Georgia: ANOTHER 3rd Cousin State

Georgia high school planning its first ever racially integrated prom

Remember Mississippi?  Yeah.  Georgia can go right along with it.  If not the whole state, then at least this po-dunk school where their dances have been racially divided (up until now).  More surprising, people are actually in opposition to an integrated prom.  Jesus, folks!  Get your asses out of the 20th century!  Get with the times, people!

Bitches...

Oz: The Great and Powerful...Basically

Douchebag Franco says, "GTFO if you hate spoilers, kid".

 

 

The movie begins somewhere in Kansas during a time where PETA wasn't around to rag on circuses for using animal performers.  Kansas seems like a pretty awful place to live - the population is like 15, the screen size is too narrow, it's constantly in sepia tone, and giant tornadoes spontaneously appear out of nowhere.  Also, the most likable character at this point is the tornado...

Our main character is Oz, played by James Franco, who is a greasier con man than the Sham-Wow guy (and that's pretty hard to top).  He's a show magician, but people in his audience get upset because they find out he's a phony because he can't make a girl in wheelchair walk.  Another reason Kansas sucks:  If you can do mirror tricks, the people will believe you are Jesus.  So Oz is run out of town because he's been romancing with another man's wife (but he never sleeps with any of the ladies he meets, because this is Disney).  He hops on a hot air balloon, and gets sucked up by a very polite tornado that allows his sorry ass to live (also, Michelle Williams shows up to tell him he's a good man or some shit like that).

The holy tornado transports him to the land of Oz, which is the best place ever because it's in wide screen AND there's lots of color!  Mila Kunis shows up to explain why Mr. Oz shares a name with the land, and it's because of a prophecy stating that a great wizard named Oz would come to defeat the Wicked Witch and claim the throne.  Kunis also instantly falls in love with Franco because she is a female character.  Franco knows very well that he is no great wizard, but goes along with the charade because he's sleazy and he wants to live like a Kardashian.  Along the way they meet Zach Braff who is also a flying monkey and is so far the best character.  He knows that Franco is not the great wizard, but helps him along anyway because everyone worships James Franco.

Me: "Why?"
Writers: "Because the people of Oz are frickin' stupid."

Mila Kunis (skipping the whole damn time) leads Franco and Braff-monkey to the Emerald City which will be his new kingdom.  Another witch, played by Rachel Weiss, then tells him that he cannot claim the throne until he defeats the wicked witch, which is totally not her, but really it is (spoilers?).  So, he goes to do that, but not before hitting on Weiss, too (Because she is also a female).  While Franco is out of the room, Weiss and Kunis start talking about Franco and the kingdom in a totally non-suspicious way.

On the way to somewhere-place to defeat the wicked witch, Franco and Braff-monkey, come across a little city made of porcelain (or china?) that has been destroyed.  Inside one of the little houses, they find a little girl made of china, whose legs are broken.  Franco fixes her legs with super glue (this completely makes up for him not being able to cure that girl in the wheelchair).  After he does that, China Girl (no really, that's her name) begs Franco to let her go with him on his two minute journey to find the wicked witch.  He is reluctant, but eventually lets her come along (which is probably a benefit to him, since she is the heir of Ra's Al Ghul).  When they finally get to the somewhere-place to defeat the wicked witch, they find out that she is really the good witch, Glinda, because she is wearing all white and is played by Michelle Williams.  She tells the trio that Rachel Weiss is really the wicked one.  The audience is shocked.

At the same time, Rachel Weiss is watching this whole thing happen through her crystal ball.  After seeing James Franco and Michelle Williams hitting it off, Mila Kunis becomes filled with rage, and starts crying acid tears for reasons I can't explain.  Weiss then turns Kunis into the iconic, green Wicked Witch of the West, because...she sucks.  Now Kunis attributes all her rage and wickedness to Franco for "cheating" on her (because that's all women ever get upset about).

"Entertainment Weekly totally didn't spoil this reveal for me at all!" -- sarcastic EW reader

Rachel Weiss sends an army out to attack Franco, China Girl, Williams, and Braff-monkey, but they escape by flying away in bubbles.  Also, Williams has figured out that Franco is not a great wizard, but she believes he can still help to defeat the evil witches and take back the city (by the way, this throne technically belongs to her because it was previously her father's, but she wants Franco to have it because...she has a Y chromosome).  The group eventually ends up in a city where the people are super nice and no one ever hurts anyone.  Cool.  So, they turn these people into soldiers anyway.  They have to devise a plan to take out the wicked witches and reclaim Emerald City without killing absolutely NO ONE.

"Good luck." -- guy who will inevitably be killed by Liam Neeson in Taken.

Oh, and Kunis shows up to be all threatening with her new green/CGI face (Oscar!).

When battle time comes, some really cool strategies are put into play, and when it looks like the good side might actually win, everyone discovers that James Franco is leaving.

"But no!  He was so trustworthy and totally not a shady character at all!" -- children under 4.

Kunis blows up the hot air balloon that Franco is trying to escape in, so now he is a doucebag AND dead.  All the good people become very sad, but then a giant Franco hologram head appears out of the smoke and everyone is instantly intimidated.  Obviously, its all just an elaborate trick by Franco and his friends, but the people of Oz don't know that (remember; idiots, folks).  Apparently this is the scariest thing these people have seen, you know, besides the whole getting attacked by flying monkeys every week thing, because everyone freaking believes that Franco died and became resurrected as a giant, fire-breathing, floating head.  Anyway, this scares the wicked witches and they fly off to somewhere.  At some point after that, Rachel Weiss and Michelle Williams have a magic duel.  Weiss looses and it is revealed she was secretly an ugly hag all along.

"There can only be one pretty bitch in Oz!" -- Glinda

The movie ends with the hoaxy "Wizard of Oz" now being established, and Williams and Franco making out.  End.

"At least it was better than Spiderman 3" -- Sam Raimi


Little notes:

• Mila Kunis was such a non-person in this film.  Her neutral personality was not doing it for me.  It just made her boring.  Even when she turned "green", Rachel Weiss still seemed more powerful than her.
• Kunis's character cries "tears of fire", or whatever.  Cool, but I didn't get the significance of it all.  Is it because water eventually makes her melt?  If so, that's dumb because she found Franco in a pond.  What the hell was she doing around ponds if she knew they would kill her?  Stupid.
• There's not much to James Franco's character except that he's a con-artist and a bit of a womanizer.  He did have some funny moments though.
• Feminist note:  There's not much going on for the ladies in this movie.  For a movie which has women as more than half of the leads, they were slightly downplayed.  Glinda, who's father was the original king of Oz, should have just stepped up to claim her throne.  Screw prophecy!  Kunis literally SKIPS for half of her screen time, and thinks of nothing more than being Franco's queen.  Weiss is a little stronger, but I feel like she had a lot more potential that was never displayed.
• The best characters weren't even live actors.  Joey King as China Girl and Zach Braff as a flying monkey.  A flying monkey...
• Even though this movie comes of as a "C" in my book, I think director, Sam Raimi, did a pretty good job.  I appreciate his style, and you can really tell he made his mark on this film (and not just by adding Bruce Campbell on it).
• Why did they have to make Rachel Weiss ugly at the end?  It has no significance.  By the time Dorothy shows up, she's crushed by a house, so we never saw her face.
• So I guess we're just ignoring the whole canon from Wicked, huh? (I'm joking of course.)
• Michelle Williams is super cute.  I fucking hate her.
• James Franco is not.

I Gave Up Fast-Food for Lent? Oh...

I'm Catholic.  This means every once in a while I do crazy things like speak Latin or walk around with a cross drawn from ashes on my forehead.  Because Lent was last month, I did both of those things, but I also gave up fast-food restaurants. Now that Lent is over, do I feel free knowing that I can eat all the fast food I want from now on?

Meh...

I initially decided to give up fast-food simply because I thought I was eating too much of it.  I would go out to McDonald's, Wendy's, or some other deliciously evil establishment for lunch almost every day.  Obviously, I was starting to feel fat and since Lent was coming up, I figured I would just use that as an excuse to back off from the bad stuff for a while.  By doing this, I figured that by the end of the season, I would desire fast-food less because I had gone so long without it.  Also, Lent is pretty much "diet season" for Catholics, so hey.

All in all, I can honestly say, it wasn't all that bad.  I seriously don't even feel like I gave up much of anything...
Okay...  So there were like two days where I went to Steak and Shake (figuring it didn't count because it's also a sit-down restaurant), and I also had Portillo's...beef...on a Friday.  Basically I suck at commitment...and Catholicism.  For the most part, I did give up the paper-wrapped hamburgers and greasy fries. 

What I did end up staying completely away from is those sugary "coffee" drinks from Starbucks and Caribou Coffee (and yes, I consider those places "fast-food establishments").  On Easter afternoon, I could finally go to Caribou to get my beloved Vanilla White Mocha.  As I pulled away from the drive-thru and took the first sip of creamy goodness that I've had in weeks, did I feel euphoria?

Meh...

I did feel slight excitement going into the driveway, but I did not devour my drink within minutes.  Let's put it this way - I started my drink at 2 pm.  I finished it the next morning by pouring it into a fresh pot of coffee I had just made myself.  As it turned out, the sugary goodness I constantly drank every week had lost favor on my taste buds (probably for the better).  I'm finding that I'm starting to prefer coffee that tastes more like, well, coffee.  Those drinks are nice every once and a while, but I figure I can live with a small (maybe even a "kid's size"). 

So did my Lent fasting get me where I wanted to be?  I'm not sure.  I really don't know what I learned from this experience (or lack of experience).  I feel that the rituals of Lent should make you think about some aspect of your life in a different way, or it should make you see the world differently.  For instance, giving up television for 40 days might cause a person to step back and pay attention to other things that were previously overshadowed by the distractions of the media.

Like last year, my Lenten journey feels slightly unaccomplished.  Why do I always "give up" these things that are relatively easy?  I was able to say "no more fast-food" because I knew I didn't necessarily need to eat it all the time.  I thought about giving up coffee.  I just about had a heart attack at the thought.  In my mind, I "need" coffee.  If I don't have it in the morning, I honestly believe I will fall asleep while driving to work (the crash will happen precisely at the intersection of Naperville and Diehl - it's mapped out in my head!).  Obviously, I won't die without caffeine, I once went without it for 7 days (it was supposed to be 14, but you know me).  Perhaps one day I'll try it because that's the point of Lent - giving up something that you think you can't, only to find that it wasn't really that important all along.

(Okay, maybe that's not the whole point for Lent, but that's a nice secular thought!)

((I love the parentheses today.  Clearly!))