Skyline: A Review

Skyline is a movie about a group of people you don't like endlessly making the same bad decisions with the same predictable results; it's a lot like going out to dinner with your family.

"I wish everyone but me would die," she thinks.

In this film, a group of "cool" twentysomethings alternate between hiding from the aliens, running outside with the aliens, and standing on the roof of their building so all the aliens can see them. Each time this cycle is completed, more people die from horrible, horrible alien vaginas.

I am not kidding about that last part; these aliens are from the planet Vagoo, and have developed vaginas in their heads, hands, and bottoms, all to swallow men whole. Each type of alien is a glistening, outer space man trap.

My theory is that one of Skyline's writers got drunk, picked up a chick at the bar, and woke up next to one of those metal squids from the Matrix. Or, whoever designed the aliens from this movie dropped some LSD and stared at Georgia O'Keefe paintings for hours. Even H.R. Giger thinks the aliens from this film are too suggestive.

"These guys have issues." - H.R. Giger

The protagonist - which is what I'll call him because I can't remember his bland name, and "hero" certainly doesn't fit - is a cool graphics designer from Chicago, or New York, or somewhere where graffiti is a viable career choice. He's taking his cool dead-eyed girlfriend with inflatable lips to Los Angeles, so they can visit his cool friend who made it big in the...CGI industry?

Is that a thing? I know someone has to make all the pretend aliens that Will Smith fights, but do you really get a sports car and a bitchy blond bikini girlfriend when you do?

Wait, looks like the movie was written by the Brothers Strause who have done just that. If that works, I'm writing a movie about an awesome librarian who gets a hot girlfriend and fights evil around the world by using his extensive knowledge of random trivia!

Later, the cool kids have a pool party whose sole purpose is to inform us that Turk from Scrubs is banging his hot assistant (True to life, eh Brothers Strause?) and inflatable lips girlfriend is pregnant. This latter revelation drives the rest of the movie, serving as our emotional tie to these characters. However, the characters are about as interesting as a Metamucil commercial, so it doesn't work.

Thank God the aliens show up, in all their vagina bearing glory. The central conceit is that the aliens are capable of projecting a blue light that pulls a Siren's call on anyone who looks at it. The light either atomizes or paralyzes you, depending on what the writers aliens want it to do.

Right now it wants $7.50 to leave your bank account.

Random movie producer guy is the first to go, followed by Turk, followed by...you know what?

Fuck it.

We've all seen this movie - or at least movies so much better they appear as Platonic ideals compared to this one - and we know where it's going. Eventually everyone dies from stupidity except the protagonist and the love interest.  They survive, not because they weren't monumentally stupid, but because they're the butt monkeys the script is hitched to.

The protagonist has gained some body horror superpowers by repeatedly being exposed to the blue light, which is like getting superpowers because your mom did shots of paint thinner while pregnant and you somehow made it through. He goes all Mel Gibson in The Patriot on Flying Ladyparts Scout #43bee56, and I wish I could reach through the screen and do the same to him.


or, as Mel Gibson calls it, Tuesday
The movie succeeds in one area, and that's the one I'm about to ruin for you. Think of it like having surgery; it sure does hurt when Mr. Doctor cuts that weird mole off, but it's better than going through the rest of life with it growing a face. (That's what happens, right?)

Some films are so good at creating tension that it remains even when you watch the movie again. I've seen Back to the Future over and over again, but each time I'm convinced I've gotten a never-before-seen cut of the movie where the Delorean doesn't start at the end.

Skyline, creates a lot of a tension, which it resolves in a simple way: the writers don't save the characters. Protagonist McGee gets his brain ripped out, and Inflatalips Babycarriage is sucked into the moist jaws of an alien octopus robot.

"Don't look up." Mainly because that's where the screen is.

Aboard one of the motherships, we see the aliens wipe the brains and insert them into new bodies, with the implication that it was repurposed human brains hunting down their former peers. It's a downer ending with a sickening twist!

Well done, Skyline! If you didn't succeed as a heroic film about worthwhile characters battling extraterrestrial oppression, at least you gave us a bunch of unlikeable dickholes getting backwards prison raped into being on the aliens' side.

...but then comes the coda, in which the film goes from being grimdark to a Saturday morning cartoon. Apparently - and I say this knowing the only people this is apparent to are the paint huffers that made this film - Protagonist McGee was rendered immune to the alien's mindwipe by virtue of being in TRUE LURV.

pictured - protection from psionic assault
He then uses his new CGI alien meatsuit to rescue Inflatalips, and has a series of one-panel adventures fighting more different aliens to generic action music. No, really.

...

In conclusion, Skyline was a film with an interesting premise and a sweet twist ruined by unsympathetic characters and an ending that came five minutes too late. If you must watch it, watch it drunk; the drunker the better.

this drunk

Lunchables: A Review

This post will be heavier on pictures than my usual. If you've been transported back to 1997 and you're on dial-up, I'm sorry - this will take forever.

In 21st century America, we lack a guiding cultural mythos; the Transformers, Power Rangers, Teddy Ruxpin - these are the foundational truths upon which our ad hoc society runs. In fact, shared nostalgia is the only glue holding things together. If the memory of Family Matters was wiped from our cultural consciousness tomorrow, the great cities of man would burn.

Did I do thaaaaaat?
Lunchables - boxed lunches for kids distributed by the Oscar Meyer corporation - are a keystone tenet for the sad civilization we inhabit. They're everything about America that we love and loathe, conveniently packaged in a brightly colored box.

I've not had a Lunchable since elementary school, but I remember the feeling. Walking into the cafeteria with one was like walking into a pawn shop with a handful of blood diamonds - you were a king among men, lording your yellow scepter over the legions with bag lunches, leftovers, school food, and that one kid whose parents packed magazines instead of food.

I wanted to know how well modern Lunchables would stack up to my lofty, almost reverent memories of them. One day I was running late to work and didn't have time to make lunch. I stopped at Kroger, and they beckoned me from their gilded seat in the refrigerated case.

join us come with us we will teach you
With a grin and a wink, I decided it was time; I should have known I was once more getting on the Ferris wheel of failure, the one named "Expectations".

BOX
Here's the packaging you know and love, branded yellow and red because Oscar Meyer knows these are nature's danger colors.

If you show this picture to a deer, it will run until its heart explodes.
The back of this particular box advertises a contest that allows kids to make a video game, and it inexplicably features a cel shaded Evan Matthew Cohen, best known as one of the Krelboynes from Malcolm in the Middle.



It's a neat contest until you realize kids are unaware that their ideas, and any revenue generated therefrom, become the sole property of Oscar Meyer upon submission. This information is tucked away inside the box, and looks like this:

which every child sees as this:

and then this:

They should have called it the Lunchables: Life is Suffering contest.

I opened the Lunchable from the wrong side because I possess adult man strength, and also as a warning - when the police find the box with the "easy open zip strip" still intact next to the body of another dead hooker, they'll know who they're dealing with.

"We found another one, Chief. I think he's mocking us."
Here's the basic setup that hasn't change in two decades: crackers, cheese, meat, dessert, and juice.

Oscar Meyer didn't add a toy, they didn't create a mascot; they know you're a parent buying MRE's for children, or an adult eating them between reruns of Night Court. You need them.

JUICE
I already knew the Capri Sun would be the most fulfilling part of the experience.

In the household I grew up in, my younger brother was the unilateral arbiter of Capri Sun flavors. His constant decree was "Bring me Wild Cherry! More and more Wild Cherry! Now kneel!" I'd suggest we liven things up with a Citrus, or a Pacific Cooler, and maybe not do the kneeling thing, but he'd always bring his iron fist down. To this day I'm excited when I get a Capri Sun that doesn't taste of acetophenone, which is what science thinks cherries taste like.

Capri Sun, you don't need to tell us how much sugar the other leading juice brands have.

You sound like the kid in the back of the room who tattled to the teacher about the other boys having spit ball shooters; focus on you being good, and let us worry about the other leading juice drinks.

Did anyone else know Capri Suns expired?

I thought if you put something in a shiny silver package it lasted forever, which is why I've been wrapping my hopes up like baked potatoes since high school.

Don't tell me what to do, Capri Sun.

You're not my dad!
Once I'd jammed my straw into the pouch like an individual, I was left with a problem I've struggled with since childhood - the Capri Sun tail.

This vestigial sleeve of plastic will doggedly scrape your chin while you try to enjoy your all natural, no artificial flavors 10% juice beverage.

how does that work, exactly?
FOOD
I accidentally purchased the less-fat Lunchable, an option I didn't even know existed. This revelation came on black wings, feasting upon hope, for I was not only eating a quasi-novelty food stuff, I was eating a low-fat quasi-novelty food stuff. This did not bode well.

The first thing I noticed was that the ham sported lumps of some sort.

On closer inspection, I realized they were tiny clumps of shredded ham. Was the advertised "40% water added" in fact added to cardboard shavings to make the discs? I dubbed these blobs "ham fluff" and studiously ignored both them and whatever blasphemy of a meat rendering process was responsible.

Despite the dubious quality, I was able to create the tableau from the box front with a high degree of success. It's a point in the Lunchable's favor that they actually look like their picture, unlike all food everywhere else.



Meanwhile, I pondered - have Lunchables always called themselves "Lunch Combinations"? How many possible combinations can there be? Let's find out!

the classic

the sandwich replacement 

the vegetarian

the double down

the Wisconsin 

the OCD

the dagwood

the "my package was tampered with"

the "I don't know how food works"
When I finally ate my playthings, I was struck by the horror of it all.

Rather than ham, crackers, and cheese, they tasted like the idea of ham, the possibility of crackers, and the suggestion of cheese; I wouldn't be surprised to learn there's only one Lunchable - a proto-Lunchable, if you will - and the others are only imperfect copies of that template, assembled by the mom-robots at Oscar Meyer. 


What I am trying to say is that you will be motherfucking hungry when you are done with your shadow meal, and you will be angry in direct proportion to how much you loved them as a child.

DESSERT
At first glance the pudding wasn't appetizing.

It looked like a muddy pot hole, or the cross section of a hobo's lung. Nevertheless, Jell-o was proud of their creation.

It's fat free! Free fat free! Free fat in the pudding! Wait, no! Fat free free fat free fat  EAT THE PUDDING OR THEY'LL KILL MY WIFE!
Calm down, Jell-o. Don't go all "Capri-Sun" on us. We get that you made pudding with no fat. We're all excited about it too, but I think the Nobel committee might overlook your achievement for another year.

I gave it a stir it and it looked measurably better, glistening in all the right ways. I even tried to smooth the pudding into a tiny, perfect mirror so I could scry on Snow White, but I had mixed success - I ended up watching one of the dwarves put on all of her clothes for awhile. It made me feel dirty...but excited.

I initially grabbed a white office spoon to eat the pudding with, not trusting in Oscar Meyer to provide me with one. When I found red spoon enclosed, it was like pudding cup's old boyfriend was meeting up with new boyfriend.

While red spoon luxuriated in pudding cup's embrace, self satisfied smirk on his ruddy face, white spoon gazed on, envious, wishing he had arms to cross.



Meanwhile, I looked at them both and hoped no one at work with visited the back corner of the library to see me drawing faces on spoons. That's the kind of thing that shows up on an annual review, then on a psych eval. 

FINAL VERDICT
The Lunchable stared down at himself with an expression usually reserved for the gut shot.

The pudding was smeared around his irregular face hole, the scraps laid at his box bottom; he'd been greedy and he'd gone too far this time. He'd gone too far.

Would you eat me? I'd eat me. Hard.
He could hear the sirens in the background, growing closer. The lunch police were on their way. He knew he couldn't do hard time in the 'fridge - he was too soft, too full of post-consumer waste. Before he could talk himself out of it, he grabbed the scissors and recycled himself between the eyes.

Are Lunchables worth eating? I don't doubt that the whole fat versions are exactly how you remember them, only less filling and delicious because you're not seven anymore. The Capri Sun is a quenching draught, and Jell-o's much touted fat free pudding closely approximates real pudding. Furthermore, the product line has noticeably expanded, and you can find Lunchables in pizza, chicken nugget, even sub sandwich varieties. Steer clear of the low-fat option, however, unless you want to eat like an Oregon Trail family on grueling rations.

But if you're an adult, there's no way to eat a Lunchable that doesn't leave you feeling hollow inside, like you're watching from the platform while all the good things in life leave on a train, forever.

I did the review like you told me, Oscar Meyer. Where's my coupon?

The Neti Pot: A Review

The Neti Pot was originally a medieval torture implement used to coerce confessions from suspected witches. It's since been repurposed by the modern age as a homeopathic way to clear the sinuses. If you're tired of eating Sudafed by the handful, or you're a meth head with a cold and can't have your name on the government watch list again, a Neti Pot might be for you. At great personal cost ($14.99), I decided to try this product out and review it for your benefit. In addition, it could possibly aid me as I lay dying of Man Pox, or Tremarian Walking Sickness; the tests the doctors ordered aren't conclusive.

they said these were living inside of me?
The instructions told me to read them in their entirety before attempting the operation, which should have clued me in that shit was about to get real. Last time I encountered wording like that was in sixth grade, and the last direction on the page was to disregard all the other instructions, sign my name, and sit quietly. Of course I didn't read all the directions before starting, so I was drawing triangles and shouting the name of my favorite color while everyone else stared.

These instructions were simple by comparison, but contained strongly wording warnings about how much of the seasoning packet - sorry, solution - I should use. Too little was bad, too much was worse, so I had to experiment. With the liquid I was pouring into my head. Through my face.

Why did I not have to show my license before I was allowed to buy this?

So I read the booklet about the tiny plastic kettle, only slightly horrified by the pictures of smiling people jamming them in their nostrils.

I knew that's what I intended to do, but why were those people so cheerful? Nothing about the process seemed enjoyable. All the videos I've seen on the internet of non-pod people using a Neti Pot involved expressions of grim determination that wouldn't look out of place on trapped miners.

Furthermore, the Neti Pot how-to pictures belong to a series I like to call, "You Know Someone Had to Audition for That." Portfolios were examined, interviews were held, and some lucky girl called her parents that night to say she got the modeling job. "We're so proud of you, sweetheart! What's the shoot for? Clothes? Jewelry?" "No! I'm holding a little watering can in my nose. Isn't that great? Mom? Dad? Hello?"

Bracing myself for the worst, I brought the Neti Pot to nose level. I bent over the sink, trying not to look in my own eyes because of the shame.

I poured.

Salt water raped every part of my face, inside and outside, then shot out from wherever was convenient. I choked, gasped, and heaved, water spewing from places I thought were sacred. Tears streamed down my face continuously, and for a moment I thought the Neti Pot had irrigated my eyes. If I had to describe the experience using as few words as possible, I'd call it a nose enema, or self-waterboarding.

the Abominable Neti strikes again
In support of the Neti Pot, my sinuses were pretty clear when I could draw more than a single ragged breath without coughing up solution. My roommate - who has also been laid low by Mummy Rot - told me his instruction book had better pictures; in his booklet, the model's elbows weren't held high like she was having tea with the damned Queen. This distinction almost killed me.

It'd be a shame to drown in my bathroom, given all the trouble I went through learning to swim.