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Hello
and welcome to this year's prestigious gala hosted
by Pop
Rocks and Coke. This is the second time my buddy
Mike has done this sort of international awards show,
and yes we missed it last year. Let the blame fall
to Nathan because he's currently pre-occupied with
parking Smokey's
car and subsequently can't pound the shit out of me.
Let's also say that it's because Nathan forgot to
write it, even though that's a blatant lie. Though
fear not! We currently have plans to finish the 2002
article sometime in July 2006. Look for it!
As
always, we're not here to talk about the future, we're
here to talk about the past. So let's put on our Sunday
best (read: new layout, oooh) and take a look back,
all the way back to the year 2003! Now in award show
format!
We
have categories, and each category has a winner. I
was gonna have nominees, but then I found out that
I couldn't come up with two for any given section.
The award? Why that's the Golden Matrix of Leadership
(pictured above; Ultra Magnus not included). As you
may remember, Prime had the Matrix of Leadership in
his chest and, when near death, gave it to Ultra Magnus,
who in turn gave it to Hot Rod to become the new leader
of the Autobots for most of Season 3. To get your
hands on the Matrix of Leadership you'd usually have
to rescue small children from burning loins or something
of equal heroism. Being a robot with a big, gaping
hole in your chest is definitely required as well.
However, here at NinjaCulture we're just giving them
away, what you do with them is your bidness.
Theoretically, all you would have to do to get one
is do something kick-ass or stupid in 2003, though
you may need a time traveling Delorean to accomplish
that now.
Entertainment
- Movies
I know that a lot of people would find the
movies of 2003 to be blah, or maybe I'm just making
that up. In any case, the fact remains that we had
some hits, some misses, and some that just made you
go WTF????LOL!@~!
So
what was the best reason to spend ten bucks?
This
was a huge toss-up between Kill Bill - Volume 1 and
Pirates of the Caribbean. Both were excellent films
to say the least. The pirate movie was a long forgotten
genre. The last pirate movie I saw had been The Goonies,
and those pirates were long past their expiry date.
Here is a picture of Johnny Depp as a pirate.
Kill
Bill was nothing like I'd ever seen. Well, okay, you
could still tell it was a Tarantino flick, but other
than that nothing about it seemed familiar. I'm usually
the first to run away from the new and strange, but
this kicked ass because it paid so much homage to
classic kung-fu flicks that I've come to know and
love. I was smiling through the whole movie, save
for the first gunshot. I don't think a white man has
ever jumped as high as I did then.
So
which one won the first ever Gold plated Matrix of
Leadership?
I'm
gonna have to go with Kill
Bill - Volume One. Quoting an old
Klingon Proverb is just a classy way of starting off
a film. Well, maybe classy was the wrong word there,
unless you're wearing plastic pointy ears and a blue
jumpsuit.
Alright,
we've covered good movies, now onto bad ones. The
ones that got you so angry you stole a few theater
seats just to get your money's worth. You rebel you.
The
worst reason to spend ten bucks award goes to:
Underworld
It's
the old vampire falls for werewolf story that seemed
about four hours too long. Looking at the imdb I can
see that it was, in fact, only two hours long. Strange.
I saw this at the local theater, and let me tell you,
my local theater is like your cheap theater except
they charge full price. Seeing this is a shitty theater
didn't help the fact that I disliked it fully. Not
even making fun of the two goths at that were there
was enough to lift my spirits.
TV
Commentary
I've said this before, TV this year
sucked. Maybe I haven't said it on
the site, but if you've been around
me you'd hear my opinions on the subject.
TV got bad, and it's not getting any
better. Upon further research, my
team of inhuman moon scientists has
discovered that there is a 98.7 percent
chance that the reason TV sucks is
due to the death of the catch-phrase.
People don't want to see something
new each time they turn on the TV,
they want to know what's going to
happen, and more importantly, when
to laugh. You knew it was okay to
laugh when Urkel (pictured below)
fell down and said, "I've fallen
and I can't get up". People,
it seems, aren't comfortable doing
anything alone. This explains
the the laugh track.
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Entertainment
- Television
The reason your goldfish
died award:
The
entire 2003 TV lineup. Everything. Also, you fed it
batteries.
While
this may seem a bit harsh, 2003 wasn't a good year.
The new Turtles show is alright, but that new Spiderman
show is terrible. Newcomer Jimmy Kimmel is surprisingly
good, while Mike
Bullard still remains unkilled.
Everything seems cancels everything else out and it's
almost like my best friend never really existed.
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Google
I googled
for television. I got a picture of
this guy. I don't think Google has
a clue what television is. |
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Reality
shows were still going strong. This was a real surprise
for me. Seriously, I thought they'd long go the way
of 80s pop sensation Tiffany by now. Wait,
she did that thing for Playboy. Can you really see
reality shows going that way? I know I can, with sexy
results.
The
only thing TV had going for it this year was Clone
High and even that was marred by the decision to not
do a second season. I just want to say Mr. Butlertron
4 Life, even when I don't know what that means.
I think I'm just trying to "thug up" for
the next award.
Entertainment
- Music
Best Rapper to be named for a monetary
unit:
Now,
everyone, say it with me. 50
cent.
50
cent is the biggest thing since the quarter and even
nine bullets couldn't take him down. If his one year
adventure through the superstar machine has taught
me anything, it's that no matter how many times you've
been shot you can still sing birthday songs, gangsta
style.
Favorite
Pop Star turned bat-shit insane award:
Michael Jackson
Goodness.
What would we do without the king of pop? Over the
past year he's dangled babies out of hotel room windows
and allegedly gotten in and out of more little boys
pants than, well, there's just no right way to end
this sentence. So why is he getting a Golden Matrix
of Leadership? It all has to do with people's rekindled
interest with all the crazy shit he's done in previous
years. Thanks to his antics in 2003, people are actually
interested in the Moonwalker arcade game and the Free
Willy Soundtrack besides me, and that gives me a creppy
warm a fuzzy feeling inside.
Best
new Californian band that doesn't sound like Blink-182
award:
Finch
Although
their debut album, "What it is to Burn",
came out in 2002, I only picked it up in 2003, and
by my logic, that qualifies them for a 2003 Gold Plated
Matrix of Leadership, or maybe I just wanted to give
them a shitty web-award. However, these guys are good,
and good in a way that I can't successfully write
about them. It's hard to write about music, and it's
even harder to write about good music. All I'm going
to say is that you should give them a listen even
if you're not into screaming-yet-melodic-kinda-hardcore-punk
(I obviously have no idea what genre to put them in,
and I hate the word "Screamo"). I wasn't
really a fan either until I gave 'em a try.
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| I
had been reading a lot about this
game before it dropped in stores.
And since hype usually works on
me more than anyone, I bought this
game as soon as it hit the shelves.
I had played the first one for the
Dreamcast and to my surprise didn't
suck at it much. You see, I'm terrible
at fighting games, just bad. But
for some reason I picked up the
controller and started pulling off
all sorts of insane shit. Each version
of the game for the 3 big systems
comes with their own special character.
The 'Cube got Link, which is just
too cool. So, for being just a fun
game that rarely ends up with me
throwing my Wavebird across the
room, it gets an honorable mention.
Plus, their boobs jiggle. |
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Entertainment
- Video Games
The best way to spend your sad,
lonely Friday nights:
No,
it's not by listening to Dashboard Confessional, weeping
softly into a pillow; it's by playing
Call of Duty (PC).
This game rocks pretty hard, and that's coming from
a guy who now absolutely hates all these World War
II shooters that have come out in the past few years.
Every other first person shooter is set in between
1939 and 1945, usually in Europe. I don't think video
games can be too real and fun at the same time. Call
of Duty balanced the fun with the real almost perfectly.
Although
it's short, the variety in the missions and tasks
will keep you compelled through the entire game. You'll
never forget the looks on the faces of your comrades
as you land at Stalingrad. It's really that engaging.
Remember when they predicted that in the future video
games would be more like an interactive movie than
pong, and we'd all zoom along on our rad hoverboards?
Alls I want to know is where my muthafuckin' hoverboard
is at?
The
best way to spend your sad, lonely Friday nights with
your sad, lonely friends:
Mario
Kart: Double Dash!! (Gamecube)
When
I bought this game I didn't really know what to expect.
Almost every review of the game was outstanding, but
Nintendo had changed a lot since the Super and 64
days. Two people on a cart? Are they crazy!? Yes,
and it paid off. This game is almost perfect save
for a few qualms about the network play, but even
that's almost as fun as sex. And unlike sex, you can
actually win. Let's just put it this way, Heaven is
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
is Heaven. Let he who is without sin cast the first
shell.
The
next company most likely to bury their product in
New Mexico award:
Well, this award obviously goes to Nokia
for their N-Gage mess.
After
a short time of its release people were selling them
for a penny, or less. That's when you know
shit's in trouble. Nokia, though, is still plugging
onward and doesn't seem like they want to give up.
Nokia, I'm talking to you now, follow Atari's lead
and bury your crap in the desert and pretend nothing
happened. All three of us will be happier for it;
you, me and the mutant N-Gage itself. It doesn't want
to live.
And
so another year is laid to rest. You may have noticed
that we only covered entertainment in the awards,
and that's because that's all we paid any sort of
attention to. I was going to give SARS an award for
Best New Disease on the Block, but I think it got
enough publicity already. Feel free to browse the
other
sites' awards. I'm gonna link that again in a
huge font a line or two down from here just incase
you had trouble with that first one.
READ THE OTHER 2003 AWARD ARTICLES!
DISCUSS
THIS ARTICLE!
BACK
TO NINJACULTURE!
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