CWR’s Halloween Movie Recommendations

Posted on October 28, 2013 by | 5 comments

I don’t usually celebrate Halloween readers. Honestly, I don’t celebrate any holiday, if I can help it, May Day being the sole exception.

Nevertheless, we’re always trying to expand our horizons here at Culture War Reporters, and hope that you might be trying the same. To help us both get into the psychotically commercialized spirit of the season (baby steps, people, baby steps), here’s our recommendations for your scary viewing pleasure.

The Mothman Prophecies

I’d honestly be surprised if you had heard of this one. 2002’s The Mothman Prophecies wasn’t a big enough hit or a bad enough flop to gain either fame or notoriety. Regardless of it’s mediocre performance at the box office, I think The Mothman Prophecies is probably one of the most underrated horror/thriller flicks out there. The story follows a journalist John Klein (played by Richard Gere), who in the wake of car accident in which his wife is injured and eventually dies, alternatively hunts and is haunted by a strange, otherworldly presence acting as a harbinger of doom. In a refreshing break from your run of the mill guts-and-gore flick, The Mothman Prophecies forgoes violence in favor of a tense, surreal atmosphere far more disturbing than anything that could actually be shown. If you’re a Twin Peaks or X-Files fan, you’ll probably get a kick out of this one. Continue reading →

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Posted in film

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What I Did With “Do What U Want”

Posted on October 25, 2013 by | 7 comments

As someone with an unabashed love for pop music there was only one thing to do when I found out that Lady Gaga had collaborated with R. Kelly on the infectious earworm that is “Do What U Want”: listen to it as much as humanly possible. Apologies to the more sensitive for the image featured in the video.

It wasn’t long after posting it to Facebook that my CWR co-writer commented with a clearly sarcasm-laced “Great.” to which I reiterated to her what I just said above about my unabashed love for pop music. Then, of course, she made a comment about the lyrics being worthy of kitten-filled high school inspiration posters and I was forced to look them up. Continue reading →

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Posted in feminism, morality, music, religion, sex

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Fame Day: Nate’s Vlogs

Posted on October 24, 2013 by | 8 comments

We really can’t get started on Fame Day without giving a shout-out to the youth of France, who have turned out en masse over the past couple days in protest of  the forcible deportation of a Roma student who was taken from a school bus in the middle of a field trip. These students have been actively calling for the resignation of the popular anti-Roma Interior Minister, Manuel Valls, to resign, and since the beginning of the protests, French President Hollande has caved to the protest and declared that the formerly expelled Roma student will be allowed to return to school.

For all the flak I give France for their issues with bigotry and Islamophobia, I really have to tip my hat to these students. These are high schoolers coming out across the country to demand justice from their government, and lo and behold, they got responded to (in a way that didn’t exclusively involve tear gas). This took some guts and ingenuity I wish the youth in the US had- I don’t know the last time high schoolers protested independently on any issue (since the 70s, at least), and I really wish the same tradition of dissidence existed over here as it does in other countries.

But let’s move on to the star of the day:

Nate’s Vlogs.

Continue reading →

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Posted in internet

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Evan and Gordon Kat Talk: First Nations Fracking Protests

Posted on October 23, 2013 by | 8 comments

EVAN: Denizens of the internet, today brings back your two favourite Canadians as we discuss our home and native land, the true north strong and free. While I most definitely cite Canada as the birthplace and country I am proud to bear on my passport, I truthfully don’t know as much about it as I could.

Taking all that into consideration, Kat provides the topic this week [just like she did last time we did this] that covers a number of topics very near and dear to my heart: Canada, First Nations people, and environmentalism.

KAT: It’s really the full package.

So, those of you in both Canada and the States may be familiar with a new way to harvest natural gas, called fracking.

So, as the video above explains far better than I could, fracking is a risky process that can actually lead to natural gas leading into local water sources. There are even reports of homes near fracking sites being able to light the water coming out of the tap on fire because natural gas is escaping out the line at the same time.

We admit to not knowing how reliable this image is, but it does look pretty awesome.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Canada, environmentalism, Evan and Gordon Talk, politics, race

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Shame Day: Bob Kane

Posted on October 22, 2013 by | 3 comments

Let’s start things off with a question. Who here likes Batman? Oh, yes, Commissioner Gordon?

Thank you for that very thorough answer, James. But you know what else is important, and begs asking when we all like something? Where that something comes from. Y’know, who made it, that sort of thing. So, who made Batman?

Go ahead and pick up that Batman graphic novel lying next to you, don’t pretend you can’t see it. Tell me what it says inside there, somewhere between the front cover and the beginning of the actual comic. You can read it aloud, that’s fine.

“Batman created by Bob Kane” Continue reading →

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Posted in art, comics, Shame Day, writing

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2 Broke Girls, S3E5 “And the Cronuts”: A TV Review

Posted on October 22, 2013 by | 2 comments

cronuts

I’m not going to bore you all with the same  old “this show has lost its premise” talk again; we’re past that, it is now the topic that shall not be named. What I do want to focus on, however, is how much this show appears to struggle with conflict. There’s a simple formula in sitcoms [and every other form of media] that goes as follows: (a) a problem arises, (b) that problem is solved. I cannot boil it down any simpler than that. I obviously don’t speak for everyone, but for most viewers what’s really important is what happens between those two points.

Let’s take this episode and view it through the formula above:

(a) The words “Cupcakes are so over” spell out doom for the girls’ business, and they must find a way to make their product appealing once again.

(b) Max’s tendency to dip french fries in frosting leads to “Cake Fries” which are a huge hit both flavourfully and monetarily.

That on its own is really not a problem. I’m always going to be down for an episode of television that revolves around chimeric foodstuffs [though adding too many parts lead to disaster], but as mentioned it’s not so much the end result as it is the journey that takes us there. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Comedy, review, television, writing

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