Yes, I ate a Double Down. And somehow I'm still here to write this.
Seriously, the notion of eating a "sandwich" with chicken replacing slices of bread is just so absurd that you at least have to try it once, just to tell your imaginary unborn grandchildren that you did. And yes, I do believe that eating a Double Down is just as death-defying as skydiving or fighting a war. But let me tell you what was running through my head even as I made my order. Honestly, I felt embarrassed and a little ashamed. I was with a couple of friends, both of whom have already tried the Double Down, and let them go ahead of me to help boost inner morale. I had to psyche myself up to order it, but order it I did. And when I was done, I pondered as I walked to get my drink "What's wrong with me? I feel like I just bought porn...and not over the Internet." Seriously, I expected them to hand me the Double Down in a giant paper bag marked "XXX", much similar to the kind of bags that kinda-homeless people drink their hooch in, only substantially less dignified. I felt like I should have walked up to the counter in a trenchcoat, mirrored shades and possibly a fedora and fake mustache and ordered the Double Down in a whisper that's ironically loud enough for everyone in the building to hear. You know what I'm talking about, the kind of whisper you use when you want to know where the condoms are. "Psssst! Hey, where do you keep the *shifty eyes* DOUBLE DOWNS?!?" After that, they'll then take you behind the kitchen into this small booth with a coinslot. Insert a quarter and a window slides up, showing the Double Down, naked and just as ashamed as you are. You then have about 15 seconds to do your business. Hey, they gotta get the Colonel's "Secret Sauce" somehow, especially since he's dead...
Anyways, I finally got my Double Down. Unlike my friends and all the people in their ads, I decided to opt for the grilled chicken instead of fried. It sure as hell wasn't for any sort of health benefit, especially since it's been revealed that the grilled is just as bad, only making a tradeoff of cholesterol for sodium. I just prefer grilled, is all. I've never been a huge fan of fried chicken, only when its done right, and if I really wanted fried chicken I sure as hell wouldn't get it from KFC. Then again, if you're going to be eating a freakin' Double Down, you might as well go all the way. You've already forsaken your dignity just by ordering it. But despite choosing grilled, I still feel like I stepped up to the challenge. Just look:
I mean, seriously, what is that? As wrong as the Double Down sounds and looks, grilled just makes it look that much worse. Plus, it looked like the pieces of chicken were honestly smaller than the contents. Even looking at it now, I can't believe I put that inside me. (Insert "That's What She Said" Joke Here...lol, insert) But honestly, flavor-wise it wasn't all that bad. I didn't really expect a whole lot but it was still pretty tasty...even though I'm not sure what exactly I ate. The cheese is still a point of contention between us as I think it's supposed to be pepperjack but it's definitely not. The thing is we can't even tell what kind of cheese it is. My tastebuds send signals to my brain telling me that I'm at least eating a cheese-like byproduct but beyond that, I can't tell. The chicken was nice and juicy, the bacon was good for fast food bacon and the Colonel's Special Sauce totally didn't taste like semen. They must've added pepper. All in all, it was good. But was it $7 good (for the combo)? Not really. At the risk of exposing my gluttony, I could've honestly eaten more. At least I could've until I walked out to my car, where it felt like I had immaculately conceived a Double Down baby and it was kicking me for all the sins I had committed. But soon enough that feeling went away. Honestly, I might try it again with the fried chicken but beyond that, I'm not too concerned. Though I still want to tempt fate by trying a Double Down/Famous Bowl combo...
Anyways, after the shame was washed away from me, my friends and I went to the theater to catch Kick-Ass. I've been looking forward to this movie for months and I even ignored reviews at the risk of having the movie spoiled, which honestly I never really care about in the first place. But I'm glad I did as Kick-Ass definitely delivered, making it the best superhero movie since the double-header of The Dark Knight and Iron Man two years ago.
***While I intend to focus more on the characters themselves and less on the plot, there are a few general story spoilers so if you haven't seen the movie yet, you might want to hold off. But don't worry, I won't spoil anything super-important.***
The title Kick-Ass isn't some "extreme" marketing gimmick but refers to the titular hero, who is really a comic book reading geek who decides to become a hero when he wonders why people just don't do it. He soon finds out why in a disastrous first attempt but that doesn't stop him. Honestly, even though he was the titular character, I didn't really find myself caring too much about Kick-Ass (at least not until the end). That's not to say his story or the actor playing him were any good, far from it. In fact, I liked that the actor (Aaron Johnson) and his friends looked and acted like real-life nerdy guys instead of what Hollywood perceives how they want nerdy guys to act. And I did like the fact that Kick-Ass had a twist on the whole "secret identity" problem, whereas no one really suspected him of being a superhero, he did have to deal with the girl he likes that's finally paying attention to him thinking he's gay. But other than that, it's not really anything we haven't seen before. Kick-Ass, the hero and the kid behind the mask, are cool and all but everyone else in the movie is so much better.
Enter Big Daddy and Hit Girl (played by Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz, respectively), who no doubt steal the show as a father-and-daughter crime-fighting team. Their relationship is totally heartwarming, yet completely and utterly backwards as Big Daddy has turned Hit Girl into a killing machine with a steady diet of Guns & Ammo magazines and John Woo films. Cage is great as Big Daddy, somehow able to mesh his mainstream side with his batshit crazy side and put it all in a Batman-wanna-be suit. But most, if not all, of the talk surrounding Kick-Ass will definitely center around Moretz's portrayal as Hit-Girl due to the fact that she curses like a sailor and has plenty of scenes of her disposing of bad guys in gruesome fashion, all at the tender age of 13 (though the Hit-Girl character is supposed to be 11). All of this was spotlighted due to Roger Ebert's review of the movie but considering I myself had just watched Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door, I've seen other actors her age do and say WAY worse. Honestly, the only time I felt uncomfortable about the language and violence surrounding Hit-Girl was during the fight scene at the end of the movie, where the main villain starts it off with a karate kick right to her face and spends much of the rest of the fight just pummeling her. But then again, I attributed that to the whole "bad guys are SUPPOSED to do bad things like that" thing as up until that point, the main villain was pretty much just a mob boss asshole instead of an outright evil person. What I'm more worried about is that since they made Hit-Girl so awesome, there's going to be a whole new rash of Hit-Girl related pedophilia bullshit on the Internet because, hey, it's the Internet and that's what they do.
Even Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who will forever be typecast as McLovin even though I refuse to see Superbad (though I did think he was great in Role Models), did a great job as the son of the previously mentioned mob boss, who becomes The Red Mist to try to gain Kick-Ass' trust and lure him so that his dad can "take care" of him. From the description, you may think he's a bad guy despite what all the TV ads have shown, but really he's not. He just plays it as a kid who wants to help his dad out and get noticed, hopefully inheriting the family business. Really, he's a good kid forced into doing bad things, which adds a level to his character that Kick-Ass himself doesn't have.
But in the end, Kick-Ass just plain kicks ass. Yes, I know how corny that sounds but it's true. You get behind the characters and the story easily. The action is top notch (if a bit gratuitously violent, which is perfectly fine by me). The comedy is hilarious. It's bright and vibrant like an actual comic book, which I hope kills the whole "We have to make a grittier movie because The Dark Knight did it and made a crapload of money" trend that's going around Hollywood right now. The soundtrack, though filled with a lot of music I wouldn't normally listen to (besides some choice tracks from The Prodigy's "Invaders Must Die" album), fits brilliantly with what's on screen. If you're a fan of comic book storytelling and/or the superhero genre, you MUST see Kick-Ass (provided you can handle violence and some excessive language). All I'm gonna say is Iron Man 2 has a definite contender for best superhero movie of the year.
As an aside, I have to mention all of the people thinking this is a "kiddie" movie. And it's not just that people are taking their kids to see this movie (there were a few dumbass parents at my showing) but the fact that I've seen people comment that the ads have reminded them of movies like Spy Kids, Zoom and Sky High. Really? Because when I see the ads, I see a movie titled KICK-ASS, which prominently shows a 13 year old girl killing people, and it's RATED R! Yeah, it's bright and colorful and showy but c'mon, this isn't freakin' Pan's Labyrinth where the ads made you believe you were going to be whisked away to a fantastical world...where apparently children get beaten up and people get shanked with beer bottles. But hey, if people are going to be that stupid, that's perfectly fine. Therefore, I'm going to write a movie about babies bombing third-world countries with nuclear shit-filled diapers and title it "Punch You In The Dick".
Anyway, after seeing Kick-Ass, I officially feel that it's the beginning of the Summer movie season, and it looks like it's going to be a pretty good one too. However, I think I'll talk about more of those movies in another blog as this one's getting to be pretty long as is and I don't want to blow my load all at once.
I do have my Mega Movie Review started but I'm trying to do as much as I can without actually having to watch the movie. But it looks like I've hit a dead end there so I'll probably have to pop the movie in tomorrow and work from there. Hopefully I'll have it done and up by the weekend. Even though I'm keeping the movie a surprise, I'm not sure why. It's not like I'm going to reveal it and everyone will be like "Oh man, he's reviewing THAT movie?!?" In fact, I'm sure that a good portion of you reading this movie have never even heard of it. It's just one of those movies that has a cult following that I don't think necessarily deserves it and I just kinda feel like trashing it. If I get bored writing it or get writer's block, maybe I'll throw up my Summer Movie Season preview before it.
Also, I still haven't even started the screenplay I wanted to write and signed up for Script Frenzy to do. I have the movie in my head, I just need to get it down on paper. I just really need the enthusiasm and motivation to do it but if I do want enthusiasm and motivation, I don't know if I want it for sitting in front of the computer more than I already do.
Finally, before I wrap this up, I have to congratulate the Insane Clown Posse on their recent "comeback". I'm sure fans will argue that they never left but believe me, I live in Toledo, less than an hour from the heart of Juggalo Country, and ICP has been pretty much forgotten. Anyways, with the recent release of their video "Miracles", where they expound on the heaviness such totally-not-explainable-by-scientific-fact phenomenons such as fuckin' magnets, fuckin' rainbows and fuckin' giraffes, their confounding stupidity has resulted in major exposure on the Internet. Chief among them being Cracked.com, who not only wrote a science textbook for Juggalos but also turned the video into a Glade Plug-In Air Freshener ad. But the fun and games at the Dark Carnival hit a whole new muthafuckin' level when Saturday Night Live made a picture-perfect parody of the video this past weekend. So congrats Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. Your inability and outright refusal to learn basic scientific concepts has resulted in a resurgence in your careers. Brilliant.
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