Look At My Briefs -- 1/14/10

Here we are, well into the year. The post-holiday season is in full swing. It's cold, dark and depressing. The only way we as a nation can possibly overcome this is to read another edition of my brief comments on various subjects called Look At My Briefs.

One of the ways you can tell that you are a true cultural phenomenon is when a massive backlash forms against you. In the case of Avatar, I've read that it's Un-American, anti-military and racist (against a fictional race)*. This guy called it the worst movie ever made when it couldn't even seriously be called the worst made that came out that week. Now CNN.com is trying to tell us that Avatar is causing depression. Supposedly, people are getting depressed because they want to live on Pandora and can't because they're on that planet's no-fly list or something. Their evidence consists almost entirely of anonymous internet comments. This makes me look forward to CNN's next article in which they "prove" that anyone who disagrees with commenter JakEnOv69 is an epicfail gaywad because he said so and fellow commenter EZSleeZee agreed.

It must be awesome being a cast member on Lost. Just because your character dies doesn't mean you'll never be on again. It's easier to get rid of government union employees than it is a Lost character.

This post from MTV has good news and bad news. The good news is that Moon director Duncan Jones has a new movie in the works. The bad news is that Moon, one of last year's more interesting films, has been repeatedly snubbed so far for awards this year. Snubbed in this country anyway. At least the British have some taste.

I know I'm supposed to write a ten paragraph screed in defense of Conan O'Brien, curse the ground Jay Leno walks on and compare NBC to Hitler with Hitler actually looking to be the better of the two. However, as I have not watched either Leno or O'Brien in years, I can't bring myself to care. If I had 100 hours a week to watch television, I'd probably add Conan to my viewing lineup but I don't so I can't bring myself to care too much either way.

At first I thought the upcoming film Repo Men was a remake of the 80s cult classic with Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton. A quick bit of research, however, showed that not only is it completely different but that it has, in my mind, one of the stupidest sounding plots in the history of anything.

*Racism charges vary between criticism of a white man leading a non-white people, a charge that has made me shelve my idea of doing an Avatar remake set in Earth's desert and calling it Lawrence of Arabia, and complaints that the Na'vi themselves are portrayed as racists because they hate the people who invaded their land and started shooting at them.