Today's word of the day is Impetuous:

Via 4GIFs

im·pet·u·ous

[im-pech-oo-uhs]

Ya just got schooled...Stewart-style!

(via Huffington Post)

Sha-na-na-na....

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The English Language is my bitch. Or I don't speak it very well. Whatever.

 - Joss Whedon

Look, I get it. He's a badass dude who made his own way by being the meaner motherfucker. A tough guy that only has two things in the world, his balls and his word, and he doesn't break either. He lives by the sword and dies by it; he goes from absolutely nothing to running most of the world. Like I said - I get it.

But even with that aforementioned stuff, there are four things that pretty much kill any reason why people should emulate Tony "Scarface" Montana. These are aspects of his character that should be "deal breakers" to his ever increasing fanbase, but for some reason people overlook them just so they can speak in a bad/borderline offensive Cuban accent.

There's an obvious appeal to Montana, a reason why Scarface is the idol of millions, but for people that watch Scarface obsessively - it seems odd that these 4 dealbreakers are ignored. Don't get me wrong - a Latin stereotype delivered by the constantly screaming Pacino who whacks Salieri and Robert Loggia is cool. Again, it's a badass thug who makes his own rules and takes nothing from nobody. But to celebrate the movie and character without acknowledging some serious character flaws seems like a pretty dumbass move.

Here's a true story to illustrate my point: a friend of my (then) girlfriend had a foreign boyfriend with a lot of money. He was an odd European fellow, let's call him "Don," who came from a lot of money, hobnobbed with the elite in society and eventually begin traveling with a bodyguard. One time we're all at a birthday party at a bar and Scarface is playing on several television screens. Don can't stop watching it, no matter how much people try to engage him in human interaction. Now I hate interacting with people and, worse yet, I'm bad at it. But I can talk movies with anyone. So I start asking him "oh you like this movie?" and he responds "oh man i love it. it's the best. it's like - live like that, right?" To which I nervously chuckled and realized I needed to escape this conversational cul de sac toot suite. A few months later, Don was indicted on a number of felonies and spent some time in the clink. Oh and that money he had wasn't there either, and he has fallen from grace in a spectacular, if a bit ignoble, fashion. My point, and the reason for my awkward reaction to his adoration of Scarface, is that if you model yourself after Scarface - your life is fucked.

So keep sampling the movie, rappers, and hanging the poster up in your dorm room, frat boys - but next time you introduce people to "your little friend," think of these 4 Reasons why Scarface is a pretty shitty role model to have.

[SPOILERS for a 28 year old movie that has been referenced and riffed on ad nausem lie AHEAD]

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Today's word of the day is Proficient:

Via 4GIFs

pro·fi·cient

[pruh-fish-uhnt]

L'chaim, Everlast! Here's a Klezmer/House of Pain mashup by DJ FAROFF:

In a world...

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[Veronica Mars] solves little puzzles because she, like all of us, cannot unravel the bigger ones.

- Joss Whedon

I logged in to Facebook and saw something from a tangential friend (we haven't spoken in years) on my wall. I responded in a nerdy, snarky fashion:

 

Then I was told "you just said she's gonna fail the bar exam" so I quickly deleted my comment and felt bad. But for one glorious moment, I was a random snarky troll...

Via Huffington Post

Rob Dean examines the overlooked, unappreciated or unfairly maligned movies. Sometimes these films haven't been seen by anyone, and sometimes they've been seen by everyone - who loathed them. This is Missing Reels.

What I want to bring back to superheroes with this project is a sense of play. Things have gotten so dreary. The heroes have gotten so ugly that even their muscles have muscles.

- Frank Miller

Ignorance is bliss. Sure, it's "better" to know the truth - but it's not always a good feeling. Here's an example: you know the song "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison? It's a sweet summer song of days gone by, right? It's about anal sex. Just listen to the lyrics: "Behind the stadium...down in the hollow...playing a new game..." Clearly it's about that special bond between a man and the first girl who lets him do it in the butt.

Or maybe it's not. This is a brilliant and hilarious thought exercise put forth by Shannon Wheeler in Too Much Coffee Man: now that you've just been exposed to this piece of information - you will always associate "Brown Eyed Girl" with butt sex. Even though things may not be true, certain bits of knowledge can never be unlearned.

Today's movie isn't about butt sex (not that I noticed, anyways) but it is about the fallacy of nostalgia. It centers on that lie put forth by regressives that, at one point in the past, there were "golden days." Don't get me wrong - there were definitely years for America that were objectively better than this current age of horrible new diseases, rampant pollution, erratic natural disasters, catastrophic economic woes. But to say that "times were better" is to imply a giant asterisk: yes, times were better if you were a white American man above a certain level of wealth. The Post-World War II era was a prosperous one for the US - but mainly due to the fact that every other country had been utterly decimated by war, bombing campaigns and more war. And sure, maybe the truthiness of growing up in the 50s was that everything felt better - but that's because people weren't informed about all the various levels of corruption in politics, pollution in the environment, exploitation of other countries, carcinogens in household items, etc.

Times were better - because most people didn't know any better. The deluge of information brought along the weariness of cynicism - but also the responsibility of knowledge. Armed with knowing as many facts about a situation as possible, the hope is that people can make informed decisions that are based on rational deliberation and not ignorance or fear. Of course, that doesn't always pan out, but the theory is sound.

But what does this all have to do with an Australian superhero parody from 1984? The Return of Captain Invincible is about an American, patriotic costumed do-gooder who went from being the beloved hero of a nation to becoming a forgotten footnote delegated to the alleyways of Australia. Alan Arkin plays the recovering alcoholic Captain Invincible, a man formerly ensconced in the flag but now lying in a puddle of his own filth. Oh...and it's a musical.

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Today's word of the day is Inept:

Via 4GIFS

–adjective

This is...well. It's something. Does she get this question a lot? If so, a FAQ would suffice.

(Via The Daily What)