The speech heard round the world..

Tonight was Oscar night, which can be either my favorite or least favorite night of the year. Tonight, I'd have to say it was my favorite. Almost everything that won (excluding Best Director and Best Documentary) were exactly as I had anticipated and hoped. Compared to the stink that was 2009 Oscars, almost anything could be better. The night started off with me thinking, "ughh, please end this now!" But, I found myself really getting into it  as the time went on. James Franco and Anne Hathaway weren't necessarily exemplary hosts, and I felt that they got it because a.) James wasn't going to win and b.) Hathaway should've been nominated, so this was somewhat of a consolation prize. Their lines felt unrehearsed and sloppy, and to be honest, James Franco seemed a little drunk. Hathaway was trying very hard to do well, but she somehow fell flat. Almost all of the presenters were veterans, and it was really nothing new as far as the jokes went. Whatever though, I definitely don't watch the Oscars for the writing.

This year was very interesting for me because it's the first year I've had the opportunity to do a live tweet during it. And trust me, I took advantage of that. I did almost 100 tweets tonight, which is close to clinical insanity I think. I felt like such a nerd IM'ing on Facebook, tweeting constantly, and watching the show. I'm glad I wasn't the only one though. I felt like I was having a tweet-off with Patton Oswalt. The guy was seriously posting something new every 30 seconds. Also, James Franco kept posting little live tweets from backstage that were borderline annoying.

I'll just come out and say that The King's Speech won best picture. The reason I say this is because TKS is the reason I watched the Oscars this year. I posted by Speech story a while ago from when I first reviewed the film, but here's a little recapitulation for you. When I went and saw TKS, I wasn't quite sure what to expect out of it because I had seen Rocket Science, another movie about stuttering, and although I loved it, I felt like it didn't truly capture the essence and angst of being a stutterer. It was just a character trait of the lead protagonist. But, for TKS, it was the character, which is the case for most stutterers. The stutter becomes a part of who you are, it's no longer just something you do. When I walked into this film, that's exactly how I felt. I felt like the stuttering was being done to me, not something I was doing. I felt helpless, like there was nothing I could do to stop it. I also felt very alone in my pursuit, because very few people, if any at all, that I knew had a stutter as severe as mine. In short, I was feeling like there was nothing left I could do. 121 minutes later, I walked out of that theater crying my eyes out. Not because I was sad, no, that was the last thing I was at that point. I was saved, from myself if anything. There aren't words to explain the feeling I had, but I can try.

For the next 45 minutes, I was letting it all out. The built up anger, the regret, the tension, the hatred I had toward myself. It was all gone. I, at that very moment, felt like a completely different person. A person that can do things, a person that could change the world. I felt understood, and empathized with. Now, all the people who go and see that movie will understand the struggle that I go through everyday just to withstand a conversation with somebody. Why do you think I started this blog? So I could honestly express what I was feeling without being held back by my own speech. After seeing that film, I walked out a new man. I'd never felt so good, and yet so vulnerable in my life before. Colin Firth's unflinchingly true performance forever changed the way I look at not only him, but at acting itself. Performances like that come maybe once in a generation. Mr. Firth, you are a Godsend in all meanings of the word. You've brought hope to millions of people around the world who are held back by stuttering. And that is where I'll end this little story.

If you're interested in reading my admittedly raucous, rude, and really funny tweets about the Oscars, go to www.twitter.com/joey123mo, and don't forget to follow me! I want to wish everyone a happy March, and I hope you had a wonderful February.

This week's Tweet of the Week is:

An eye for an eye makes the whole world broke from all those lasik eye surgery bills.


Thanks for reading everyone! If you go on my twitter and read the rest of my tweets, you can send your opinions on your pick of Tweet of the Week to rudeandraucous@hotmail.com! 

Forget Red Bull, fruit gives you wiiings..

Today in science class we were talking about our presentations and how we can effectively convey our message during the presentation. In groups we were each supposed to create a board representing what we thought could be classified as a "good presentation". Then, we were supposed to pick one person to go up and present our boards. Don't worry, I wasn't that guy, that's not where this story is going. Whenever a person went up, they explained what would be acceptable and unacceptable, etc. The odd thing was, whenever they got to the part where they explained how to present ourselves, most of them mentioned to not stutter. I don't necessarily have a problem with it, but it was definitely an awkward moment for me. Every time someone said the word stutter, no matter what context, I felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach, and I don't know why. In speech therapy, Mirla, my speech therapist, tells me that the word stutter is a very weighted word for me. I always agreed, but never truly noticed how much that word actually means to me, but with a negative connotation. Thinking about things like this over and over again, it makes me wonder if I can actually successfully do this presentation, because to be honest, I really don't think I can at this point. I've worked hard at it, but I really don't think I've got a 10 minute presentation and 10 minute Q&A session in me. I mean, I can anticipate all I want, but on March 11th at 8 AM, I'll know if all this work was actually worth it.

I've been more than thrilled with the positive reaction to "Keep You Alive". I just want to thank everyone who took the time out and spent 2 minutes and 8 seconds listening to a crappy recording of a Phoenix band. Lizz and I really appreciate it more than you know. We're working towards getting a drumset right now, so be on the lookout for that as well. If you're one of the unlucky souls who hasn't had the opportunity to hear the song, the link is everywhere. You can find it on my profile page, the previous blog post before this, my twitter page (www.twitter.com/joey123mo), as well as on my good friend Lola Valdez's page. She's Gentlemanly Anonymous' number one fan right now, and the video honestly wouldn't be possible without her. As for future releases from GA, look out for some new songs to be posted next week. I'm thinking that there's going to be about two covers as well as two originals. The two covers will be "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley and "Creep" by Radiohead. The two originals are called "You're Killing Me" and "Silent Shout". This number may increase between now and the next time we record, but I honestly don't know. As far as Lizz's music goes, she might be posting some stuff as well.

At ASA, we have a class called Life Skills. This quarter in Life Skills, we're doing a nutrition unit. For our quarter project, we're supposed to make a PSA (Public Service Announcement) on nutritious food. There wasn't much of a guideline as to what the PSA should entail, but my group decided on the topic of, "Fruit in correlation with strength". To illustrate this, we shot a one minute commercial. I honestly wrote, directed, and edited this thing, collectively, in less than 30 minutes, with no budget whatsoever. Please, don't be a judgmental snob. The reason I'm even bringing this up, is because for some reason, due to the positive reaction I got from it in my class, I decided to post it on YouTube. So, here is the link for our fruit commercial. Enjoy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG9L-P6Eljw

If you love it, great. If you hate, well then just go watch another Fellini movie and dump yourself into that Italian Neo-Realism that everyone just adores. Save the uneducated comedy for the rest of us.

Last night was my old school ACAA's Battle of the Bands. I really wanted to go, but I hadn't told my mom about it until we were passing Bell Road (where the school is). Through the grace of her heart, she let me go. I'm still in shock. Anyway, she let me go to the show, I get in, and I see a bunch of old friends from school. I suddenly feel at home. Also, I have to admit, as a stand-alone show, BOTB was great. All the bands were surprisingly good, and I admit I had a great time. Getting to see all my old friends, teachers, even enemies, it really did take me back. There's a band that emerged from ACAA called Saving Shea. Saving Shea has been around since I was in the 6th grade, where I first saw them play. Now, two years later, seeing them again, it really brought back the memories of my days there.

On a final note, the archive. I've been working on finding a place to put it where it's easy to reach, and you don't have to click a million and one links just to get there, so bear with me on that. Other than that, I've got nothing! Don't forget to follow me on twitter (link is above somewhere). Also, send all comments, questions, concerns, fan mail, and hate mail to rudeandraucous@hotmail.com! If you get a chance, don't forget to check out www.blogforteens.com!

Thanks for reading!

Lizz says hi..

I haven't written a new post in four days, and I didn't even realize that until last night at ten. This quarter at my school is the most hectic of them all, because it's known by all ASA'ers as presentation quarter. I've vaguely mentioned it before, but since it seems to be taking up 90% of my time, I might as well write about it. Presentation quarter consists of yes, a presentation, but also a lot of experiments, a lot of writing, and a lot of stress. I've never had to do anything quite this hard at any other school before, and I'm so glad it's basically over. But, in the last four days, a lot has happened, and I've got a lot to write about. Although February has been the month with the least amount of posts, I'm determined to make March better because I have almost half the month off from school, which will make for a lot of time and some good stories (hopefully).

Last weekend, I saw the movie Cedar Rapids with my family, and I wasn't expecting it to be as hilarious as it was. I can say with full confidence that it's possibly one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, if not the funniest. John C. Reilly and Ed Helms are a perfect pair, and Anne Heche is also hilarious. Read my full review of it at www.blogforteens.com!

Speaking of Blog For Teens, I've decided to make an archive of all my posts on said website. If the site were to ever shut down, or I were to ever leave/lose my position there, I still want to have proof that I wrote there, and the things that I did write. So, I'm going to keep an online archive of all the posts, as well as print them all out in case of a sudden shut-down of the internet (you never know when that could happen). When I get that done, I will definitely post a link for you guys to go see that, and read any of the older posts that you've never read, or even the new ones that you may have missed.

Yesterday morning, I went for my first 5 AM run. I made the decision, I don't even know why any more, but it seemed like it might be a good time. Basically, I get up at 4:30 to get ready, got dressed, and went outside. It was freezing. I almost had the sense to go back inside but I thought, "hey, I already got up and I'm outside, I'll just do it." I start running around the block, hoping that I don't catch pneumonia. I was really surprised about how many people were running at the same time. Then, of course, me being the lucky guy that I am, had a second encounter with a javelina in less than 5 months. The thing looked at me, and I thought, "my luck is up. I'm done. This thing is going to kill me." Thankfully, it kept walking, but at that point, I knew it was time to go home. I got back about 40 minutes later, hopped in the shower, got ready, and went to school. For it only being 6 AM, I was pretty much ready to go back to sleep.

That same day, at around 9:30, I was walking back to Science class from the bathroom, and I saw my friend Stefan. He was jumping on this ledge that connected to a roof that covers a space where there are 6 water fountains. I said hi to him and decided to try to jump on the ledge too. I jumped up, grabbed onto it, swung, let go by accident, and fell flat on my ass. I don't think I've ever been in that much pain before, and for the next day, moving became a BME Pain Olympic Sport.

In English, we read The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and now we're watching the movie, which I have to say, is absolutely horrible. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis, so I thought that there was no way it could be bad. I was very wrong. But I think it's very interesting, that Arthur Miller wrote both the play and the screenplay, which is almost awkward because the film takes too much advantage of the fact that it's a movie, and switches all the scenes around, making the whole thing almost useless. The Crucible, in my opinion, while a very good and interesting play, is ultimately just a self-serving piece of literature. Miller was angry at McCarthy and the Red Scare, so he vented by writing what is hailed as the best play ever written, go figure. While I respect Miller as an author on many levels, I've always felt that The Crucible was too personal for it to have its own opinion. While this may be true for many novels, I feel like if the writer really wants to get recognition, they must put aside their own opinions, and really try to have a new voice. The characters, as a whole, are boring, and some, if not most of the dialogue, is far-fetched, even considering the time period. I do respect the play for what it did, and I really did enjoy it, but I have my opinions I guess.

To end this post, I want to share a link of mine and Lizz's new band Gentlemanly Anonymous. The song is more than a demo version, and it's in a loud place, so some of the quality isn't great. Thank you Piera for accidentally coming up with the awesome name. Here it is, enjoy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dk11mCW-jY

Thanks for reading guys. Oh and by the way, Willow won't let me publish this unless I say tits..sorry. So, yeah, tits. I'll probably just delete this later :)

There are certain things in life that you just don't do..

Yesterday, I was getting Korean food with my family, and on the mandatory TV's that every restaurant has now, they were playing this type of Slam Dunk competition on TNT. Now usually, I would have no idea what was going on, and not even pay attention to it, but something about this particular competition that really struck me as odd. Maybe it's just the fact that I haven't actually sat down and watched a basketball game in almost 7 years, but everything seemed off. For one, they had this competition where the player would have to dunk the ball, and retrieve a teddy bear off the rim at the same time. He succeeded the first time, and they picked a small Asian boy from the stands to come get it as a prize. Now, that's pretty standard, but then, things got a little weird. The security for the game grabbed the boy by his arms for some reason, and dragged him away from the player as the player just walked back to his bench. At this point, I was just waiting for the product of what ever commercial this was to appear, but nothing happened. Did I really just see what I thought I saw? A small Asian boy being dragged away by 7 foot tall, 350 pound monsters enlisted to protect the life of another 7 foot tall, 350 pound monster (the basketball player)? Maybe I'm a little behind the times on what's considered good entertainment these days.

The next time I looked up at the TV to see what was going on, another player walked in with his wife (I think). The player was getting ready to do his dunks, but then the wife goes and starts kissing each of the judges on the cheeks. This isn't even the weird part. On the subtitles below (there isn't any sound emitting from the TV), it says something like, "Oh isn't that just nice, oh yeah. Oh yeah." Now, maybe I took it out of context, but...no, never mind, even if I did take it in or out of context, it's still creepy. Right? I mean, am I just so behind the times that I'm being weirded out by what Americans as a whole call good entertainment? Did I miss the "Sexual Exploitation of Women and Abuse of Children on TV" course or something? Maybe my standards are too high on what I consider to be "good" TV.

On Friday, I hung out with Coco, and we decided to see that Niam Leeson, I mean, Liam Neeson movie, Unknown. I'm going to skip writing a review on that one only because, well, it really sucked. Like, a lot. To the point where I may never look at Mr. Neeson the same way again. Or Diane Kruger for that matter. The basic and preposterous plot of this movie is this. Dude from Taken, not literally, just making a joke here people, don't get your panties in a rut, this movie is not a sequel to Taken, but it really feels like it. At 113 minutes, Unknown drags on exponentially, with almost no action. The characters are horribly developed, and the whole thing is plot hole after plot hole. Please, do us all a favor, and don't go see it. We need to send Mr. Neeson a message. Stop making bad movies!

I was talking to my old friend Alicia Robles, and we got on the subject of odd profile pictures that we've had in the past. She does what any logical person would do. She pulls out the profile picture I had a long time ago of some guy's bare ass. I meant it as a joke to everyone, and it worked. I'm not sure if anyone even remembers that at this point, but it did happen. Anyway, she pulled it up, and she says, "Well, you did have this." For me, that's a total cheap shot, but then she adds in, "But hey, you're the only person in the world who could have this as their profile picture and not have their motives questioned."

Another story about quirky friends. Last night, or morning depending on how look at it, at about 2 AM, I decided to IM my friend Lola Valdez. We got on the topic of movies, and we started talking about the movie Boogie Nights. She had never heard of it before, and says, "I bet it's about porn," just as I write, "It's about the porn industry." She had a total ZING! moment, and freaked out. Everything is funnier at 2 AM, I guess.

Thanks for reading guys! Don't forget to follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com/joey123mo! This week's "Tweet of the Week" is:

"The world is a desolate place at 2:45 AM. Wish I could like, prevent a rape or something.."

Blame Game

Today there isn't any school, which is definitely a blessing. Presentations, for lack of a better word, have been kicking my ass. I guess they started to feel bad for us. Rightfully so, too. I have this friend named Zola, who's a senior at ASA. She also plays trombone and she's in the top band, Wind Ensemble. I'm in the lowest band, Foundations 1. To give us a sneak preview of the band we'll probably be a part of in a few years, we're having this thing called a side-by-side concert on Tuesday, where we play with them on a few songs. It's been a really fun and cool experience and I've really enjoyed it. But yesterday, when I sat down next to Zola, she seemed really hysterical and hyper. I asked her what was wrong, and she just started laughing almost eerily, and says to me, "It's presentations! I'm losing my f%$*ing mind!" Part of me wanted to laugh, a large part of me actually, and the other part just wanted to put down the trombone and run as far away as I could from ASA. As much as I know that ASA will help me get into what ever college I want, I'm not totally sure I can handle that much stress. I mean, I don't necessarily want to be a senior losing my mind in front of an 8th grader, scaring them away from high school. I'm not sure I can handle that responsibility.

As I sit in the library, I could've sworn that a homeless Spike Lee just walked in with his kid. This dude had the eyes, the look, the walk, except he wasn't 4' 11" and 76 pounds. Not that I don't love every Spike Lee Joint ever, but I mean come on, does the dude only eat arugula and bean sprouts? Then again, after Bamboozled and She Hate Me, you can't really come back from that, even with Inside Man under your belt. And since when did he stop calling them Spike Lee Joints, and start calling them Spike Lee Films. Come on Spike, don't go too mainstream to the point where you can't go back.

Today is John Hughes' birthday, for those of you who didn't know that. The reason I bring that up, is because John Hughes is like, my other father. I love everything that that man has done. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, Home Alone, Beethoven, Sixteen Candles, and many more. Hughes tragically died 2 years ago in Manhattan of a heart attack. I think everyone should make some time to watch a John Hughes film this week.

I'm thinking of trying to get a new band together, and I'm wondering if there's anyone interested in contacting me about that. So if you are, shoot me an email at rudeandraucous@hotmail.com! Thanks! I'm interested in doing a lot of different genres, so let me know if you've got any ideas.

Recently, I've been utilizing my Twitter account more and more. I basically just post a bunch of one-liners that aren't on my facebook or anything, so if you want to see those, follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com/joey123mo. I'm thinking of having a little segment called "Tweet Of The Week". Basically, I would just look back on my tweets from that week and post my favorite one on here. It might pan out, it might not, depending on how much I like my tweets. I have a disorder called Rudeness where I just speak my mind without really thinking about it. I think that makes for some good tweets once in a while.

That's all for now! Thanks for reading this somewhat lame post! I promise the next one will be better, I just had the urge to write, with nothing to write about. Go figure.

Rotten Tomatoes

So, if anyone is wondering, or even cares at this point, my valentine's day plans went really well, and everything panned out how I wanted it to. So for that, I'm very happy. I was sort of scared at first because my "Cupid" wasn't at school on time so as a last ditch effort, I kind of just handed it to someone else in her class, but thankfully he showed up and did everything right. So thank you Diego Hoyos, for making Valentine's Day great. I owe you one.

Since it already happened, I can reveal my little plan. Basically, what I did was make four folders, each one with a different gift for her every class period. I kind of stole the idea from my friend Tammy (it's what she did for her boyfriend), but honestly, it was so amazing that I had to take it. Anyway, I had Diego give her one folder every class all morning. My mom happened to tell a few of her friends and they were all like, "How romantic!" and all that stuff. I was honestly a little embarrassed, but hey, it's Valentine's Day.

I have a music review for you to gobble up today. It's by my favorite folk-punk band, Andrew Jackson Jihad. If you've read any of my recent posts (which I hope you have, or else a lot of stuff I say doesn't fully make sense), you'll know that they're this amazing band from right here in good ol' Phoenix. The name of the album is Candy Cigarettes, Capguns, Issue Problems and Such. It's amazing. That's all I'm going to say, because I'm just a little pageview whore, and what I really want you to do is go to www.blogforteens.com and read the whole review, because it's pretty interesting I have to admit. But hey, here's a little link to buy or download it off of Amazon, which I recommend you do because it's totally worth it.

I'm not really supposed to do this yet, because it's still a work in progress, but I have a friend named Marcella Vitulli. She writes a blog as well. She used to be a huge writer, but kind of stopped after a while. I somehow convinced her to get back into it, and now she's started a new blog. Marcella is one of the smartest people I know, and she's only 22 (I think). Anyway, point is, check out her blog. There's only one post, it's very short, and I think that she's going to soon do great things with it. www.cellasaurus.blogspot.com! And to Marcella, I know you're going to read this, but don't hate me! Even if I totally just put excess pressure on you to write stuff.

Another blog I wanted to talk about today was my aunt Diana Diaz's photography blog. I posted a link a while back, but she's added many more photos. She's an amazing photographer, and you really need to check out her blog again. http://dianadiazphoto.blogspot.com/!

While we're on the topic of art, there's a certain documentary I want to talk about today. It's called Exit Through The Gift Shop. I think a lot more people have heard of it due to it's recent and necessary Academy Award nomination for best documentary. Directed by renowned street artist Banksy, ETTGS chronicles the birth, and inevitable death, of street art, through the eyes of a French man named Thierry. Thierry is a very, interesting man to say the least. He films everything (everything). He decides to film his cousin, the popular street artist Space Invader. From there, he meets Shepard Fairey, and eventually Banksy. Together, they film most of Banksy's life as an artist, but as he notes in the introduction, Thierry seemed to be a much more interesting man, so the movie just ended up being about him. The reason I love ETTGS, is that, it's got the pacing of an action film, enough jokes to classify it as a comedy, but enough fascinating story to keep your eyes glued. ETTGS is nothing short of a masterpiece, and an ode and insult to artists everywhere. Please see this film, you won't regret it.

That's all I've got for now. Don't forget to follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com/joey123mo, and send any comments, questions, concerns, just wanna say hey to rudeandraucous@hotmail.com! Do it!

I hate seeing movies with other people in the theater..

It somehow seems that in two days, I've been to the movie theater two more times and seen two more movies. Barney's Version, and True Grit. They were both fantastic films, and as much as I'd like to recreate both of my reviews for both of them, you can just read them all at www.blogforteens.com! But, I do have a story about my experience seeing True Grit today.

I go to the movies, too much if possible. My favorite theater is Camelview 5 in Scottsdale because it plays all the independent films that I like. But also because the audiences are usually very considerate of everyone else in the theater, which I totally dig. With an audience of 200 in there, it feels like you're the only one. I love that! But when you start going up north on the I-17, this isn't the case. I went to the Norterra 14 theater off of Happy Valley. I walk in, and it's relatively empty, score for me. Then this lady and her husband decided to sit right next to me. Like, out of all the open seats, they have to sit next to me. Then this guy starts eating peanuts loudly next to me. To make matters worse, he burped in my face once every like, twenty minutes, and I got a nice whiff of cigarette smoke, peanuts, and anus all in one. I'm surprised I didn't throwup on this guy.

Then, behind me, there was these really old, fat people who wouldn't stop complaining. Anytime something loud in the movie happened, one of them said "That's too loud," and the other said, "It's unbearable!" I'm not one to lose my cool in a movie theater, but I was pretty damn close. Thankfully it wasn't to the point where it was so distracting that I couldn't pay attention to the movie, because I really loved it.

I'm watching the Grammy's right now, and it really is just a horrible list of nominations. I loved the performances, but the nominations are just absolutely horrible. And the winner's are even worse. How did Kanye West not even get a nomination at all?! What kind of world do we live in!? You can read all the nominees and winners here http://www.grammy.com/nominees. Send all comments to rudeandraucous@hotmail.com, or just post them here!

Filming for If Found: Do Not Return, starts Wednesday! I'm pretty excited to be playing the lead role of Kemper Sorerbac and I'm interested in how it's all going to pan out. Don't forget to please, please, please, check out www.notforpublicuse.tumblr.com and follow! We're thankful for all of the fans that we get, so please! Tell your friends, tell your teachers, tell your family (well, maybe not), tell a hobo! Tell a foreigner! Tell them to tell another foreigner! Just do it!

As most people know, tomorrow is Valentine's Day. It's surprisingly one of my favorite holidays of the year. Now, that's not really the case with my valentine. She's probably reading this right now, and just banging her head into a wall, begging for forgiveness. Sorry, Coco, it's the holiday season! I have to squeeze every little bit of life out of this as I can. Now, because she's reading this, I'm not going to say anything more about tomorrow. Oh, and if you play sick and don't come to school, I'll probably never talk to you again :) Just saying.

In spirit of the holiday, I've decided to post a video. Yes, a video, for the first time. It's my favorite love song of all time, and it's actually by Andrew Jackson Jihad. Coincidentally enough, it's called "I Love You". It's the most honest, realistic, and heartwarming love song ever written. Check it out!

That's all for now guys, I hope you have a great Valentine's Day! Be safe! And remember, it's all over once the socks come off! Thanks for reading guys!

Damn viruses..

I haven't posted in five days, and it's basically killing me, not to be melodramatic or anything. My reason behind it is, my computer got a virus from me downloading too many mixtapes on datpiff. At least, I think that's what happened. With computers now, it's almost impossible to tell. So now, I've been unflinchingly reduced to praying that I get a little time on the computer somewhere, whether it be on the library computers, or my mom's office.

Today, I've got two film reviews and nothing in particular planned, but we'll see where it goes from there. The first review is for a Greek film called Dogtooth. I actually saw Dogtooth when it was first released in 2010 (well 2009 for Greece but whatever). I really wasn't sure how I felt about it at the time, and I decided not to review it because I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. Almost a year passed by, and I decided to watch it again, mainly because it was the only interesting film on Netflix at the time. I watched it again from Midnight to 2 AM on a Saturday night, and paid more attention to the technical aspects of it, as well as the already intriguing story. On my second viewing, all the missing puzzle pieces that were there the first time all fell into place. Dogtooth is definitely not a film for everyone. In fact, it's not for most people. Imagine a Greek David Lynch film with a theme more reminiscent of a dystopian novel. The film switches from increasingly dry, to explicitly sexual, to insanely bizarre in a matter of minutes, but I think that's why I like it. None of the characters have names, and I think this is done to make the viewer refrain from making an emotional connection to any of the characters, whether they be good. That right there is the most interesting aspect of the film; it has no emotion. Until the third act, of course. That's all I'm going to say for now. Dogtooth is a fantastic Greek film that definitely earned its Oscar nomination.

The second review of the day is for a much less sophisticating and intellectually stimulating movie, not even film, movie, called The Roommate. Now, anyone who knows me knows that never in my right mind would I see The Roommate on my own. No, I had to miss True Grit because Piera doesn't know how to run to catch a lightrail. Because of this, we had to catch The Roommate as a last resort, because nothing else was starting at 5:15. We walk in, and there's literally no one else in the theater, a sure sign that this movie was going to suck...royally. After the previews for other films that are going to suck, The Roommate starts, with a horrible pop song that feels totally out of place. This trend continued for the rest of the movie. Everything felt random and out of place. The characters were drastically undeveloped. In fact, the only sympathy we feel is for the cat. You'll see why if you watch the movie. The only other character who we can possibly feel any sympathy for in my opinion is Cam Gigandent's character Stephen. The rest are absolutely throwaway, cliche, and underwritten characters that I didn't care whether or not if they died. Another thing that bothered me significantly was the PG-13 rating of this movie. It probably would've been better if it were Rated-R, for so many reasons. With that being said, I walked in the theater with my expectations being probably as low as they could possibly be, so part of me ended up slightly enjoying the stupidity of it. That's one thing about the horror genre that never gets old; even if the film is horrible, it's still enjoyable to a sense for the cheap thrills and bad script. I don't necessarily discourage you from seeing this, but I'm most definitely not encouraging you either.

Principal photography for Not For Public Use productions is Wednesday. Since Wednesday is a half day, we get like five hours of pretty much uninterrupted shooting, which will be fun. I really don't have much to say about that, but I'll see if I can post a few pictures on my facebook afterwards.

That's about it for now. Check out my twitter. www.twitter.com/joey123mo, not that I really post on it. Also, you can add me on Facebook (if I know you) at www.facebook.com/joey123mo. Thanks for reading!

Packers=$50 for Joey!

Today was one of the biggest days of the years. The superbowl. I went to Matt's house to watch it because my Mom and Tom didn't want to watch it, but I had to because I had $50 on it. Anyway, the Packers won, and I got the $50 so I'm pretty happy about that. I had a feeling they would win. I haven't watched a game all season, and yet I win a superbowl bet. How do I do it?

Matt is one of my best and oldest friends; I've known him for almost three years. I posted a facebook status saying how I wanted to go to someone's house for the game, and not 20 minutes later, I get a call from him saying, "Hey dude, wanna come over?!" It's like he's stalking me. Fast forward three hours, I get to his place and he's playing a Pink Floyd song in the garage. Please note that he had spent the past 3 hours sending me a text every five minutes asking me where I was.

We go up to his room, or his man-cave. He's got four guitars, and a drum set in his closet. On the TV is 1,000 Ways To Die, and he's got a huge window view of the rest of his block, where he probably flashes his testicles to the neighbors. I was looking around, trying to telepathically burn his DVD of Smokey and the Bandit, when all of a sudden, he starts playing Andrew Jackson Jihad off of his iPod! All I could think was, YES! The word has spread! I kind of realized that people who read my blog really take what I say about music and listen. Kind of makes me feel like a musical advocate for the rest of the world.

My condensed film review of the day is Biutiful. It stars Javier Bardem, one of the best actors of this generation. He's a medium who's got a terminal illness. With two months left to live, he contemplates how he is going to leave his children. His ex-wife is borderline psychotic, and he really has no friends. This is one of those films that really can't be described with a simple plot description. It's such a complex, symbolic, inter-connected, and interesting, that you have to see it to believe it. Biutiful, as beautiful as it is, is also one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen. Not because it has gruesome violence or rape, it's because it's such a hauntingly realistic, and unsettling film, that it makes you realize, this is actualy happening all over the world. Overall, Biutiful is a must-see for those with a long attention span (it's 147 minutes long), and a lot of will power. I give this film an A-, it really deserved it. You can read my full review of it on http://www.blogforteens.com/!

So, an acting opportunity has "come to light" for me. It's being in If Found: Do Not Return. I've been repeatedly offered the lead role, the main killer if you will, and I've denied and denied it until now. I finally accepted, among other reasons, because I think it might be a fun experience for me. I'm not sure why exactly, but I think it will. I mean, how many people get to star in a movie where they're killers at 14? Not a lot. I still have to do a couple readings and make sure that I really want the part, but I think I'm going to do it.

Thanks for reading today's post guys! Send all questions, ideas, comments, concerns, etc. to rudeandraucous@hotmail.com! Also follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com/joey123mo! Thanks! Oh, and Tumblr! www.tumblr.com/joey123mo!

Andrew Jackson Jihad

I just realized now that I haven't done a post in four days, and I just wonder where all the time went. I guess I've just been so busy at school that I haven't really had the time to do anything else at this point. Yesterday, which was first Friday, was one of my only times to relax this week. On top of that, mono has been going around our school, and I've been feeling pretty crappy. But on the other hand, this week I did an interview, and I'm also setting a couple more of them up.

I want to start off today by talking about a band. They're an amazing local band called Andrew Jackson Jihad. They're a two man band made up of Sean Bonnette, who is the lead singer and guitarist, and Ben Gallaty, who plays the upright bass. It was actually Rachel who got me interested in them, so much so that I decided to Facebook Mr. Bonnette himself. To my surprise he replied almost instantly, and I sent him a message about an interview. He agreed, and I sent my questions in. Since there are a lot of them (18 to be exact), I don't expect him to reply for a couple of days, maybe even a week at this point. I'm just excited to have had the opportunity to interview this guy. His music is very unique, incorporating Anti-Folk and Punk. I can talk about it all I want, but if you want to listen to, I can post a couple of links as well as an Amazon thing. They have a few albums out, but my absolute favorite one is People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World, followed by, Can't Maintain. Trust me, they're worth the money.

Another thing I wanted to talk about today was this episode of True Life that I saw on MTV. Ironically enough, it was about stuttering. I had no idea that they had even produced an episode about stuttering, but my mom sent me the link after she had heard about it and watched it on the MTV website. Basically, the episode follows three people who have a stutter. Tim from West Virginia who can't afford to pay his rent because his stutter prevents him from getting  a good job. Caryn, a 20 year old college student who has hidden her stutter from her family and friends for her whole life, but is tired of keeping it a secret, and finally, Jessica, a 20 year old beauty pageant connoisseur from Buffalo, NY. The episode was really intriguing and truthful about stuttering, and I felt like I could really relate to it, seeing what the three of them went through. So, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to post a link for it. It's 37 minutes long, so be sure to make some time for it. I'm also definitely not saying you have to watch it, but I suggest you do.

http://www.mtv.com/videos/true-life-i-stutter/1574617/playlist.jhtml

I want to end the night with my first Friday story. When our little group was walking around on the outskirts of the first Friday zone, we saw this meth house, or drop house. We must have gotten there at the exact right time, because we saw these two meth heads walk in with crutches and a paper bag. I was pretty freaked out by it, I must admit. On the side of the house, by the gate, was spray painted "Keep out keep your life!" The ironic thing is that my friend Nikki also saw something similar, and posted it on her site, http://www.notforpublicuse.tumblr.com/, so you can check that out too if you want. Fast forward to about 10:00 PM, and my mom and I had just dropped off Lizz at the lightrail station. My mom decided to have a Good Samaritan change of heart and wanted to take Lizz to where she was staying, Piera's house. Piera lives in Tempe. That's about a 20 minute drive from where we were. We proceeded to pick her up, while I jumped out of the car, and Lizz and I chased after her around the block, getting stares from everyone around us. When we finally were able to catch up with the car, we hopped in and started driving. The drive itself wasn't very exciting, but when we got to Piera's house, Piera ran out, and we helped Lizz bring her stuff in. To my surprise, Willow was also sleeping over, and she was knocked out on Piera's bed. Piera woke her up, she jumped, and looked around, almost like she was trying to remember where she was. She saw me, and her eyes got all wide. She said "Jjjooooooeeeyyyyy" and got up from the bed and gave me a hug. While Lizz was getting all her stuff out and getting ready with Piera, Willow just looked around the room not quite sure what to do with herself. She was sick with mono I think it was, so she had just taken a few painkillers. After about a minute, all she could say was, "Hey guys, look, Joey's here!"

I felt like I was there for the longest time...

Today was the day that I had my voice concert, where I had to sing in a quartet with four other people (get it?) We sang "The Longest Time" by Billy Joel being backed up by about 60 singers behind us. It really wasn't outnumbered at all. We got up there, sang our song about two notches too flat, got the applause we really didn't earn that much, and went back and sat down. Now, contrary to popular belief, our choir singing wasn't the funny part, it was things that I thought about while the other choirs were up.

The first one that caught my eye as a little odd was the 7th hour Foundations 1. They sang "Lollipop" (You know, Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolli-lolli-lolli lollipop!). At first I thought, hey, this could be kind of cool. Then they started doing these dance moves that I thought were a little, well, provocative for a 7th and 8th grade choir. I felt like the entire point of that song was to sexually exploit twelve year olds, especially with the combination of the lyrics and dance moves. I'm by no means a conservative, but the rate at which teen girls are "maturing" is pretty astonishing. I mean, we've got pole dancing dolls now for little kids. Yes, pole dancing dolls. For kids ages 5 and up. I'm not even going to start on that one.

My next issue was with a song sung by 7th hour Women's Choir. It was a religious song, all about Jesus telling Moses to go to Egypt. I have no issues with the song, because, I admittedly thought that it was really catchy, and the three soloists who participated were fantastic. My problem with the song was, they were singing about fleeing to Egypt, when right now, there's a violent freedom fighting revolution happening in Egypt, and people are literally murdering one another to get out. Ironic? I think so.

My final problem with the concert, was that we had to clap like every two minutes. I honestly felt like I was at the State of The Union. All I wanted to do was nod off and have a nice nap before I went home. But no, we have to actually watch the show. And since every supervising teacher was surrounding us, like we were fresh jail-bait, texting or listening to music wasn't an option either.

When we finally got out, Melissa admitted that she and Jia started to doze off towards the end. I told them that they were lucky and that I sort of did too. I have to confess, I played rock, paper, scissors with Coleson for the last 20 minutes of the show.

I know that this blog isn't very long, I'm just feeling kind of sick, and to top it off, I missed Tosh.O today which makes me very mad. I'll be back with some new stuff for you guys soon. Don't forget to check out my writing on http://www.blogforteens.com/!

Thanks for reading!