Prelude to Batman on Film

So before I go into all this, I want to say that I don't really care for either Christopher Nolan or Tim Burton. I think that they're fatuous blowhards who think too highly of themselves, their abilities and their "style," and despite my undying love for Batman, the movies about him just aren't all that great.


One of the problems with both directors is that their ideas are simply recycled from their old work, or taken totally from somebody else.

This is a drawing of The Joker Burton wanted in his movie: 

And this is the Mad Hatter from Burton's recent Alice in Wonderland film.

Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan borrowed other ideas. Here's his Joker:

And here's Ichi the Killer, from 2001.

Here is the Nolan concept art for his Joker:

And here is Mason Verger from 2001's Hannibal:

So, yeah, these aren't fresh ideas in the first place, but that's not a major complaint here. Any writer worth their salt will tell you that everything's been done already--the trick is to put a new spin on something, make it your own. Both Nolan and Burton did this in their Batman movies, to mixed results.

Burton had the right idea at first stylistically speaking. Batman works in the noirish atmosphere of Burton's Gotham City. In some way everyone in the city is fucked up--from the people to the architecture. It never really feels like there's a difference between the day and night. Where Burton starts to falter is that he didn't really want to make this particular Batman movie. He wanted to adapt The Dark Knight Returns, which the studio wouldn't back because they wanted to do a younger Bruce Wayne first. Also, Burton didn't care for superheroes. That's why his conceptual art of the Joker was tamed by a trench coat, hat and sunglasses. Burton's Batman was an art-deco post-modern noir film with sickos in masks. His idea to make Batman a killer was more realistic, but didn't jive with most of the history of the character. The idea of making the Joker also the killer of Batman's parents makes things more cyclical and adds a layer of myth to their story, but doesn't really do much for long-term fans and it's more of a plot convenience than anything else.  

The versions of Batman they used were also flawed: Burton's was a paranoid sociopath, while Nolan's Batman was a societal symbol. Since these characters are very old, every decade or so there is the need to revitalize and update the characters which means that all these different takes on Batman & co. are indeed valid, but not all of them are great. The Batmen of the Burton and Nolan franchises are largely different; neither worked entirely, but neither failed entirely either.This is something we'll be getting into much more in the coming chapters. 

Nolan didn't make a real Batman movie either. His are crime movies, more closely akin to Heat (though not nearly as good). The realism Nolan injected into his take on Batman is, in the end, its greatest weakness. Nolan's Ra's al Ghul isn't interesting at all since they had to take away his longevity, his Joker is a dull terrorist, and on top of all of that, Nolan's villain choice is greatly diminished because Batman's rogues are also comic book characters: they aren't realistic. Batman himself stops being a realistic character the moment Bruce Wayne puts on pointed ears and starts beating up the mentally ill while having the full support of the police department, so I really don't understand his overly realistic take.  

My feelings towards the films are also somewhat tainted by the director's personalities. It influences my feelings on the films, which isn't a good thing, but it's really hard not to take a different look at the films when Christopher Nolan went out of his way to say how much he loved Burton's Batman films only to start ripping them a few months before Begins was released, and as for Burton, he went the Al Gore/Internet route, by basically taking credit for live action superhero movies. They're directors and schmucks. The James Cameron/Avatar route.

Superhero movies shouldn't be live action. What looks cool in animation looks ridiculous in live action, and it's easier (financial speaking) to produce an animated movie that looks and sounds amazing. You don't have to look the part, you just have to sound right. Which, admittedly, can be feast or famine, but not nearly as bad as seeing Liam Neeson take a nap for two hours as he plays a European Ra's al Ghul or have Nicolas Cage run around in a bad toupée and a biker jacket. You can do more with animation. And I wouldn't have to deal with Ryan Reynolds playing Hal Jordan.

I'm already off on a tangent, so I'll try to end on a focused note: Batman has had some pretty flawed movies, and we'll be exploring the ins and outs, the positives and negatives of the Burton and Nolan versions. I won't be covering the Schumacher movies because, really, there's nothing left to say about them. Just terrible.

We'll be splitting the movies up--Batman Begins and Batman--the first chapters, and The Dark Knight and Batman Returns--the inevitable sequels.  

December

December is going to be a fairly nerdy month here on the blog. I'll be exploring the flawed Batman films--with Batman Returns being the Christmas movie of the year. The schedule is as follows:

12/4: Batman Begins

12/11: Batman

12/18: The Dark Knight

12/25: Batman Returns

Throughout the month we'll also be taking a look at writer's block, and Rex Pickett's novels (presuming, of course, Vertical arrives on time; if not I'll have to put it off to early next year, like my review of Mark Millar's Nemesis).

Chantix

This article began with a comment left on my Smoker Discrimination article which you can read here. The commenter mentioned that the drug Chantix would help people quit smoking. It took me some time, but I finally got around to checking out Chantix, and the lulz were just rolling in. It seems that this cure for smoking is more dangerous than smoking. Once in a while, the universe just smiles.

Chantix (Varenicline) has been reported to cause major psychological issues and psychotic breakdowns (such as paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, rage, etc) to the point that people have died such as Carter Albrecht and almost many others due to these side effects. It was also tested on veterans to help treat PTSD. It did not go well--a soldier almost killed himself after a psychotic episode. Well done. God knows these poor veterans surely haven't been through enough. Naturally, FDA approved this drug for sales in America; it's also for sales in Canada and the European Union.

I'd hate to keep reporting from Wikipedia--as I said, I'm an opinionated writer not a journalist, and also because it's fucking Wikipedia, but I'm just going to copy/paste some lovely stats from them anyway.

On September 3, 2007, musician Carter Albrecht was shot and killed by his girlfriend's neighbor. Albrecht's girlfriend and others close to him have publicly claimed that varenicline contributed to the erratic behavior which led to his death. [19]

On Thursday, May 22, 2008, The New York Times reported that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration had announced the day before a ban on the use of varenicline for both pilots and air traffic controllers, due to concerns with possible adverse neuropsychiatric effects which could be detrimental to public safety.[20]

On Sunday, May 25, 2008, The Los Angeles Times reported that over 2 dozen traffic accidents had been linked to varenicline and reported to the FDA. Warnings had previously been issued by Pfizer regarding the risks of varenicline while driving. However, these warnings have largely been ignored by doctors and patients.[21]

On Tuesday, June 17, 2008, The Washington Times reported on its Front Page that the United States Department of Veterans Affairs was testing varenicline on war veterans with post traumatic stress disorder without properly warning them of the side effects, and that in one case a veteran was almost killed when he had a psychotic episode and threatened police officers.[22]

On October 23, 2008, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices issued an analysis of prescription drug-related injuries reported to the FDA during the first quarter of 2008. According to the report, varenicline had more reported incidents than any other drug, with 1001 new cases of adverse effects and 50 more deaths reported. (Heparin, the drug with the second highest number of injury reports, had 779 new cases, most of which were connected to a contaminant inadvertently introduced into the drug in early 2008). In comparison, the ISMP reported that in the first quarter of 2008 there were 17 serious injury reports for nicotine-replacement products, and 44 reports for bupropion (sold as Zyban as a smoking cessation medication). Varenicline did not rank in the ten drugs with the most related deaths, but did rank first in reports of suicide or self-injury, with 228 reports citing these effects. The ISMP noted that the high number of varenicline-related injury reports may be related to the publicity surrounding the medication's potential side effects. [23]

On January 15, 2009, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices issued its analysis of prescription drug-related injuries reported to the FDA during the second quarter of 2008. During this period there were 910 newly-reported cases of serious injury attributed to Varenicline, including 38 deaths. In addition to the above-reported psychiatric effects, the report noted increasing evidence linking Varenicline to "potentially life-threatening allergic reactions." According to the report, Varenicline had the second-highest number of new injury reports during this quarter. By comparison, Digoxin had the highest number, with 1882 injury reports and 650 associated deaths, the majority of which were linked to a manufacturing quality control problem and subsequent recall of the Digitek brand of Digoxin. [24]

On February 4, 2009, Health Canada announced that it had received more than 800 complaints from Canadian users, many of them reporting mood swings, depression or suicidal thoughts.[25]

On June 3, 2010, Health Canada also announced changes to the Canadian Product Monograph that include changes in mood or behaviour (such as depressed mood, agitation, aggression, hostility, thoughts of self-harm or harm towards others); serious allergic reactions (such as swelling of the face, lips, gums, tongue and throat that can cause trouble breathing) and skin reactions (such as rash, swelling, redness, and peeling of the skin); neuropsychiatric side-effects in patients taking varenicline with or without a history of psychiatric disorder; drinking alcohol increasing the risk of experiencing neuropsychiatric side effects; and side-effects such as sleepiness, dizziness, loss of consciousness, seizures, or difficulty concentrating. Health Canada advised those taking varenicline not engage in potentially hazardous activities, such as driving a car or operating dangerous machinery until they know how they may be affected by varenicline.[26]

For further evidence, I point to an article by Derek De Koff of NY Magazine who tested Chantix himself to nearly fatal results: http://nymag.com/news/features/43892/

So there it is, faithful readers: the cure is worse than the disease. Smoke up.

The "Saw" Film Franchise Part 2: ...See?

As far back as maybe Saw 2 or 4, the writers envisioned a total of eight movies. The last two would be considered one full story broken into two parts. However, Saw 6 bombed, so the studio decided that the next movie would be the last. The series was showing its wear pretty obviously, even with some interesting positives (aforementioned attempts at character development and Kevin Greutert’s able direction) and the traps went from the disturbingly cool reverse bear trap to mundane pipe bombs. (Eventually, in Saw 7, instead of a trap, people just hung on to a pipe while trying not to fall on knives. Fuck writing.) The story itself was too convoluted, the situations becoming too far out, reasoning was ever thinning, there were too many dangling characters and plot threads and maybe it was just time to send Jack Bauer to cancellation. Shit, sorry, wrong ailing franchise.

Adding to the problems was the studio purposely screwing over Kevin Greutert. You see, he was pretty popular as a director even though Saw 6 bombed. He was hired then to make Paranormal Activity 2, only to be forced into directing Saw 7 because of a contractual obligation Twisted Pictures decided to enforce. This was done because the first Paranormal Activity pretty much destroyed Saw 6 in the box office, and Twisted didn’t want to lose the fight again, especially when one of their own directors was helping them. Greutert filmed Saw 7 against his will—he made this fact known very, very loudly and often complained about the limitations placed on everyone to get the film written and filmed and released. Saw 7 beat Paranormal Activity 2 at the box office by leaps and bounds. Saw 7 was the worst of the sequels.

When thinking of Saw 7: 3D I am reminded of a line from Fox Mulder in the final episode of The X-Files, The Truth: "A bullet between the eyes would have been preferable to this charade." While the twists in Saw were becoming increasingly transparent with every movie, this was obvious enough for Ray Charles to see, and he’s blind and dead! Let me tell you something: when a character in a movie claps slowly it means one of two things: he’s either being sarcastic (usually happens in comedies) or he’s secretly the bad guy (as in horror movies). The slow bad guy clap is also a cliche. Add that to Saw's List of Mindless Writing. Dr. Gordon being the bad guy wasn’t a twist. It was both obvious and stupid. The reason we’re given is from John: “You were my greatest asset.” Why? How? You kidnap this guy for committing adultery (though he hadn’t gone through with it), threatened to kill his wife and daughter, make him cut off his foot to try to find them only to survive and lose his family presumably through divorce, so naturally this person would be your best friend?

That look definitely says Good Guy.

What bothered me in the opening trap was that it had to take place out in the open, on a busy street. Why did it need to be there? It served no purpose as far as the game was concerned, and must have been needlesly risky and time consuming to set up. How did Hoffman set all this up without anyone noticing? And why didn't the cops simply just shoot the glass? Should I stop asking these questions and try to get a refund? Hoffman pretends to be a corpse and gets into the morgue within the police station and goes on a violent rampage. Most large cities (and many small ones) have a coroner's office. A coroner's office isn't in the police station.

For a movie that was meant to be about the legacy of Jigsaw—namely a battle between Jill Tuck and Hoffman, Jill spends the entire movie scared and hiding. Where was the badass chick from Saw 5 and 6? Was Jill just on the rag then?

The idea of a Jigsaw survivor writing a book and becoming famous is a pretty good one; the fact that Bobby was a fake wasn’t bad either. However, this should have been a subplot instead of the main plot. It also doesn’t help when he repeatedly fails to save his loved ones because we’ll just see the next failure coming. Especially that last one with his wife, which actually goes to prove my point about Jigsaw’s sanctimony: an innocent woman killed because of some asshole she knows.

While we’re on the subject of the Jigsaw survivors—I liked how a lot of these survivors were from previous movies, it was a nice nod to continuity. What confuses me is the fact that many of them were confessed criminals. Shouldn’t have most of them been tried after the fact?

Here are two fun questions: If you see that Tobin Bell has basically kept weight of this franchise on his back, has basically kept this franchise going, why would you only have him in one scene in the entire movie? In the same vein, why so greatly advertise Cary Elwes’ return to the franchise only to have him appear in two scenes? How is that a good way to thank the fans or end the series? And what the fuck was Kara Thrace in the end? A ghost? An angel? Knowing Ronald D. Moore she was probably another fucking "echo." Damnit, sorry, it happened again.


I wish I could accurately describe how awful this movie is. I think what's most infuriating is the fact that everyone seemed to be phoning it in (except, of course, Tobin Bell who is nothing short of a saint for putting up with this). Everything about the movie seems forced, rushed, poorly thought out, silly to the point of parody. It can be argued that every Saw movie was like that, and you can really get far with that argument, but this movie managed to go beyond that. No one was able to find it in themselves to give a shit and it showed.

Before I wrap this up, I want to give a special shout out to Chad Donella who played Gibson in Saw 7. Instead of acting, he did his best Ryan Gosling for 87 minutes. I'd like to give another shout out to Simon Northwood who played Lead SWAT Officer—what did I say about characters who names are their jobs?—who channeled his inner Robocop.

There’s a rumor going around the Saw is going to be rebooted in short order with Bryan Cranston playing Jigsaw. I love Breaking Bad and I have poor judgment so I’d likely check it out. At the end of the day Saw did reinvigorate horror movies and helped to rebirth (along with Hostel) a sub-category in the genre—take that as you will. Saw can be fun if taken in small doses; the atmosphere and Tobin Bell sell this series.



And here, for the sake of OCD, are the inevitable rankings, and please remember that scores are relative to their franchise and genre.

Saw: 4 out of 5.

Saw 2: 2 out of 5.

Saw 3: 3 out of 5.

Saw 4: 2 ½ out of 5.

Saw 5: 3 ½ out of 5.

Saw 6: 3 ¾ out of 5.

Saw 7: 1 out of 5.

The franchise: 3 out of 5.

The "Saw" Film Franchise Part 1: It Could Always Get Worse...

This will be a retrospective that covers the whole of the Saw series. In the words of Edward Blake, "God help us all."

I've watched every Saw movie either opening day or opening week in the theater without fail since the first one. In order to get myself ready for the final installment, I decided to go ahead and download all six previous films and watched them in a two day long marathon of bad acting and Rube Goldberg traps. And do you know what I've gleaned during this 11 hour clusterfuck? Jigsaw is a sanctimonious dick. But before we get to that, let's start at the beginning.

From beginning to end, the Saw franchise can be described easily in two words: occipital rape. This is in reference to the aforementioned bad acting and traps and also to the god awful writing. And I'd like to say that this was the result of the idea of diminished returns, that with every sequel the more a franchise begins to dilute and begin to fail. But, in all honesty, the shitty writing was there from day one.

Naturally, of course, the idea of diminished returns applies here because, in the end, the first Saw is the best. But it doesn't exactly make it a good movie. Also, so we don't come to a problem later, a 4 out of 5 for Saw is not the same as a 4 out of 5 for There Will Be Blood. Scores are comparable to others in their franchise or genre.

The original Saw is a mindless movie, and with a little thought you can really see its flaws. However, its atmosphere, music, and pace keep things moving so you still can enjoy yourself if you suspend disbelief beyond reasonable borders and allow yourself to be taken in by it. As with many low budget horror movies, less is more, and a lot of the first Saw is pretty bare bones--the violence mostly suggested and not actually seen, just the results or frenetic camera motions that make you think something horrible is going on. That's not to say watching Amanda wading in the intestines of some poor slob isn't graphic, but compared to the over the top violence we experienced in later movies when the franchise was given more money, it seems tame.



Cary Elwes wants to talk to his agent.



The fact that the first Saw needed to do more with less made the violence rarer and all the more enjoyable. The first Saw really wasn't a horror movie--really more akin to a suspense-thriller. There was an underlying dread that was effective--we knew something was going to happen and that it wasn't going to be good, but we didn't know when or how. That kind of suspense died in the sequels--it's going to be bad and it will happen in short order so who really cares--just move on to the wet red stuff.

Saw also had one of the few attempts in the series to actually add depth to its characters. Dr. Gordon and Adam were polar opposites and they really came to distrust, hate and eventually rely on each other. I've often complained about the fact that certain TV shows or movies have a lack of character development and that makes it harder for me to like said feature. However, there is something to be said for plot driven stories--LA Confidential, Heat, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and Die Hard are all excellent story driven dramas, but when it comes to these survivalist horror movies you need to care about the person in peril. In the Saw movies we are only supposed to focus on the violence and kinda feel bad for the hapless putz who's stuck in the middle of Jigsaw's latest morality trips. Even in the original, we don't feel bad for Dr. Gordon and Detective Tapp but for Cary Elwes and Danny Glover because they should be in far better movies. What Saw did correctly in developing their primary characters (Dr. Gordon and Adam) is making them human. By that I mean they're flawed. Adam is ambitionless and angry, and Dr. Gordon has his life's priorities all fucked up. These are regular people in an extreme situation and it shows.

At the end, Dr. Gordon attempts to kill Adam, regretting he has to, but desiring to protect his family more. Even Dr. Gordon's act of bravery at the end (right in time for the climax--thanks Doc!) by cutting off his foot is handled with all the horror any one of us would have felt. All he did was slink away into failure while Adam, in his own attempt at bravery in fighting Zep, is rendered moot and meaningless. They did ugly things, the way we would, and they failed. Adam and Dr. Gordon failed to see what was right in front of them. They acted like regular people, and that's what made the movie a success. That and the pretty kick ass twist at the end.

Saw 2 is the weak link in the first trilogy because it suffered from the success of the original. There were more victims, more twists, more everything and it didn't work. Most of the people being tested were never developed--we only knew that they were arrested by Eric Mathews. Had character development or subtlety mattered to the writers, they could use the revelations about what these people had done and how the events of their lives brought them to this place. Instead they were just walking meat--it didn't matter who they were, they were random casualties fed to the audience to satiate the blood lust. John's role also began to become sanctimonious here, giving Mathews a lot of shit for things that weren't even his business. Plus--kidnapping his son is more of a punishment for the son than for Mathews because he's stuck in a fucking house of angry degenerates.


Saw 3 decreased the number of characters, decreased the twists, and made the biggest mistake in all of the seven movies—killing off Jigsaw. At the same time, however, Saw 3 was overly complex as far as who was tricking who, who was testing who and why all this needed to happen in such an overly complex way. Had the film been more streamlined it would have been less silly. What it did correctly, however, was tying all of the plots together--the doctor, the dad, the games, they all were interconnected and it worked. We were actually surprised by the twist that Jeff and Lynn were married, and more surprised that John would actually be killed off. What happened to the series after that isn't being questioned right now. At that moment, the twist was quite surprising. The tests in Saw 3 actually had thematic relevance, a rarity for the series (though there were a few thematic tests in 5 and 6).

After creators Leigh Whannell and James Wan decided to leave the franchise for other ventures, Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan took over the writing of the rest of the films, which Darren Lynn Bousman directed (Saw 3, 4 and 5; the final two were directed by Kevin Greutert). Saw 4 was a transitional movie that saw the focus of the franchise shift to a new Jigsaw in the infinitely less interesting Detective Hoffman (though Costas Mandylor did try his best with what little he was given), while Tobin Bell’s John was relegated to flashbacks filling in the character’s history. The only problem is that it only becomes relevant maybe three times in the series. Saw 4 was incredibly messy. It worked to sew up the loose threads of the first trilogy while adding something new, but it didn't really work. Rigg's game was fucking stupid, as was John's reason for picking him as the object--that Rigg needed to let go of his obsessions. Again, John, this is a personal choice, a way of life he's made for himself. He isn't a killer, a rapist, a pervert, or degenerate. Leave him alone. It doesn't concern you.

The sequels to Saw really exist only to try to spackle over the plot holes, continuity errors and common sense gaps (and to wring money out of wallets like water from a dish rag). However, the flashbacks that told the story of John’s rise to Jigsaw keeps these movies from falling into something totally suicide inducing. Tobin Bell obviously loved playing the character and it shows; moreover, the writers seemed to place their bulk of their efforts in writing his scenes (the rest of the effort went to the growing violence). Saw 5 and 6 managed to be the most adult in its writing, adding a new take on the now old story—the primary mystery was how Hoffman was going to cover up his role as the new Jigsaw, and the trapped people were now smarter (though, perhaps, not enough to keep the audience from yelling at them from time to time) and almost metatextual in the way they telegraphed certain events within the game.

Those tested in Saw 5 were very stupid people, but also managed to be smart. I don't know how to explain it. The theme was for all of them to work together--this is stated outright--and they were smart enough to know about the Jigsaw victims and that you have to listen to he says, and they listened, but only when the plot required it. That means they can work together for one test and then start killing each other in the next one because, you know, the plot. It tends to destroy the audience's suspended disbelief, and we become aware of the writer's hand, the fact that this is just a silly little movie. Its saving grace was the mostly tangential John story, where his life with Jill Tuck reached its peak and sudden, sad decline.

Saw 6 likely should have been retitled, Saw 6: Jigsaw Gets on his Political Soapbox for the fact that John repeatedly rants about the poor state of American health care, corrupt insurance companies and banks. Ironically, this is actually my favorite of the sequels, due mostly to its surprisingly tight and simple story, new color palate courtesy of Kevin Greutert, and the always excellent Peter Outerbridge. Hot milf Betsy Russell’s presence also didn’t hurt these features any. Again, the big twist works here--the mother and son were not Easton's family--and is pretty clever on the part of the writers. The traps also served a thematic point: the insurance man has to practice what he preaches now, and has to live with the consequences.

Something in the series that I always appreciated was its attention and focus when it came to its characters. That’s not to say that they were very well developed exactly, but having Amanda, Rigg, Hoffman, and Kerry there from very early on in bit parts only to expand their roles shows, at least in some ways, the closeness of the Homicide Division in the Saw series, and keeps things both new and familiar.

As I said earlier: the games of Jigsaw, as created by John Kramer, are a practice in sanctimony. So many of the people he tests are adulterers, drug addicts, con artists, petty grifters. Rarely is it a rapist, a child molester. Often he cites the fact that these people don’t appreciate the lives that they have. Maybe, in the case of some of these petty criminals, it comes down to class warfare—perhaps this is the only life they’ve ever known. He's even tested people just on the basis that he didn't like the way these people were living their lives. Even the Christians gave you the option of converting first!

Eventually, as in Saw 7, Jigsaw is simply attacking racists—granted, not the best people in the world, but Jigsaw’s recording made mention of these skinheads judging people but not actually harming them. So he’s testing them because they’re racist pussies? If he had tested the character from American History X, he would have had something. But, really? They’re just soapbox asshole. Just like Jigsaw himself. As far as judging the drug addicts and the adulterers, maybe it’s none of his fucking business. But don’t tell John that. He’ll just attach a bomb-necklace to you.

And let's not forget the hypocrisy. Jigsaw hired Adam to follow and take pictures of Dr. Gordon. He hired Obi to help round up other subjects in Saw 2, then had these guys tested because they did the awful things that Jigsaw paid them to do in the first place!

Then there's the stupidity of actually claiming that his survivors would now appreciate life. No. Most of them would likely have to serve jail time for their crimes, have likely sustained major physical and emotional wounds, and would be undoubtedly traumatized for the rest of their lives (this was proven in Saw 7) and I wouldn't be surprised if many of these survivors actually did become drunks or drug addicts; maybe they needed a lot of medical care that their insurance wouldn't cover (don't worry, Jigsaw will kill them too!) so they have to get a second job. Only no one will hire a physically/emotionally damaged person with a criminal record so they have to resort to a life of crime. Well done, Jigsaw. You've actually helped increase crime stats and recidivism--you've accomplished nothing. Why don't you just get it over with and throw a bucket of blood on someone wearing fur. Then go fuck a wood chipper.

What’s worse is when he endangers innocent people. Spouses, children, secretaries, co-workers, subordinates and friends have all been dangled in the faces of those being tested. If they fail, these innocent hostages would be killed. But Jigsaw doesn’t see himself as a murderer. Nor should he. All he did was facilitate the situation, place everyone in possibly fatal danger and allow the pieces to fall where they may despite the fact he could show mercy at any time. It’s definitely not like you need to directly kill someone to be considered a murderer. Yep, definitely not.

To be concluded...

News and an Update

Considering I'm not a journalist or newscaster I really don't take to writing up current events here, but this is just too delicious to slip by. It seems assiduous schmuck Keith Olbermann (pictured below, having just restocked his supply of smug), the left's answer to Bill O'Reilly (in the way that they are both obnoxious company men elitists), has been suspended indefinitely without pay because of inappropriate monetary contributions to democratic candidates during the recent midterm elections.

I'm now going to take a segment out of Olbermann's own show Countdown and make a Special Comment of my own on the matter: HAHA.

Where's the tiny ember of love now, Keith?


UPDATE: 11/8/10
MSNBC has decided that Olbermann's suspension will end tomorrow. Another lovely piece of evidence that MSNBC is every bit as full of shit as they claim FOX News is.