Things Jenna Morasca should never do

Wrestle, for one.

From the Great Ideas department

Fancy Fast Food - taking fast food and making "gourmet" meals from them. For example, Spicy Chicken Sushi from Popeye's:

JayRo Watches Movies: Fired Up

Midway through Fired Up, the cheerleaders watch Bring It On, and recite the lines to th movie with the movie. It's there as a nod to it's predecessor, to show where the roots of Fired Up were derived. It is too bad for Fired Up the acknowledgement also reminds the viewer that Bring It On is a superior movie.

I don't mean that to bash Fired Up. It's a fine movie with consistent laughs. However, it suffers from a split personality which ends up holding it back from being an even stronger movie. Fired Up doesn't know if it wants to be a smart comedy (a la Bring It On), a profane comedy or a romantic comedy, so it tries to be all three. This leads it to be a weaker movie, as it fails to get past the cliche romantic comedy plot, nor does it bring anything exceptionally raunchy to the table. There is wit, but the movie is saved by the performances of the leads. They realise their characters are essentially likeable con men who mature into - gasp - having feelings. They play the characters to perfection, showing us charm even when we know they are being deceivious, so that we actually care when they make the transformation.

In the end, I give Fired Up a thumbs up, though I wish it would have chosen whether it wanted to go for raunch or brains. A commitment one way or another would have made it a better movie.

JayRo Watches Movies: Paul Blart: Mall Cop

I went into this wanting to like it. Kevin James is a funny guy. The premise had some semblance of comedy.

And then I watched it.

It'd be unfair to say that it is a terrible movie. There's a few amusing spots. Unfortunately, that just upgrades the movie to a bad movie. It's as though Adam Sandler decided this wasn't a wacky enough character, and he gave this to Kevin James. The results, as should have been predicted, were not so good.

Stay away from this movie.

JayRo Watches Movies: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the second largest 5 day opening ever, next to The Dark Knight. It's also receiving incredibly poor reviews, running a 20% on Rotten Tomatoes.com This is seemingly a contradiction; why would somebody rush to pay money to see something that has been almost uniformly panned?

The answer is obvious when you see the movie. Transformers 2 is just as loud, hectic and visually stunning as the first. In some cases, the action becomes even more hectic to the point where you lose track of which robot is on which side. In short, Transformers 2 takes every stereotype associated with a "summer blockbuster" movie, aims to take them as far as they can be taken, and succeeds.

What it doesn't do is strive to have a deeper meaning. It does not go much below the surface. Other than John Turturro, there is nothing resembling a decent acting performance. The plot is superficial, there to move to the next action scene. And yet, the movie still works. Why? Because the movie doesn't try to be anything but what it was before - action that you can check your brain at the door and watch.

I think the issue with the critics is that they either would not accept the movie for what it was, or held it to the same standard as every other film they watch. While treating it like every other film is a fair way to operate, it will short change Transformers 2, thus the disconnect.

The best review would be the one that says "If you enjoyed the first one, you will enjoy the second one. If you did not enjoy the first one, you will not enjoy the second one." But sadly, that doesn't lead itself to star or point ratings that summarize nicely on Rotten Tomatoes.

Michael Jackson

I don't really have too much to say about Michael Jackson's death; most every angle has been beaten to death. (Paul Wells has a great piece here which I highly recommend. Wells' love of music and his appreciation of history produces one of his typically great posts.) All I will add is that when Michael Jackson was on, there was nobody who could top him. Here's a performance of Billie Jean from 1992, when he was on the downside of his peak. Even with that, he still kills the performance:

Iran - a quick hit

I have been a bit neglect in my following of the Iran Elections, um, fiasco, but I wanted to bring to your attention a couple of articles.

The first, from 2005, is Michael Ignatieff's article about his visit to Iran. It's a handy backgrounder for (a) how one of Canada's political leaders was thinking about Iran at the time and (b) how, in part, we got to this point.

The other is Paul Wells' blog post about where we are now in Iran, and where we are likely to go from here. It's a post that helps to bring everything together in a clear vision.

Giddiness, commence!

GILLETT SELLS CANADIENS TO MOLSONS

(hat tip: Habs InsideOut, who read La Presse so I don`t have to remember my French.)

Tim Sylvia vs Ray Mercer

Since you are going to hear about this every time the MMA vs. Boxing argument occurs, I present it to you - Tim Sylvia vs. Ray Mercer:

The Montreal Canadiens are curious about...stuff

So, Les Habitants sent me (via Ipsos) a survey to take. I'm assuming it's because I purchased tickets from them directly at one point.

The survey was pretty general, asking for demographic information before getting into the meat of the matter. Among the information they were interested in:

• How many games did you watch on television this past year?


• How do you get "general" information? How do you get Canadiens specific information? (3 choices for this; the choices were the major Montreal newspapers, major sports websites, Montreal television stations and Montreal radio stations.)


• How much do you use the internet?


• How many other events have you attened at the Bell Centre in the last year?


• Have you ever bought tickets from scalpers? If so, how much did you pay as compared to the face value of the tickets? How satisfied were you with your scalper experience?


• How many ounces of spirits do you drink in a week?


• How many glasses of wine do you drink in a week?

The last three bulletpoints were the monst interesting. They seem to be interested in knowing how many people have gone to scalpers, and if there's anything to be worried about from them (instead of immediately assuming that scalpers/ticket agents are bad.) And they are curious about the finer drinking habits of their fans. There's no reference of beer at all, unless they are considering beer to be a part of spirits.

There's probably nothing major coming out of this, but it's interesting to see the questions asked.