3/02/2007

"Black Snake Moan"

Is Samuel L. Jackson only going to star in movies with the word "Snake" in them from now on ???

Is it wise to name a movie that has a white girl in panties chained by a black man, "Black Snake Moan" ???

Can Chrstina Ricci's hotness in her white cotton panties carry a move that Roger Ebert compares to the awful Patrick Swayze dud "Road House" ???

Why the fuck is Justin Timberlake acting ???

These are all questions raised by today's release of "Black Snake Moan," or, its street name "Snakes on a Chain."

Early viewer reviews show that people either love or hate this movie, giving it an average C+ range. Critical reviews also fall into the C+ range. An oft-mentioned curiosity is that folks across the board are impressed with the musical selections in the film. So it's got that going for it.

But the C+ response can't be news to producers. It's no surprise that the movie trailer focuses largely on Ricci's panty-clad butt, while she looks wild-eyed and chained. Nor that the movie's publicity poster features the tagline "Everything is Hotter Down South." Wow...there are so many double-entendres going on there that I'd have to actually use exponents to calculate.


That smacks of lowest-common-demonitor advertising to me. And no doubt that millions of people will go see this movie for the Christina in panties element. Unfortunately, the trailer is a sort of false advertising. Viewers use terms like "sweet" and "redemptive" when describing this film, not "sweaty" or "writhing", which I think would make the panty-party more effective.

Early trailers left out any mention of the esteemed thespian Justin Timberlake. I'm sure that was no mistake, either. Who the hell has ever clamored to see Justin Timberlake act?!? I mean, he's definitely got a huge contingent of people hoping to see him do gay porn, but other than that, I see no reason why he should be invited to film something longer than a music video (and even then.....)

A friend remarked that Samuel L. Jackson must be taking roles these days based on their proximity to golf courses. "Give me a rental house on the ninth green" must be written into his contract rider.

I'll admit that I would head off to watch Christina Ricci bounce around in panties for a couple of hours. But it's not that kind of movie, so I'm going to pass. The movie opens today, so it will be interesting to see how its opening weekend plays out.

Have you seen it? What do you think?

Who Are The "Barbie Bandits"???

It used to be that if you had some type of "personal" emergency, you had a pact with a best friend to come rescue your "naughties" before your family might descend upon your homestead.

In this day and age, it seems just as wise to have someone pull down your webpages.


Is this how the "Barbie Bandit" group got nailed? Was their internet exposure a factor in helping the public to identify them?






The question floating around the watercoolers of America this morning will be, "Who are these people?"


So we updated this after the booking photos hit the web. Boy, these girls look rough. This might very well be the first time that surveillance photos actually make someone look better than they do in real life. Then again, maybe that was their disguise...to commit the crime dressed as upper class suburban girls.


I'M A BARBIE GIRL, IN A BARBIE WORLD:
Ashley Miller, 19 and Heather Johnston, 19









monkey types the bible points out that the booking photos disprove any speculation that these are spoiled suburban girls. That, really, they look like the meth has taken hold.






THE INSIDER: Benny "Herman" Allen


It turns out that Herman is a gamer. If you look at his online profile, you'll see that the very last topic lists him as working in "Information Security" at Bank of America.










Fuck. We should all feel good about that.








Particularly when he lists one of his hobbies as technology.
Am I the only one who thinks that B of A customers have their info floating all over the web right now?

I'm just saying....those are some fancy rims there.....

I guess Herman got popped before he could finish filling out his profile with "rob my bank" under his thinks of "What I like to do."

And in the "say it ain't so" category, Herman's latest blog reveals that he is soon to be a father:



Way to practice being a role model, there.


THE UNKNOWN: Michael Chasting


Well, it's a pretty unusual name, with very little online information. Michael Chasting remains the group member that everyone knows the least about. Which could make him the fall-guy of the group, but judging from this group of fucktards, I think he's got to be the brains, by default.


Let me know what you come up with.....

3/01/2007

"Barbie Bandits" Caught

Obviously, the Barbie Bandits didn't watch the movie closely enough and missed the part where you're supposed to dress up as a Betty Doll when you rob a bank.

Described in blogs across the country as the "hot chick bank robbers", the two girls who robbed an Atlanta area Bank of America were caught today.

Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long. The girls didn't disguise themselves very well. In fact, they both had their hair pulled back from their faces, making them that much more recognizable.

They made national news when their photos were beamed all over the free world, showcasing their smiling faces and suburban chic sunglasses.

So who are the Barbie Bandits? And why did they rob a Cobb County bank?

Well, as many people suspected, the robbery was staged. The 19-year old girls are smiling in the photos because they're handing the supposed 'robbery note' to their friend, who was working behind the counter.

Police point out that the girls were easily identified, thanks to their lack of a disguise, and that they and two B of A employees have been arrested and charged with theft.

Honestly, this has to be one of the stupidest "crimes" in recent memory.

The police released this to the media:

MARCH 1--Police tonight arrested two young women, a bank teller, and a fourth accomplice in connection with Tuesday's robbery of a Bank of America branch in Acworth, Georgia. The inside job was allegedly pulled off by Ashley Nicole Miller and Heather Johnston, both 19, with the assistance of bank employee Benny Herman Allen, 22, and Michael Chastang, 27. While the incident appeared to be a bank robbery, cops now consider it a felony theft and have charged the quartet accordingly. Miller and Johnson were captured by a bank surveillance camera as they stood smiling at a counter after handing a teller a note demanding money. The women (both of whom live in neighboring Fulton County) and their male cohorts were arrested less than two days after Cobb County Police Department officials circulated the below surveillance photos showing the women wearing disguises consisting solely of oversized sunglasses (the kind favored by Hollywood starlets). The group was apprehended with the aid of tips that poured into police from citizens who saw the bank camera photos. They are currently being booked into the Cobb County jail.

2/28/2007

Bizarre News

Imagine this....you are a mother of two sons. It's a weekday afternoon and you are home with the boys while your husband is a several houses down the road, working on a house he's rehabbing. Suddenly, you hear a commotion outside. Someone is calling your younger son's name, trying to get him to come out of the house.

The next thing you hear is something pelting your house. Your sense of panic starts to rise. Your oldest son grabs a baseball bat and goes to the front door to investigate. He opens it to find up what witnesses will later describe as "twelve to thirty" people on your front lawn, all looking to fight.

You grab one of your husband's hunting rifles to defend both your sons and your home. Neighbors will hear a melee, and several will call 911 to report a fight in progress. Your husband hears about a problem and comes running down the street.

He and other neighbors will report to police that he had to literally fight his way through his own front lawn to reach his family.

You and your boys are clearly outnumbered. Even at the lower end, twelve teenagers on your front lawn, on your property, who refuse to leave, who want to jump your son, pose a serious threat.

Your younger son also grabs one of your husband's hunting rifles. He joins you and his brother at the front of the house.

Shots are fired. At this point, no one is certain if they were warning shots, or if you were trying to kill a trespasser, before he killed you or one of your sons.

The police receive calls on their radios. The 'fight in progress' has been changed to 'shots fired.' They arrive to discover that two of the trespassing teenagers have been hit. A 15-year old has been injured. A 16-year old will die.

What comes next is a quick and bizarre application of the law. You and your younger son are arrested, booked, and held in police custody pending bond. Yours is set at $1 million.

Sound too strange to be true? This is exactly what happened in a St. Louis, Missouri suburb last night. And mother and son are still in police custody today.

Rather than being treated as crime victims, they are being held as the perpetrators of a crime. St. Louis County police seem far less concerned that their suburban home was literally stormed by a gang of teenagers seeking to do serious bodily harm to one or more of the residents. Even at the lowest estimate of twelve teens, they could have easily killed the boy they sought to fight.

Never mind that they were trespassing; that the older son with the baseball bat first told them to leave the property. No doubt the rifle-wielding mother and younger son did the same before things took a turn for the worse and shots were fired.

I don't know about the rest of you, but if I opened my front door to find an unruly mob, of any age, I would panic. Mere seconds seem to have truly counted here. Perhaps mom had to make the decision to either take a few of the precious seconds to grab a rifle to defend her older son at the front door, or call the police for help.

Maybe she thought for a nanosecond about the response time such a call would take, and her maternal instinct kicked in and she chose to take the immediate action of aiding her sons. Maybe she made the wrong choice. But it seems that, in the heat of a literal battle, this is some serious Monday-morning quarterbacking.

Should she and her son be in jail this morning? Their home was literally under siege. And the trespassers refused to leave, instead escalating the situation. Initially, when no one in the home answered the taunts and threats coming from the front lawn, they began pelting the house with rocks.

What would the gang do next? Were they themselves armed? What lengths were they willing to take to get to this son? All of this had to be running through the mother's mind.

The entire situation is irrational. But few, certainly not the St. Louis County police, seem concerned about what the intent of the "twelve to thirty" young men on the front lawn last night.

Any reasonable human being would feel that his or her life was in danger. Certainly, a parent reads that situation with an even greater sense of urgency--the sharp pang of instinct that causes one to protect a child or children, at any cost.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has this account:

In an interview Monday evening, King [the father] told a reporter he had given police a surveillance video recording of the incident. He said he installed the camera at his home after past harassment.

Records show that St. Louis County police were called to the Kings' home 10 times over the past year, for a variety of problems, including a burglary, fights and destruction of property. Officers wrote reports in only two incidents; copies were unavailable Tuesday.

Michael King Sr. said his family has been targeted for years because he is an outspoken community activist who tries to combat crime. He said he legally owns the guns involved and used them for hunting.


Before writing this, I spent the morning researching the gun laws in Missouri. If you'd like to see for yourself, click here to download a pdf version. Really, it's a mere three pages. A quick read.

Neither of the so-called offenders violated the state's gun laws. Early news reports last night pointed out that discharging a weapon in St. Louis County is legal if one feels that one's life is in danger.

What reasonable person would not have felt his or her life was in danger in that scenario--outnumbered four-to-one, or ten-to-one, depending on the accounts. So where is the disconnect?

It is highly unlikely that this family will be able to raise the money to free the mother and son on bail. Not to mention financing the undoubtedly lengthy legal battle in front of them.

They will first need to hire a criminal defense attorney to address the charges filed by the Prosecuting Attorney in St. Louis County. No doubt the bottom-feeding families of the actual perpetrators in this case will file civil charges against the family as well.

If you are just as baffled and concerned by what you're reading, and want to make your thoughts known, share them with the Prosecuting Attorney. You can email the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at letters@post-dispatch.com

2/25/2007

Funny Videos

This is another "Diet Coke and Mentos" experiment. This time, the wacky dudes at Eepybird actually recreate the famed fountains at the Bellagio hotel in Vegas. It's pretty crazy, and makes for some fun viewing.











In the next one, over two hundred liters of Diet Coke are used to create a "domino effect" of cascading Diet Coke Fountains.











And finally, I've gotten some grief for previously calling Britney Spears a crazed crack-whore. To which I have to say, didn't the girl herself open that door? Have you all forgotten about Chaotic???