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Welcome!
Hey there, and welcome to my site! I'm Joel (aka Dogmeat T. Dingo) and this is a place of... well, of my stuff. Toons, rants, reviews, art; whatever I feel like putting up. Enjoy!
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Media : The Ultimate Joker? |
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Reads: 38 |
Posted by Dogmeat on Monday, May 04 @ 05:23:29 CDT
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Archived Story
FEB 23, 2009
So much for my resolution to write more, ah well.
Ok, so I’m writing this now because this is a beef I have with
Heath Ledger and I want to get this out before the Oscars are over
and we know wether or not he’s going to get one. Well ok,
it’s not so much about Ledger himself as it is the army of fanatics
he has posthumously acquired. In particular, the rabid fanatics
of The Ultimate Joker. This group was brought to my attention
recently, and I’ve been meaning to make a post about it, but my
usual laziness has got the better of me until now.
The Ultimate Joker, for those who don’t know (and I imagine it’s
a lot of people), is a group of Batman, but much more strongly Heath
Ledger fans, who believe that Heath’s performance in The Dark
Knight was the absolute best Joker ever, and as a result the
character should be removed from any future movies.
Now, do I think Heath Ledger was the best Joker performance ever?
I guess he did take it to an interesting place, and gave what
I would describe as a stunning performance. But do I
think that his performance is worthy of having the character scrubbed
from every new Batman movie ever? Of course not!
Even if his performance WAS the best ever (an assertation that is
purely subjective, there are plenty of people who think other Jokers
were superior), how does that justify removing a character forever
from a franchise? Ledger’s performance may have been an
awesome one, but he doesn’t in any way “own” the character,
he’s not the original comic book writer who invented him.
And if I were that writer I would be pretty miffed that somebody is
trying to strangle my intellectual property and ban it from any
future publication in a major form of media, because they think an
actor’s interpretation of it was somehow superior to any other
actor.
Not to mention the fact that it could also restrict the role from
someone who might do an equal if not (gasp!) better performance than
Ledger. Sure, his performance was good, but it was in my
opinion the highlight of an acting career that I can only
describe as adequate at best. Heath Ledger made few to no big
splashes on the silver screen, he did his roles adequately and in a
few occasions went as far as making a few terrible movies bearable
with well handled character roles (see A Knights Tale for a good
example of that). But really, he never revolutionized
anything, he was a role filler, a name for the credits for that
ho-hum character nobody really cared about because there were actors
of a better calibre in the same film (a la The Patriot).
I do support the idea of Heath getting the Oscar, not because I
think his acting in The Dark Knight puts him in the highest tier of
actors but rather because the Oscars are an utter joke of an award
that is overrated and really doesn’t mean anything other than
the fact that the recipient was able to marshal enough lobbyists or
media exposure to get one. Seriously, if Russel Crowe got one
for his wooden and ultimately mediocre performance in Gladiator I
really don’t see why anybody takes them seriously anymore. So
sure, give him an Oscar, or don’t give him one, I really don’t
care. He’s already picked up award after pointless award from
all sorts of places, and if the fans really think the fact that this
particular hunk of metal is more important than the other hunks of
metal because it’s awarded by the biggest bunch of commercialistic
opportunists there is, then by all means add it to his mantlepiece of
utter irrelevance where he will be able to forever enjoy not looking
at it. You know, because he’s dead.
So no, I don’t think the Joker should be scrubbed from future
Batman movies just because an average actor made it the high point of
his tragically short, but nevertheless average career.
Certainly he (and the Jokers before him) have set a standard, raised
the bar if you will, to ensure that the role will always have an
expectation for excellent acting, and producers will go out of their
way to ensure that level of quality is maintained or face a barrage
of scorn from reviewers. And for that I think Heath, and look
forward to the many Jokers in the future that he has contributed to
keeping to the high standard the character deserves.
(comments? | Score: 0)
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Reads: 38 |
Posted by Dogmeat on Monday, May 04 @ 05:22:02 CDT
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Archived Story
OCTOBER 1, 2008
And I finally post! Yay! Not that you’ll notice, you 99% of
people who are probably reading this through my archives and will
move seamlessly between posts as if I wrote everything together…
Something has been getting on my nerves over the last couple of
weeks, and that’s pensioners. Not ACTUAL pensioners mind you,
I have pepole in my own family who are on it and I certainly don’t
want to suggest that I have a problem with them. I rather like
elderly people for the most part, they’re generally curteous and
wise and all-round decent people. Except John McCain.
Never John McCain…
No, my issue is, as are most issues I have, with the media.
Seriously, you’d think I would engage a few neurons every now and
then and actually turn the TV/Radio/Internet off every once and a
while if it gets on my nerves so much, but noooo. I just have
to go on being insulted and indignantly blog about it on my totally
unregarded website. Ho hum.
So it seems almost every morning, as I get up to have
breakfast and listen to the morning shows before heading off to work,
we have been verbally assaulted with the freshest load of
manufactured scandal fresh from the Liberal party oven, which right
now appears to be the proposed thirty dollar per week payrise for
pensioners, and the Rudd government’s apparent refusal to help.
Oh my! Won’t somebody get out the fucking violins and play a
sad tune! Oh right, the Libs have already done that. Over
and over and over again. In fact, this bemoaning has actually
made allies out of groups such as the Democrats and the Greens,
normally polar opposites of the anti-liberal Liberals. It seems
everybody is swept up in this seemingly pro-pensioner ferver and it’s
that mean old Kevin swatting the elderly with a rolled up newspaper
made of poverty and pennypinching, right?
I’m going to ask you, dear reader, a very important question.
Think about this question because it’s a very relevant question and
one that would be asked of the Liberals in anything resembling fair
and balanced journalism. Not that we have anything like that
with our Liberal (party) media. My question is thus:
Where, in the name of the Flying Fucking Spaghetti Monster on an
Invisible Pink Unicorn, was the outcry from these numbnuts about the
plight of the elderly during the Howard government? This has
been a major problem since before they even got started fucking over
the little guy, but where were they on this issue when they were in
power and actually had the ability to implement something like this?
All they did for the elderly during their reign in office was hand
out one-off payments during election time, to literally bribe old
people into voting for them. So where were they? Why
didn’t they do anyting?
I’ll tell you why. Because it’s a shitheadded policy
that, despite its surface-level compassion, basically involves taking
three billion dollars a year that would be otherwise used for things
like education or healthcare, and flushing it down the
hyper-inflationary toilet. The bill is nothing but a stunt, a
cheap way to slander the reputation of your opponent who must avoid
such acts of fiscal irresponsibility, while making yourself appear as
a knight in shining armour, conveniently covering up that villain’s
frock you’ve been wearing for the past decade.
Now let’s back up a bit so I can remind people that again, I
have no beef with the elderly, I know they are suffering and I want
to help just as much. But there are FAR better ways to deal
with income stress than tossing a marginal amount of spending money
to them and expecting it to not be absorbed by the economy within
months. What’s the point of an extra thirty bucks a
week if the real estate agent jacks up the rent another twenty next
year? All you’re essentially doing is flooding the market with
extra spending money, thus devaluing the currency, thus causing
inflation to rise. It’s pretty simple.
If you want to help the elderly in a way that will actually work,
you need to look at why they’re hurting in the first place.
Where is the pension money actually going? What expenses are
involved? What hass the biggest impact on their wallets?
The answer is simpler than you think.
We live in a country where a single aged pensioner is given
$281.05 per week, and with many of these people they are forced to
live in rental accommodation that costs around the $200/week mark.
That leaves about eighty dollars for them to spread as best as
possible over food, bills, transport, medication… the list just
goes on. And yet this is ALSO a country where rich contractors
earning thousands of dollars a week brag on the radio about living in
government housing commission for almost a third of the rent, next to
nothing compared to what the pensioners have to fork out. Call
me economically unsound if you must, but wouldn’t providing housing
commission for pensioners free up a LOT more money for them than a
token injection of thirty dollars a week? Wouldn’t it be
great if they could get an extra hundred and twenty, and not a dollar
of it artifically injected in a way that unbalances other welfare
systems along with the inflation rate?
There was one incident on the Today show last week where an
analyst said that it’s easy for the Liberals to argue for something
like a pension injection while they were in opposition, words of
common sense that frankly caught me off-guard on this daily program
of conservatism worship; and sadly it was indeed short lived as the
host’s rather irate response caused the analyst to backpaddle
faster than a dog being carried downstream towards a hydroelectric
turbine. But the fact that the analyst said it in the first
place just goes to confirm further the fact that what we think of as
a feelgood bill isn’t always the fiscally responsible way to solve
a problem. And when it comes to the elderly, I think we can all
agree that this is not a problem we want to approached half-assed.
(comments? | Score: 0)
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Rants : Test for Alternate Site |
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Reads: 63 |
Posted by Dogmeat on Monday, May 04 @ 05:20:25 CDT
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Archived Story20 MAY, 2008
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Considering Dogmeat can’t be bother
to touch his own… website, I, Lumiel Alter, am taking over for the
moment, as I use his web tools to further my plans of total internet
domination. One day, blogs will be reserved for only those who have
at least a Bacelor in Literature and Fine Arts, Youtube videos for
artists only as well, and the punishment for leetspeak under any
circumstance will be punished with death by a thousand dictionaries.
Same goes for any use of the word “noob” or its variations.
(Read More... | 7 comments | Score: 0)
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Politics : Family Friendly, or Undue Censorship? |
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Reads: 35 |
Posted by Dogmeat on Monday, May 04 @ 05:18:27 CDT
Archived Story
29 JANUARY, 2008
Recently there has been some controversy over the Electronic
Software Association’s decision to follow in the paths of many
industries, and begin lobbying in the US for politicians who support
bills they agree with. In this case we’re talking about video
games, yes those little bundles of fun that so many of us use to
unwind and relax after a hard day at work, or on a long weekend, or
whatever your pleasure.
Several dubious sounding groups such as Focus on the Family and
Concerned Women for America have jumped on the ESA, decrying their
entry into politics as immoral, and stating that those who take money
from them will be “working against families”, because supporting
the freedom of software developers to make content the consumer base
wants is apparently the equivalent of shutting down an orphanage and
then kicking a puppy on the way out, just for the fun of it. WON’T
SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE PUPPIES?!
You know, if there’s one thing that invariably sets of my
bullshit detector, it’s when a group of “concerned parents”
start pushing an agenda because they are oh-so-worried that
politicians are forgetting about those precious “family values”.
Is it just me, or has the phrase “family values” never actually
been used to depict anything that remotely had anything to do with
supporting families? Rather, it seems to be nothing other than a
pleasant sounding catch phrase to mask homophobic, pro-censorship,
anti-progressive right wing bigotry? The pharase seems to serve no
purpose other than jargon they can shoehorn any agenda into and then
decry all opponents as unpatriotic.
In fact, I’m going to go right ahead and tell you exactly what I
think they’re hiding in this instance.
Focus on the Family and other such organizations have no interest
whatsoever in the wellbeing of the average family unit. If they did
they wouldn’t have a problem with video games at all since they
would, y’know, encourage people to read the blatantly obvious
ratings on the box of a game before buying it and plonking their ten
year old kid in front of it unsupervised for four hours.
These groups don’t want to protect families, they want to
absolve parents of all responsibility when it comes to raising their
children. They want to find scapegoats for their own bad parenting
and make sure the blame gets placed squarely on every other aspect of
society before anyone even thinks of questioning them. Because God
forbid anyone should ever have to take the blame for their son acting
like a brat, oh no! It’s that evil video gaming industry and their
subversive hypnotic games that teach kids to be violent. And now the
ESA boogeyman is headed for Capitol Hill! Everyone run for it!
Hey, here’s an idea! How about instead of trying to ban video
games that we responsible adults use for entertainment, you take all
that time and energy you’re expending and, you know, actually raise
your kids? Put that video game console somewhere you can keep a
good watch on whoever is playing it, check the clearly marked ratings
on games before you buy them, and generally don’t expect them to
babysit your children for you. I grew up with video games and I
turned out fine, the consoles and PC that I played on were kept in
the living room and my parents checked what I was playing to see if
it was acceptible by their own standards.
I know it’s a daunting task, but it’s high time parents
stopped being concerned and started actually being parents.
(comments? | Score: 0)
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