The Good to know Review show #1

Hi there, how are you? I'm great and I have a whole lot of opinions! I'm not sure how right they are but I sure would love to share them with you! Each episode we will take a look at different things in three different paragraphs. So pop a seat, open your ears, and let's get started!
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A: Dead Girl (film 2008)

Dead Girl is an independent films directed by Gadi Harel and Marcel Sarmiento. It was written by long time Troma veteran, Trent Haaga. Those of you who who do not know what Troma studios are, might be aware of their most popular characters; the Toxic Avenger and Kabuki Man. Troma is an extreme low budget and an extreme in general independent movie studio (one of the first) in America. They specialize in gore and humor and this film has a whole lot of the the former and replaces the latter with dread and a clunky deconstruction of heterosexual male desire.

Rickie and JT are teenage losers. They live in a run down dead end town. High School is going to be the peak of their lives and they suck at that too. All they have is each other, really. That and Ricky's crush on Joan, a flame he has nurtured for years. Like many adolescent crushes it is not based on reality or even getting to know the object of his desire. The goodhearted loser with an impossible dream of love with the unatainable girl next door is one of the most common narrative engines or tropes if you will and this movie takes it to its tragic conclusion.

Rickie and JT cut class because hey, no one is going to care anyways. They go to an abandoned insane asylum. Deep in its catacombs they find a young, naked, and feral girl strapped to a gurney. JT wants to rape her but Rickie manages to convince him otherwise. They leave together but JT sneaks back in latter. He and Rickie are tired of seeing the jocks get all the action and JT does not want to be a virgin anymore.

Rickie cuts class for a few days and JT goes out looking for him. It turns out he has been banging away at the Deadgirl non-stop. She is a zombie of some sort. Rickie found this out by accident after trying to kill the girl a few times post-coitus and finding it impossible. Not being much for cuddling, Rickie begins pimping her out to their loser friends. The Deadgirl is only mostly helpless as it manages to slash Rickie once in the face when he takes his hand off her arm for a few moments. Deadgirl may not be sentient in the traditional sense but she most definitely does not enjoy being a meat train for despairing teenagers engaging in situational necrophilia.

Things get out of hand after the jocks follow JT and Rickie to their love shack. They try to offer Deadgirl's oral services to one of them in order to spare themselves a richly deserved beating. Deadgirl strikes back by digging her teeth deeply into one of the jock's privates (the same jock who happens to be dating Jt's crush Joan) and infecting him. Speaking of Joan, JT is still trying to convince her to leave the popular, athletic, confident, hygienic jock for him forgetting that attraction is not something you can detail in points and arguments. She's too nice to her former friend to really spell it out to him.

The movie ends with the jock (mentally uninfected) shitting out his intestines at the high school. This was foreshadowed in the opening shot of the high school seemingly abandoned in a panic. Meanwhile, Joan JT, and Rickie are trapped in the insane asylum with an escaped Deadgirl. She kills Rickie, infects Joan, and spares JT for whatever reason. Maybe she was dimly aware that JT was mildly opposed to the whole zombie rape thing, not that he did much to stop it besides whining at his necrophiliac friends. As Joan beings to succumb to this disease (much faster than her boyfriend too), JT tells her that he always "loved her" and that he's going to save her. In the one really good moment of this movie, Joan spits blood in his face, tells him to "grow up" and to "leave me alone". The film flashes forward a little bit and we see JT ridding his bike to the asylum alone. There, surrounded by candles and wearing lingerie is zombie Joan. Strapped to a bed this time instead of a gurney.

Like Funny Games, this film makes you feel bad for watching it. It is not poorly acted, written, or directed. It just hurts. Not in a profound and illuminating way either. The fantasy crush, especially an adolescent one is not necessarily something that needed to be deconstructed. Particularity in a gross horror movie. The movie does make a substantial comparison to obsessing over someone you are attracted to without really knowing the person or caring about they want to raping a zombie but this could have been explored in a less extreme way. This movie is okay when you look at its individual parts but together its mediocre at best. 5/10 really. It might be worth your torrent time if you love zombies and/or rape.

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B: The HIV Virus

First gaining popularity in 1981, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus is a slow acting retrovirus. Don't bust out your shoulder pads and ripped jeans quite yet! The term retro actually applies to how it produces DNA from its RNA genome. There are four ways to acquire this virus and only two of them are any fun. Dogging of the raw and IV drug use are two of the more common ways the virus can be spread. The other two come from breast milk or vertical transmission during the birth process. Laaaaame!

The virus can take from two weeks to 20 years to gestate making it easy for a person to be infected and to infect without others knowing. The most common symptoms once the party starts getting started are flu and headache; two symptoms that almost never occur outside of HIV infection. The virus attacks T-cells which help direct your body's immune system. If you went to public school in the US, you might have been introduced to the "Pirate attacks the ship captain" metaphor which is so straight forward to middle school aged children it needs no elaboration. Once a person's immune system is damaged enough by the HIV virus, the are diagnosed with the helpful sounding condition of AIDS.

Upon achieving AIDS, the body begins to break down from constant opportunistic infections. The billions of bacteria and viruses that live inside normal human bodies are completely unchecked and begin to overwhelm their host. The victim begins to sprout non-cancerous (most of the time, lol) tumors and suffers from constant headaches before dying between 7-9 years.

The virus itself is a whimsical fellow, prone to flights of fancy and variation for its own sake. The disease has a hard time making exact copies of itself as it gleefully tears through another victim. As a result, its copies are often just different enough to force the world's medical researches to scratch their heads. It is very difficult to find a cure or a vaccine for a virus with such volatile DNA/RNA. Despite being in the world's spotlight for years there still is no solution yet. There are however, expensive and debilitating cures that may sorta kind of work. What we do know about the cures is that they cost a lot of money, so they must be good for something!

The virus has a way of striking society's least liked people's; male homosexuals and IV drug users. Anyone who exchanges semen/vaginal secretions/blood/boob juice can be infected but the nature of anal intercourse and IV drug use makes those two activities particularly open to HIV infection. Since condoms are a huge downer and nothing changes a frown like sweet, sweet brown HIV infection is inevitable. Unless you are a square or something.

Due to its copying advantage, slow incubation, and rich symbolic depths, this virus earns an 8/10. I would not recommend getting yourself infected but check it out. For alternative theories about HIV/AIDS from highly qualified musicians, see David Grohl.

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C: Caucasians

A race of human beings with lighter to slightly dark skin, these are often considered the default race amongst the highly educated. Skills, features, and abilities include dairy digestion, obesity, softer bones, and a predilection for mental illness.

Like most non-Biblical based humans, Caucasians originated in the African content. Their lighter skin and bottomless appetite for creamy body fluids intended for the offspring of other animals came from a genetic mutation separating them from the original darker skinned humans. These shaggy albino trolls then shuffled their way to the European continent.

Caucasians are the most dominate race on the planet today. Much of this advantage comes from their ancestors foresight to settle in regions with easily domesticated/eaten animals and resources that only required a few thousand years of technological development to harvest/utilize. Caucasians are particularly good at taking the advances of other cultures and claiming them for their own. Examples of this include the number "0", writing, and Christianity.

Caucasians earn about a 6/10 on the race scale. It is better to be one than not in the current conditon the world is in right now but much of this is due to chance.