Movie Review-Observe and Report

With the outsize box office success of Paul Blart: Mall Cop, you can be excused for entering
Observe and Report expecting sloppy seconds. In this version, a pudgy Seth Rogen wears the
tin badge of weaponless courage previously pinned on a pudgy Kevin James. But it'll take only
about three minutes before the unnerving truth sets in: Observe and Report is as bleakly,
exhilaratingly ?furious as Paul Blart is squarely comforting. And from here on in, it's time to
forget the Kevin James vehicle ?(no matter how similar some of the pair's superficial plot
mechanics) and focus on the profound madness and ?sadness that fuels this risky, riotous,
moody-blue comedy written and directed by Jody Hill.
Shorn of his cute curls and ditching most traces of the shaggy sweetness that served him in
Knocked Up and Monsters vs. Aliens, Rogen plays Ronnie Barnhardt, head of ?security at
generic Forest Ridge Mall. Ronnie is a hard-ass stickler on the job, and a lonely guy off duty —
with a million reasons why. He's got bipolar disorder, which keeps him from fulfilling his dream
of becoming a real cop. (There's none of Blart's benign hypoglycemia as an excuse for failure
here.) He lives with his mother (Celia Weston), a pass-out-cold alcoholic as clammy as Blart's
mom is fuzzy. He's got a crush on a trampy makeup-counter clerk named Brandi (Anna Faris),
who disdains him with all the obnoxiousness available to a drink-pounding tease flashing
cleavage and lip gloss. But he's blind to the shy interest shown by a nice food-court barista
(Collette Wolfe) regularly berated by her boss for laziness when, really, it's only her broken leg
that's slowing her down. (A metaphor for America? Why not.)
Ronnie's a man simmering to a boil — Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle is a spiritual brother — and his
scalding spillover moment arrives when a flasher in a regulation flasher's raincoat goes on a
rampage, traumatizing mall customers (which is bad enough) and then exposing his junk to
Brandi (which, to Ronnie, is even worse). A hard-boiled detective ?(Ray Liotta) shows up to
take charge of the investigation, but Ronnie sees this criminal hunt as his mission. With
everything to prove — to Brandi, to the cop academy that rejected him in the first place, and
to his own pharmaceutically ?managed sense of autonomy — the competition to nab the
perv is on.
Director Hill previously demonstrated his unique comedic ability to screw with American
normalcy in the great, wack martial-arts movie The Foot Fist Way and co-created the warpy
HBO series Eastbound & Down. To his credit, he leads Observe and Report down every alley a
mainstream comedy is supposed to avoid. The violence is bone-crunching. (Pineapple Express,
directed by David Gordon Green, celebrated the same aesthetic of brutality, and no wonder:
Hill and Green share an alumni brotherhood at the University of North Carolina School of the
Arts, as well as the amazing gimlet eye of cinematographer Tim Orr on both projects.) Women
are depicted as skanks and slatterns. Ethnicity and sexual orientation are freely mocked.
Unrepentant drinking and drugging go unchastised. The flasher flaps vigorously and often —
yes, that's a penis I see before me — leading to a chase scene through the mall that makes
the naked wrestling set piece in ?Borat look coy. The result is a crazy mosaic of Americana
with tiles scattered and missing. Need I observe and report that the view isn't for every
taste? It sure is for mine.
Meanwhile, the cast, led by Rogen, chomps into all this anarchy as if liberated from the
Hollywood salt mines, with a commitment to the material worthy of a tribute from James
Lipton. Faris, adored these days for her specialty depiction of faux bimbos, has no qualms
making her Brandi a bitch rather than a more acceptably cartoonish beyotch. The superb
character actor Celia Weston ?(In the Bedroom) is truly breathtaking as ?Ronnie's boozer
mom. The supporting cast, including Hill's regular muse and comedic ?co-conspirator, Danny
McBride, and Hill's game film-school pal Randy Gambill as the flasher, never flinch from going
exactly where you're bound to say, Oh no, they wouldn't.

Kanye West responds to 'South Park' mockery

What, you thought Kanye West wasn't going to say anything after South Park accused him of being an egomaniacal gay fish (or whatever) last night? Of course he struck back today with a 234-word all-caps rant on his blog. But wait! Kanye's latest post is free of the unhinged rhetoric we've come to expect when he addresses his detractors. Not a single "SQUID BRAINS" or "You're f---ing trash" in sight. In fact, Kanye calls the South Park gag "PRETTY FUNNY" and admits that the "CRAZY EGO" he's known for might have outlasted its usefulness: "I GOT A LONG ROAD AHEAD OF ME TO MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE I'M NOT ACTUALLY A HUGE DOUCHE BUT I'M UP FOR THE CHALLENGE. I'M SURE THE WRITERS AT SOUTH PARK ARE REALLY NICE PEOPLE IN REAL LIFE." Wow. He even embedded a YouTube clip of the very South Park episode that mocked him! (That clip has since been yanked from YouTube, but here's the original in case you missed it.) Talk about killing 'em with kindness.
The whole post is a fascinating look at where Kanye's head is at these days. As far as I'm concerned, he deserves points for rising above criticisms with humility and honesty. Check it out and let us know: What do you think of his new tone?

America's Army's System Requirements - What a joke!

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I haven't been able to play AA for some time now because the system requirements keep getting worse and worse.straight from their FAQ... these are the minimum requirements for version 2.8.1
QUOTE
* 3-D graphics card with 128mb memory and support for hardwaretransformation and lighting* 2.4 GHz processor or equivalent* English version of Windows® 2000/XP Operating System with all updates* 512mb RAM* 3.5gb of uncompressed hard disk space for game files* DVD-ROM (not required for downloaded installation)* Windows 2000/XP compatible system (including compatible 32-bit drivers for video card, sound card, mouse and keyboard)* DirectX® 9.0* 100% Compatible DirectX 9.0 soundcard* 56kbps Modem or other network connection