I'm Spartacus!

I've been watching a lot more TV lately, shows like Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, and especially Game of Thrones. TV used to mean lousy acting, low budgets, and cheesy scripts, but those shows have raised the bar considerably. Strong actors, budgets that allow the writer's vision to come to life, and scripts that are unafraid to experiment a bit have all done their part to make TV worth watching again.
In a shocking twist, I am now going to say that I watch porn. Perhaps I shouldn't talk about such private things here, but let's face it: porn rakes in billions of Dollars each year, and that's not me and Charlie Sheen alone. That's hundreds of millions of people, and if recent studies are to be believed, the percentage of women viewers is increasing.
What does that have to do with HBO?
It's quite simple: I recently came across a film that has done for porn what Boardwalk Empire has done for TV: Spartacus MMXII - The Beginning.
It's a pretty straightforward title I thought, a porn parody of Spartacus, the TV series. But I was wrong: the actors are really just that, actors; the sets are utterly convincing; the costumes are worthy of a Hollywood production; and the story is great! So great in fact that the movie has a running time exceeding 3 hours, but I never once felt bored. I never thought I'd ever say this, but I actually watched a porn for the story. Weird, huh? Apparently they even brought in a professional stunt coordinator for the sword fighting scenes!
Aside from the sword action, the "other" action is also great, and watching porn shot with the same type of high-speed cameras used in big-budget TV shows is a different type of experience. It approaches the look of something like Game of Thrones, but with sex. What's not to like?

The trailer below does not feature any naughty stuff :)

These links however are NSFW:
Adult DVD Empire
Official Spartacus MMXII Blog

Enjoy.

The Kardashians made me gay

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Really?!

Recently I read that Voula Papachristou, Greek triple jumper, was banned from competing in the Olympics because of a racist tweet she posted on Twitter. Here is the offending remark:

"With so many Africans in Greece… At least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat home made food!!!"
This, after a recent outbreak of the West Nile virus in Greece.

Now how on Earth is that racist? If I were to say that mosquitoes on Mallorca frequently die of alcohol poisoning due to all the drunk German tourists there, would that be racist? No, and besides, it's probably even true.
But if one involves black people in a joke, all hell breaks lose. Blacks themselves don't complain, mind you; it's retarded white people who are so afraid of being seen as intolerant that they apply political correctness to everything and everyone. They instantly accuse you of being racist as a measure of preemptively defending themselves against similar accusations,  probably mentally masturbating to the self-image of helping out the poor blacks, who, after the end of slavery, the civil rights movement in the US, the forming of the African Union, and the end of Apartheid apparently are still in dire need to be saved by some Greek asshat. And then they wonder why black people don't like them.

This asshattery was justified with the excuse that her conduct wasn't in line with Olympic ideals. What ideals would that be? You mean this global sporting event, at which amateur athletes compete for nothing but glory while the International Olympic Committee makes hundreds of millions in sponsorship money has ideals?  The same IOC that decided to hold the games in China, where thousands were displaced by the government to make room for new stadiums? They have ideals? Since when?

And so now we have an athlete, probably one of few people in Greece who actually work hard at their job instead of just whining every day that they don't get enough free money from the rest of Europe, being kicked out of a competition she has worked to participate in since she was a teenager.

And all because of a joke that the likes of Jeremy Clarkson make every week on their TV show (which still airs, proving that the BBC do have a sense of humor, bless them).

βλακας

Fuck Hollywood

So it's Oscar night again, or, as I call it, Sunday.
Hollywood's greatest and brightest toast themselves; congratulate each other on their fantastic achievements, and some idiot host makes slightly risque jokes at the expense of people the rest of the world has long stopped caring about.

But do these people deserve to be congratulated?

I remember, a few years ago, the academy (as these well-respected scholars of uh, nothing, call themselves) refused to invite Larry Flynt, even though the movie that Hollywood made about his life was nominated by that same academy for several awards. Their problem was that dear ol' Larry's business is pornography, and that's a big non-no.
Aside from the blatant truth that Hollywood has always used sex to sell its movies, the thing that makes this really ridiculous is the fact that the academy nominated (and awarded) Roman Polanski's films several times. Sure, he lured a thirteen year old girl to the house he was staying in, drugged her, raped her, and then fled to France (where he struck up a relationship with a fifteen year old); but hey, it's not like he prints pictures of naked ladies in magazines, right?

Then there's The Hangover: the producer's apparently didn't want to have Mel Gibson in the second part because he left some nasty messages on his ex-wife's answering machine, but they had no problem with Mike Tyson being in the first film. Tyson is a convicted rapist, but unlike Gibson of course, he's still bankable. And that is what really matters.

They try to criminalize the whole world for downloading a movie, "lobbying" (aka buying) politicians to introduce ever-more idiotic legislation, which only ends up costing honest customers more of their hard-earned money, while the pirates continue to laugh at Hollywood's technological incompetence.

They routinely take money from the Pentagon to make America's wars more palatable to the public, yet claim to be liberal pacifists. See the following link for an excellent example:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/may/15/iraq.usa2
Turns out Jessica Lynch wasn't really a hero. What a surprise, right?

And then you kinda think, why am I bothering to watch these people? What makes them better than the rest of us? Well, nothing really; except maybe their awesome acting skills.

But have you ever thought about what acting really is? Is not every five year old who has ever managed to convince his parents that the did not take a cookie out of the jar when he in fact did, a better actor than 90% of the people attending the show tonight?

At least with the Grammys, you can wait for Tom Petty or indeed the Foo Fighters to do their thing and then go to sleep.

But why are we watching the Oscars then? To see if Jodie Foster's tits will  fall out of her dress? Well, if you wanna see that kind of thing, you could just save yourself three hours of watching friends of child rapists shake hands and buy a Hustler magazine.