Life Lessons from Robert De Niro

Life can get confusing sometimes. Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to turn to get some answers. Thankfully, there has always been one, unwavering source of inspiration and guidance that has been counted on throughout the ages as a pillar of Truth and Right Living: Robert De Niro.  The De Niro has spread his gospel though his generous ministry of full-length feature films through which he has depicted a multitude of everyday, average men just trying to make their way in this crazy, workaday world of ours: gangsters, comedians, gangsters, taxi drivers, gangsters, parents, jazz musicians, gangsters, professional boxers, war veterans, mental patients, Frankenstein’s monsters, gangsters, cops, priests, anthropomorphic animated sharks, bank robbers, low-level street thugs, ex-cons, and gangsters.

The De Niro works in mysterious ways, and though the characters he portrays are often morally questionable for the most part, each one has one or more life lessons to impart to those of us who didn’t always want to be a gangster for as far back as we could remember.  For those whose minds and hearts have been opened to the Word, then prepare yourselves for this small taste of the bounty that THE GOOD SHEPARD has prepared…

Lacking an Alternative: Sherlock Holmes and the Best of All Possible Worlds. Deduction is as Deduction Does… Life is Like a Scratched iPad

You're probably an idiot.  The odds are stacked incomprehensibly against you.  Unless, of course, you happen to be Sherlock Holmes.  Next to him, however, no matter how smart you are, you are still a total fucking moron by comparison.  The version of Sherlock Holmes as portrayed in BBC's Sherlock (co-created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss)  is something of an insufferable prick.  Despite the fact that he exists at the very centre of a veritable whirlpool of arrogance and narcissism, there's something universally endearing and relatable about this modernized take on the Sherlock Holmes mythos, and we seem almost inescapably drawn into those swirling, mruky waters.  Inexorably, like a man on death row about to be hanged (not hung).  There's something about Sherlock Holmes that transcends his Victorian trappings and speaks to the very core of the human experience.

Even though the titular character of Sherlock represents the epitome of cold, hard, logical reasoning and stands as an ideal both for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence and startlingly anti-social behaviour, he is also more relatable to the common man than he may appear at first glance than other more apparently "human" versions of the character.

Surrogates for Intelligence... Missing Links, Hated Avatars

I'm pretty sick of this shit, Bruce Willis.  We live in strange times.  On the one hand, we're constantly being sold on the idea of progress and the achievement of human potential, while on the other hand, we're being bombarded with conflicting ludidtic, anti-technology propaganda.  And it's a total crock of shit.  I was watching the Bruce Willis vehicle SURROGATES the other night in an effort to use up my stockpile of nearly expired, military-grade popcorn that I had accumulated in my lead-lined underground shelter that I had constructed so I could watch movies in peace during whatever apocalyptic view of the future that Roland Emmerich has envisioned came to awful fruition.

SURROGATES started out with an intriguing premise; the advent of advanced robotic and AI technology provides people with the opportunity to experience the world through cybernetic avatars that allow them to experience all of the pleasure and none of the pain through some kind of neural interface.  The vast majority of the human population embraces "surrogacy" while a few hold-outs led by The Prophet (Ving Rhames) prefer to live on reserves, embracing a low-tech agrarian lifestyle devoid of most forms of technology except for an ass-ton of fire-arms and accompanying unlimited supplies of ammo, because apparently the only technology worth embracing is the kind that you need when you absolutely, positively got to kill every last motherfucker in the room.  (Accept no substitutes.)

Where Have All the Good Ant-Men Gone? Send in the (Corporate) Clowns

No, not Aunt-Man, Ant-Man.  Yeah...

Last week, a bomb was dropped in the Marvel cinematic universe even larger than FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER.  It seems that the upcoming ANT-MAN movie based on nobody's favourite (sort-of) superhero is short one director now that maverick British director and beard connoisseur extraordinaire Edgar Wright parted ways with the Marvel juggernaut over "differences in their visions of the film."  And because in the official press release it stated that the split was "amicable," we can be all but assured that the opposite is in fact true.  It's one of those things that we'll never know all of the details about even though we actually do know all of the details.  Like when that nice couple from next door whose yelling and arguing you've tried not to eavesdrop on out of a sense of propriety finally breaks up and you feign ignorance to be polite.