Matt Bate's new monthly rant

There are a lot of people out there who think their job is hard. They classify it as degrading, insulting, and most of all – downright depressing. You know, they are probably right. But for every shitty job out there, there’s always some poor soul slogging away with a job worse than yours. For example, I was taking a dump just moments ago and as I reached for the toilet roll to wipe away the rancid faecal matter dripping from my hairy asshole, I noticed some artwork plastered across the sheet. There were seahorses, stars and flowers among other gifts bestowed upon us from mother nature herself, and I thought to myself – someone has specifically drawn that piece of artwork for the explicit intention for it to be smeared and besmirched by our own vile anal sludge. Was the person who drew these images a failed artist, very much akin to a street hooker being a failed exotic dancer? We may never know who drew these pictures as no one in their right minds would admit to this being their breadwinning job. A depressing revelation has been made in light of this anonymity – do the artists know that their work is being defiled in such a way? On a similar note: how do people actually manage to hire these guys? I can imagine the interview process following this predictable template:

Interviewer: Welcome to the Sorbent toilet tissue headquarters. Good news, we looked over your portfolio and we have decided that your artwork is the best suited to this company’s mission statement of providing the user with the most ‘friendly, homely and soft’ wiping experience imaginable.

Interviewee: Oh awesome! Thank you! I started some new logo designs and stuff for the company…

Interviewer: …Oh cool. See, I was thinking more along the lines of you designing some preliminary sketches to be used on the actual toilet roll.

Interviewee: (notably disappointed and shattered) …oh… ok…cool…I guess.

So next time you’re out there busting your ass and complaining that no one ever respects your work, just think – there’s someone out there working exceptionally hard to deliver you the most relaxing wiping experience with the complete expectation that you will defile their work in unimaginable and sickening ways that would make Satan say “whoa, fuck that.” If half the world isn’t leaking diarrhea all over your precious end of year reports, then you’ve got it pretty damn good as far as I’m concerned.

In During last night’s big finale for the hit reality show Australia’s Next Top Anorexic, Kelsey Martinovich was announced as the winner of the competition, scoring a trip to New York to be with other vain people. However, seconds later, during her acceptance speech, she was interrupted by Masculine-looking Host, who began recieveing messages on her earpiece that she had crowned the wrong winner.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

“What do you mean ‘wrong one?’”

“Oh. Bugger”

“Okay, so the thin, not conventionally pretty but interesting looking one?”

“That’s not very helpful Steve”

“This is what happens when you have live TV folks! Ratings ratings ratings!”

The mistake was soon corrected, and despite understandable distress from both Kelsey and Masculine-looking Host, the real winner chosen by viewers, Amanda Ware, was finally announced. Kelsey has been awareded $20,000 in compensation, with any luck further skewing the perspective and values of the show’s 14-year old target demographic in time for the next series, which will start airing tomorrow.

(Left) Hot, Polish-sounding one.

One of the judges on the show, Mean Self-important Homosexual, commented on the mix-up. “It’s great that they were able to deal with it so well, and show such compassion for Masculine-looking Host, despite the emotional rollercoaster. These girls are certainly different from the millions of bulemics we get every year. I’d like to see those fat cows handle this situation with such maturity.”

Kelsey and another runner-up, prisoner #451006, were said to be disappointed by happy for Ware.

A little bit disappointed, but glad for the winner.

In other news, Australian sports officials are rewarding thier players for going a whole week without distracting commercial news outlets with sex scandals. Coaches are said to be very proud and are encouraging their players with encouraging, non-ironic back pats, saying “Collingwood” more frequently than required, and fun-size snickers.

I’m often accused of reading into things too much, a statement that has only been reinforced after seeing Salt. It’s no coincidence that Angelina Jolie is married to Brad Pitt, because they’re both cast in roles that are far broader than what they’re capable of, and this film is so average that it’s probably the head writer for Big Bang Theory. So for a change of pace, here’s a condensed, run-of-the-mill review rather than a sprawling critique.

Directed by Philip Noyce, Salt begins with CIA agent Evelyn Salt (see what they did there!) being tortured in North Korea on suspicion of being an American spy. She is unexpectedly exchanged as part of a prisoner swap, after the man she seduced as part of her cover story (August Diehl) begs for her to be released. We skip forward to a few years later, and she has married him and settled down in the States.

On the eve of their anniversary a Russian spymaster (Daniel Olbrychski) who claims to be terminally ill, walks in and claims that not only is she a Russian double agent, but she is also going to assassinate the Russian president. Her CIA colleagues want to keep her locked up, but she worries that her husband is in danger, and escapes, forcing her former bosses (Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor) to pursue her. Salt claims to have been set up, but naturally we’re left guessing as to whether or not she is who she says she is.

The film takes the concept of Russian ‘sleeper-agents’; mature, relevant yet sexy fodder for a spy-thriller, and then pads it out with a 40-minute car chase. It’s an old-fashioned, Tom-Clancy-esque story, re-told for a post-cold war audience, who luckily for filmmakers, are apparently no less paranoid. We’ve got lots of things to be afraid of these days, but communists are just so much more colourful and yet a totally ‘safe’ villain at the same time. Shoe knives and Cossack Hats; it’s that kind of level.

The lack of special effects and the use of real stunts is a refreshing change, but the pace of the film never slows down enough for me to care, and when it does, I begin to care even less. If anything, a few more explosions would have improved things. The fairly superficial relationship between Salt and her husband, emphasized in a flashback scene, and the core of any motivation she might have to go on the run, is left mostly to imagination.

A lot of the events in the film are unbelievable, which in itself is not a problem, but by comparison the characters are one-dimensional. Sure, real spies might be enigmas, but you can’t have it both ways. They could have made Salt using only a blonde wig, a brunette wig, a Cossack hat and two suits on brooms, and I would have been unlikely to spot the difference. However, Liev Schrieber, as Salt’s long-time colleague and pursuer, is a convincing and likeable supporting character without resorting to the over-the-top caricature of virtually all the Russian characters in the film.

Thankfully, the inevitable big twist, the bread and butter of the espionage-thriller, was interesting and unexpected, but not so unpredictable that it was pulled out a ‘Dr.Who-esque’ plot hole in the last ten minutes. The plot hinges itself on several such twists, which does keep things enjoyable and engaging enough without making itself needlessly complicated.

Overall, Salt delivers what it promises. The film can’t quite decide whether it’s Bourne Identity or Bond, lacking the suspense and grit of the former and the humour or style of the latter. Real Russian spies could have been a lot scarier, and to be honest, a lot more exciting than what they did with this.

Easy A. The title sounds about as dumb as the blondes who get easy A’s. Bad puns aside, it is the latest comedy (with mild to moderate romantic themes) staring Emma Stone, who you might remember from such films as Superbad and Zombieland. And has also featured on more “top insert number here hottest women” lists than has won awards.

Like many other low budget teen movies, it starts with a webcam scene. Progresses the story with webcam scenes. And finishes (almost) with a webcam scene. Also like many other low budget teen movies, there are teacher student relationships, best friend fallouts, a crazy rival female, good looking guys and parents that are way too open about everything.

However, unlike many other low budget teen movies, the school “slut”, Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) doesn’t sleep with mimbos (man bimbos) instead choosing the socially outcast, and that’s really about it.

What Easy A lacked in substance, it made up for in one liners or slightly extended humourous situations that lasted a couple of lines. With special note to Olive’s parents Dill and Rosemary Penderghast (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, respectively). Picture Sam’s parents from Transformers, but not in an action movie, but where humourous parents should be, in low budget teen movies.

Easy A takes an interesting slant on the school slut issue, with Olive pretending to sleep with socially challenged guys to they can get some street cred. But that’s about as creative as it gets. Loosely based on the novel The Scarlett Letter, about a young adulterer who was ostracized (they claimed it was inspired by, but the word inspired implies too much creativity for my liking). But this isn’t always a bad thing, it makes it a very easy movie to watch (pun not intended).

Olive’s love interest got a surprisingly small part. Woodchuck Todd (Penn Badgley) was the school mascot and is mostly known for his role in Gossip Girl. Penn is dangerously close to being type cast as the “lonely boy”; in Easy A it was as if the director told him to just pretend like he was Dan Humphrey.

Also notably absent from this low budget teen film was the crude language. It was claimed that initially there were 47 instances where the word “fuck” appeared in the script, all of which were cut from the final film. And their inclusion is about all the directors cut of the dvd will probably have going for it.

In the end, Easy A doesn’t try to be anything but what it is; a low budget teen movie chick flick. And it does that quite well. Perfect for those whose brain hurt after recently seeing Inception. Also if you like big moments from 80s movies, the last 30 seconds of Easy A is dedicated to you. Recommended for those who don’t like thinking, like chick flicks, like drama that a high school kid could understand, never got laid and is now looking for a genius plan to gain some street cred or simply want to earn some brownie points with the girlfriend without too much pain and even a couple of laughs.

Easy A missed the cut for an A by a couple of marks, but it certainly got an easy B.

Walking into The Sorcerer’s Apprentice I thought it could go one of two ways: it could be one of those super awesome films that I’m not ashamed to walk into the cinema to see even though the average age of the audience was 12, or it could be the exact opposite, one of those childrens films that are so bad that not even Dennis Ferguson would bother sitting through even though the average age of the audience was 12. Much to my surprise, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice turned out to be neither.

In a nutshell, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a film for 12 year old boys, written by slightly older, lamer, balding 12 year old boys, at heart (that is how I imagine Disney film writers to look like). Combine every childrens movie basic plot line, the sickly sweetness of Disney and 150 million dollar special effects budget, and you have The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. But to be fair the simple to follow, aesthetically pleasing movie was quite enjoyable.

It follows every second boys dream come true, with Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel) a rather nerdy kid turning out to be the chosen one. His mentor, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage), teaching him magic and life lessons so that Dave can form an identity for himself, get the girl and save the entire world, without ever leaving New York.

Like every film produced nowadays (perhaps except for porn) there was a love interest. In Disney style, it was fairytale love from the very beginning, with all the main characters loving someone. Also in tame Disney style the ultimate show of affection was a two second kiss and the deepest line to describe a thousand year long romance was “I fell for her.” In short it felt like more of a necessity rather than an actual part of the story line.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice packed almost as many popculture references as Epic Movie, with everything from “these are not the droids you are looking for” to Magic The Gathering. And some less popular references for the literary literate who have read the original poem entitled The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, with an entire ten minute scene of mops and water gone mad.

On a personal note, I particular didn’t like the attempted rationalisation of how magic is real. Vibrations of particles doesn’t exactly explain why they can throw lightning bolts, create dragons or do whatever else Disney spent 150 million on. It would have been more enjoyable for them to just say that magic exists in this world.

The pacing felt a little bit odd. The intro didn’t build up anything at all and felt rushed. The end was anticlimatic with the ultimate evil, Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige) being defeated in a two minute Dragon Ball Z esque energy ball battle. However, if you’re 12 years old, like the target audience, I doubt you’ll care.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice turned out to be a slightly cooler than the average kids film. I’d recommend it for the young, and young at heart (and possibly mind). Definitely not a thinking film, but look past the lame justification of magic and just enjoy what 150 million dollars looks like when turned into CGI. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is no National Treasure, it’s worth at least the ten dollars it will cost you to see it.

P.S. To all the mothers out there who were hoping for 2 hours of Nicolas Cage eye candy, don’t bother. Unless you like the scraggy hair look in a long dirty coat.

How many of you, as pubescent teenagers, took your girlfriend or a female relationship prospect to a horror film, just so that they would get within a very close proximity of your penis?  Not me, mainly because no woman could ever justify being within a one kilometre radius of my presence – but I’m sure most of my readership have (and perhaps continue to do so under strenuous circumstances).  If you are one of these people, then perhaps ‘Antichrist,’ a movie by self proclaimed “world’s greatest director” Lars Von Trier, is right up your alley.  Not only does it provide amble doses of violence and horror, but it also provides the viewers with enough information about human reproductive anatomy that would make a pornographic film look like an episode of ‘Blue’s Clues.’  But really, what else would you expect from an ‘Arthouse’ picture?

The film starts off with a rousing rendition of Georg Friedrich Händel’s beautiful aria, Lascia ch’io pianga from Rinaldo.  Immediately you are presented with black and white scenes of Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg in passionate embrace.  These scenes are shot with the kind of slow motion camera you see being used in sports coverage around the world.  In fact, it feels like Lars Von Trier turned on Channel Nine’s telecast of the cricket one day, and saw them use the slow motion cameras played to classical music and thought, ‘heck, that sounds like a bang up idea for my next film!’  The only thing is, it’s a little difficult to tell whether they are having sex from the shots we are seeing.  So next, Lars Von Trier decides to add to the vast array of subtleties by inserting a close up, hardcore insert, of a penis entering a woman’s vagina.  It is these kinds of shots that truly dictate his proclamation of being the greatest director in the world.  Glad he cleared that up confusion.   Next we see their child fall out of a window, and this triggers Willem Dafoe’s character to take Charlotte Gainbourg’s character to a forest area called ‘Eden’ to face her fears.

Isn't Eden beautiful?

The reason why I say Willem Dafoe’s character is because we never learn any of the character’s names.  They are simply referred to as ‘He’ and ‘She’ to add some eerie mystery to make up for the film’s excruciatingly slow pace.  It is in these typical arthouse techniques that really makes ‘Antichrist’ a movie so obnoxious that it can (amazingly) actively compete with its directors inflated ego.  There’s even a scene where a self-mutilating prophetic fox warns Willem Dafoe that ‘Chaos Reigns’ and you are not even expected to laugh.  That isn’t to say I didn’t laugh at all during this one hour forty-five minute snore fest, that makes going to the dentist for root canal surgery feel like a privilege.  There is a memorable scene featuring Willem Dafoe laying into a crow which I found darkly amusing, and for that scene alone I’m giving it 23 points.

I’m going to come out and say, subjectively, that I did not enjoy this movie as much as I would have expected.  Lars Von Trier really creates an eerie atmosphere out of ‘Eden,’ the acting is beyond outstanding and engaging.  The underlying philosophical elements behind each character’s convictions is well thought out and detailed, but is hardly explained in a manner that could capture the audience’s imagination.  This is not unlike how a three year old child converses with others – expecting the listener to have a prior understanding of what is inside the child’s head while they are telling the story.  Instead, Lars Von Trier seems to be attempting feverishly to shock the audience with gratuitous extreme close up scenes of genital mutilation.  On one spectrum, we have the director trying desperately throughout the film to evoke atmospheric and subtle plot and character developments, whilst on the other, inserting obvious unsettling close up scenes of a penis (that was previously crushed) being stimulated until it ejaculates blood, among other favourites.  It almost seems like the director cannot stand by the quality of the film his making, instead trying to generate controversy to attain media coverage and attention.  This has been confirmed with Lars Von Trier’s inability to justify to an angry Cannes press conference why he made the film in the first place.

What I find more engaging than the film itself, is how the prominent defenders of the arthouse community attempt to justify the meaningless violence and sexual exploitation that is present in ‘Antichrist.’  At what point does a movie stray from the confinement of exploitation to pornographic?  There is more nudity in this film than some pornographic adventures (most of the film features the two main actors completely derobed).  One has got to question how hygienic their genitals are after their escapades in the forest without properly showering afterward (thankfully, it doesn’t really matter in the end because their genitals end up mangled anyway).  Explicit scenes of a woman masturbating viciously in a forest strike me as something from a terrible pornographic rip-off of Pocahontas or The Jungle Book, not a mainstream movie.

The people that call this movie a ‘horror’ filmmaking are only half correct.  It is more suited to ‘horrible’ filmmaking.  An inconsistent display of polar opposites regarding what the director is aiming to achieve with his film – is it atmospheric or unsettling horror like The Ring, or is it more, in your face, over the top violence like the Saw or Hostel franchise that he is trying to achieve?  Such inconsistencies mar what could have been one of the most disturbingly eerie horror films of the decade.  Instead, by film’s end, a haphazard plot and shot selection usher in millions of weary eyed viewers asking, “what is the point?”  And I couldn’t agree more.

Score: 77/173.

Are you sick of hearing “Fresh we can” or “more Change in your pocket”? With the union election happening this week, there are increasing numbers of campaigners out for their respective parties. And they all seem to have several misconceptions.

1. That I would love to stop and have a chat to them about their promises.
2. That I would love to take one of their flyers.
3. That I would love to take another flyer, even though they saw me take one from another person from their party 2 meters to the left of them.
4. That I care.
5. That their flyers are a good use of trees.
6. That I would love to take and read one of their flyers rather than a flyer from the competing party that I just got.
7. That I spend enough time at uni to want a boost juice.
8. That I want another flyer.
9. That I like Grill’d enough to bother to vote.
10. That I think the subway they put in was the awesomest thing in the whole freakin universe (sidenote: they should learn to bake bread properly).
11. That I want another flyer.

So for those of you who are well informed and know who you’re going to vote for anyway, or simply don’t care, i have compiled a list of techniques to avoid conversations, or make the other person feel so uncomfortable that they will end the conversation with great haste.

To avoid a conversation all together:

1. Lower your eyes to the ground while walking quickly. Looking at the ground is also a great way at being adaptive, so you’ll be making Darwin proud too.
2. Fill your hands up, with anything from library books, to food, to coffee, their competitors flyers.
3. Pretend you’re campaigning yourself for a party they’ve never heard of. They’ll then perceive you as one of the “outgroup”, hence they automatically hate you. I hear the socialist alternative alternative is running this year.
4. Walk past them with the angriest scowling face you can possibly muster.

Or, if they fail to pick up on your hints that you don’t want a conversation and they start one anyway, here are some other tips to make them feel awkward and hopefully end the conversation faster than cheetahs hunt down their prey.

1. Stand less than a foot away from them. If they step back, keep stepping forward. People feel very uncomfortable when you invade their personal space.
2. Look just over their shoulder or at your feet when they are talking to you. Typically a listener should be looking at the speaker about 90% of the time. When it is less than 90% it is a nonverbal signal that they should stop speaking.
3. If you make eye contact with them, try and keep it going for longer than 3 seconds. Any longer than that and they will start to feel really really uncomfortable.
4. If in the rare event they let you get a word in, look at their eyes the entire time you speak to them. It’s quite creepy.
5. When you speak put your hand over your mouth.
6. Touch can be awkward. Inappropriate touch isn’t advised, as while you end the conversation quickly (in some cases not) you will probably get hurt. But if you are bold enough, see Figure 15.7 (below) for where strangers find it unpleasant to be touched.

Well I think that is enough tips to make your next encounter with election campaigners briefer, and more awkward than a flight of the conchords episode.

Happy voting (or not voting).

Something that happened on Saturday that made me smile.

Whilst braving the gauntlet of human leaflet-dispensers on the way to the booths, a young boy in line ahead of me, probably only about seven or eight, asked his dad a question.

“So can Peter Dutton (the Liberal member for Dickson) vote for himself?”.

Dad didn’t bother to look down, yet still refused to make eye contact with the Family First representative on the right whose very presence had created a slight buckle in the line as everyone attempted not to stand anywhere near her. The family of four was already there when I arrived, and the glazed expression on dad’s face read that this was by no means the first query of the day.

“Yes he can vote for himself”.

A brief pause.

“That’s really silly”.

The honesty was enough to bring a smirk to the mouths of more a few eavesdroppers. Dad did his best to be responsible.

“Well he’s just one person in a 120,000, to win he needs to convince the majority people in the electorate to vote for him- just one vote doesn’t make a lot of difference”.

At first this left the boy quiet, but soon enough, the questions started again, and dad continued to patiently word each answer. As we neared the end of the line, the handful of how-to-vote cards having been exhausted of whatever entertainment value they might have held, the kid asked what was on everyone’s mind.

“What happens if the person you vote for wins?”

His dad cracked a small smile and looked him straight in the eye:

“If the party I vote for wins- stormtroopers come over and take me away.”

The earnestness of the boy’s shock at this statement was , but upon noticing his dad’s face it was quickly replaced with a grin.

“They don’t really!”

Mum, who until now had been busy keeping her youngest daughter from running circles around the legs of several constituents whose tolerance was rapidly declining, leaned forwards to murmur in her husband’s ear:

“Well if you voted family first, that really does happen.”

Sometimes I wish my parents had ingrained a sense of democratic futility in me at an early age as well. It’s an immature view perhaps; long popular among young cynics either through the sheer arrogance of youth or because things haven’t gone exactly the way they might have liked; provoking some sort of born-again pragmatism in all its angst-covered glory.

I’d like to say that after Saturday’s election I lost my faith in politics as so many liberally minded people are claiming to, but that would be a lie. In fact, a hung parliament has done little but reinforce my faith in our electoral system to choose the appropriate candidate – and it successfully chose neither of them. A result like that takes our political (and social) complacency and rubs our faces in it. It’s a result that might provoke change when change is truly needed.

For once, the Green vote has become more than a choice for the superficially alternative, and the swing away from the major parties has left independents with the power they need to effect a more bi-partisan government. Some have blasted these independents for practicing political activism towards their own ends, threatening national interest, but this political hostage situation is not only one that Australian voters has brought about by themselves, it’s one driven by necessity rather than desperation to us return to the status-quo.

I wanted to tote the symbolic benefits of the donkey vote prior to Election Day, but it’s nothing that a myriad of fairly irate conspiracy theory/political bloggers or Mark Latham hasn’t already pointed out, and the opinions of such people have become discredited by advocating that choice. The Australian electoral system with its compulsory preferential voting inherently discourages any sort of electoral disobedience in numbers that would ever give pause, and it’s a real shame.

Whatever experiences the average Australian has of voting, it’s treated as a responsibility rather than a right. It’s possible to discount your vote, but that choice is treated as a juvenile shirking of said responsibility, rather than what it should be; a gesture of defiance. The intention of compulsory voting is very noble, but besides being technically rather undemocratic in that it obliges you to make a choice, anyone could tell you that political compulsion and political consciousness are two very different things. It forces you to think, and when pushed, we couldn’t decide.

Labor, and Labor backers are trying desperately to paint their failure to gain a majority as both a failure to properly market their campaign and to shut Kevin Rudd up. However, Tony Abbott, while correct in asserting that the Gillard government (if she gets in, they’re going to go gaga with the alliteration on that one) has lost whatever legitimacy it might have held in its brief, eight-week incarnation, despite an optimistic start, looks even less stable. Neither party will own up to the other probable cause for a hung parliament: that their policies on divisive and all-together far more sensitive issues that people cared about simply collided too much, (or at least appeared to).

Both candidates tried desperately to make this election (essentially) about economics. Almost every issue was in some way tied to where the money is coming from, something that everyone can relate to, and most importantly; something on which both parties very much know where they stand.

The virtually identical and non-committal policies (albeit for minor details and the prospect for changing things later) on asylum seekers, immigration policy, gay marriage, abortion and the environment, left many who hold one or more of these topics close to shrug at the universally white response on a black and white issue.

Many blame populist policymaking or pressure from conservative special interest groups- but it’s pretty easy to fling accusations of being ‘populist’ around when they’re being populist in a direction that you don’t like. If it’s something you had wanted, then they’re being representative, and it just so happens that most of us are xenophobic, whale-eating homophobes.

Neither of our major political parties have evolved with the ideological capacity to deal with the issues of a contemporary society that transcend the traditional left-right social divide. What are Labor “values” towards homosexuality? What are Liberal ones towards immigration? This sort of indecision can likely be blamed on a country that can quite competently disagree about how money should be spent for practical reasons, but still isn’t sure which parts of it are conservative or progressive when it comes to abortions, and still struggles to acknowledge the very presence of social class, often forcing politicians to pretend to be more grass roots than they are, more than is usual for politicians.

So, inevitably, for most, it probably came down to which prospective PM looked the least shifty; who, at the end of the day, you want with their finger on the big red button (not that we have one). For all the talk of policy, the ultimate and often final human judgment is made when you first hear a person speak. Naturally, both candidates aimed for the lowest common denominator when perfecting their tone, leading to a similar conundrum as the one mentioned above.

It’s understandable why people liked Kevin Rudd. He represented a young and fresh face for Labor back in 2007, so even if you thought his politics to be tripe, he made an honest-looking contrast to a bald, sweaty-looking conservative. Even if you sided with Howard on the basis of policy, the line between progress and pragmatism was at least an aesthetically appealing one. In 2010, we were offered a choice between a seminarian and a sellout.

I don’t normally do top-10 lists, celebrity gossip, re-hashed news stories and god-forbid, picture posts because not only is the internet a big place and being big boys and girls you can find memes all by yourselves, I like to be able to sleep at night knowing I have a shred of journalistic integrity. However! As a special treat, these are some faux movie posters that’ve been sitting on my hard-drive for six months, that should hold you over until I can come up with something I’m proud of.