind them” more than anything else. Of course they don’t seem overly worried about you remembering what channel you’re watching while the commercials are on - because that’s the only time they ever take their logo off the screen. Apparently, it’s perfectly okay to tread all over the screen blocking subtitles, distracting viewers, and ruining a program or movie – but don’t even think about upsetting an advertiser! I guess we know who’s more important though, don’t we?
While researching this phenomenon I have found out that the on-screen logos are actually called ‘bugs’ by the industry. Supposedly this trend was being used for a number of years in Europe (originating on the Italian television station RAI), and in the U.S. it is reported that VH-1 was the first to adopt it, but I thought that it was MTV who paved the way – who knows. The British call them DOG’s (Digital On-screen Graphics) which I think is a better name, but who am I to judge – after all, I’m just a stupid viewer.
Those pesky (and ever-increasingly annoying) little banners that pop up to intrude on your viewing in order to inform you of other programs & website opportunities are called OSN’s (On Screen Next). This is where things get ugly. As far as I am concerned the OSN is nothing but visual Spam. When I am trying to watch a show having some flashing animated banner pop up all over my screen to tell me what I am currently watching, what’s coming up next, and what will be on next week I get disgusted. Nothing is more obnoxious than this disastrous trend – and its getting worse. The latest corporate ‘me too’ sheep to adopt this insulting little habit are the premium movie channels – you know, the ones we pay extra for? Even they have decided that our collective intelligence hasn’t been insulted enough, so now they are joining in the game.
The week before Easter this year Showtime was running an advertising campaign to announce that they were premiering Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ on Easter Sunday. For the whole preceding week, every time Showtime broadcast a movie in letterbox format they ran a banner along the bottom of the screen (inside the lower black letterbox border) that advertised the upcoming premier, and their website SHO.com. I recently caught Starz doing one better during their ‘Big 80’s Weekend' promo. Starz didn’t even have the courtesy of waiting for letterbox movies, and ran a similar banner across the bottom of the screen (over the visible picture) advertising ‘Big 80’s’ trivia happening between movies, as well as on-line 80’s trivia at Starz.com. I guess the Term ‘commercial-free’ seems to escape some people.
A few years ago I got into a rather heated session with a Discovery Channel “customer service” rep via email about their new-at-the-time habit of squishing up the screen in the middle of a show and running advertisements for upcoming programs, more info on the current show available at discovery.com, and in a few cases – even a ‘this program is brought to you by’ message on the lower 1/3rd of the screen. Anyway, I got fed-up with the tactic and emailed them to complain. What I got back was an email stating that my cable or satellite provider was responsible for the commercials – not Discovery. So I emailed them back stating that I wasn’t talking about the commercials, I was complaining about what the Discovery channel was doing during the actual broadcast content, but the response was the same. They either didn’t get it, or more likely, didn’t want to get it. This went on for several emails until I finally gave up. They simply refused to address their actions, and as a result I have pretty much stopped watching the original Discovery channel (although I have to admit that I’m a huge fan the Military channel – which is a member of the Discovery family).
In Europe (well, at least England anyway) they run these bugs and OSN’s on the top portion of the screen, which led to the broadcasters being inundated with complaints by angry viewers over the practice. Because the bugs and OSN’s were in the upper portion of the screen they were effectively blocking out people’s faces in some instances making any attempt at actually enjoying a television program a futile effort.
To me, this whole practice is a disgrace. What if other businesses followed the lead and started introducing invasive advertising techniques into their products as well? Let’s use the US Postal service as an example: what if your mother sits down and writes you a nice letter, puts a stamp on it, then mails it off. While in postal custody, they open the letter and insert a few pieces of junk mail, then re-seal the envelope and deliver it to your mailbox. Would you stand for that? I know I certainly wouldn’t! But ultimately, is it any different then hijacking paid television?
What puzzles me most about this is the fact that there is so little resistance or complaints made by the creative community that makes the very shows that the broadcasters are trampling all over. Could you imagine spending a grueling year or more in a place like the Amazon jungle, or the Gobi desert making a documentary about a particular passion (scientific, educational or artistic), only to have the Discovery channel completely ruin its premier by pulling this crap? I personally wouldn’t stand for it for a second!
Then there is the argument of paying for our television. 25 years ago people were watching television basically for free. You had to buy a set, then there’s the cost of electricity to run it, but the point I’m trying to make is that we didn’t pay for having the 6 or so channels that were available brought into our home. These days, most television viewers get their programming via a paid service like a cable or satellite provider. Because we are paying for the privilege of having these extra channels, where do the broadcasters get the right to interrupt said paid service by effectively advertising right over the top of an actual program? Isn’t that the whole purpose of having commercial breaks in the first place? You watched a show while it was on without interruption or distraction on the part of the broadcaster until it was time for a commercial break. As it stands today, one can’t even watch movies on premium movie channels like Showtime and Starz – who advertise and bill themselves as commercial free movie channels – without being interrupted and distracted by intrusive bugs and OSN’s? What’s next? Are we going to tune in to HBO to watch a classic movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark with a giant Pepsi watermark covering the screen?
Where will this end if we don’t stand up and fight back? Write your congressman, the broadcasters, the FCC – anybody who might take a step to quell this most recent invasion on our rights as paying viewers. There is only so much we can take, and if we don’t act fast, eventually we will be watching our favorite shows in the upper right corner of the screen in a two inch box, while the rest of the screen is filled with advertising. Mark my words – its coming, folks!