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Hot Takes for Tuesday April 4, 2017
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1. April Fools Day kind of sucks now.
Last Saturday was April Fools Day, which should probably be renamed “International-Tell-Everyone-You’re-Pregnant Day,” or “Annual-Tell-All-of-Your-Friends-You’re-Gonna-Propose Day,” or “Call-Your-Friend-and-Tell-Him-You’ve-Been-Arrested-for-a-DUI Day.” I actually got suckered on the last one. FUCK YOU FORREST. I ACTUALLY WENT TO THE POLICE STATION!
I remember when I was 6 years old, we pulled a prank on my dad and told him our dog pooped on his pillow. It was hilarious. He totally believed it. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know. I was six.
But, if we pulled that same prank today, there is no way Big Mike O’Shea would ever fall for it. Because it’s extremely hard to trick someone anymore.
In an era when everything is apparently fake news, April Fools Day has really lost its luster. Everyone is already so on edge the other 364 days of the year that we hit a Cold War-level of paranoia on April Fools Day.
Fortunately, the solution is simple. You know that prank you were gonna pull on April 1st? You were gonna tell your boyfriend you were pregnant, weren’t you? Well, instead of texting him a picture of the pee stick on the most obvious day of the year, do it on like August 22nd, or October 17th, or even April 2nd.
Pranks are a glorious part of life, and they should not be constricted by the calendar.
Take Temperature:
5/10 – Are the seat-warmers on?
2. Fewer movies based on video games, more video games based on movies!
In the good old days, when milk was home delivered on a daily basis, smoking in the office made you cool, and Trapper Keepers used the magic of Velcro to secure your homework, movies were only adapted from books. Over time, the ol’ Hollywood pencil pushers started adapting popular TV shows for the silver screen. This is how we got critically acclaimed tearjerker Entourage movie.
There was even a trend in the 1990s and early 2000s where Disney started basing their movies off their theme park rides. Seems like a dumb idea, right? Well, bite your damn tongue about Pirates of the Caribbean 14: The Revenge of Jack Sparrow’s Westerly Gaze, because without that genius marketing strategy, we wouldn’t have gotten The Country Bears.
The main character’s name is Beary Barrington.
Today’s latest trend, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, is to base movies off popular video games. And this is where I draw the line.
Nobody wants to watch an Assassin’s Creed movie, or a World of Warcraft movie. Why would I want to watch a guy act out the plot of a video game when I can actually play the video game myself? I mean, you’re basically watching someone play Assassin’s Creed for two hours.
But, at least those movies were based off video games that HAVE plots. Did you know they’re about to start production on a Fruit Ninja movie? You know, Fruit Ninja, that game you used to play on the toilet 8 years ago. The one that simulates the first couple of steps in cooking a fruit tart.
We need to stop making movies about video games, and go back to making video games about movies. When I was a kid, every movie (and a lot of TV shows) had it’s own video game. And the best part was, none of them made any gosh darn sense!
You think I’m exaggerating?
Imagine how hilarious it would be to play a Hidden Figures video game, or a La La Land video game. We used to live in a world where stuff like that actually happened. I don’t even play video games that often, but I would play the crap out of a My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 video game if it was on Game Boy Advanced.
Take Temperature:
3/10 — Like an early spring morning.
3. Crappy car manufacturers should just design cars that look more awesome.
I know shockingly little about cars. I’ve just never understood what all the hype is about. I mean, when I was 11, I thought Hummers were really cool, but that was also a phase of my life when I thought Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit were really cool.
Simply by looking at the number of wealthy bald men who drive them, I know that some car manufacturers are supposed to be better than others: BMW, Audi, Mercedes. I figure Tesla must be pretty good, because seemingly all of their stores are in shopping malls, and you don’t set up shop next Wetzel’s Pretzels unless you’ve got that good good. I also know, thanks to some great commercials with real people, not actors, that Chevy has won like every J.D. Power and Associates award since the dawn of time.
I don’t know who the J.D. Power is, but I KNOW this is a big deal.
Beyond all that, I’m a complete n00b when it comes to cars, and I rely solely on visual cues to tell me whether a car is, in layman’s terms, dope or not.
Good cars are: sleek, have aggressive bumps jotting out in random places, doors that open up any way but normally. They also have weird parts sticking out that make them look like Transformers, and they’re so low to the ground that I assume there must be some sort of secret automobile limbo competition I’m missing.
Bad cars are: round, they have little tires, and their drivers seem to vape a lot.
This car is great for me, on account of how I love riding in elevators.
So, my question is, why don’t the lower tier car companies just design the exterior of their cars to look like the really nice car companies’ models? It can’t be that much more expensive. The difference is really in the engine, right? These aren’t rhetorical questions. I actually don’t know the answer. Fans of #HTT, I need your spiritual and automobile guidance.
If I was a “carchitect,” I would just design a car that looks like something James Bond would drive and then toss in one of those engines that only has two speeds—turtle and rabbit—and sell them to the same people who buy fake Yeezys.
Take Temperature:
5/10 — I don’t even know if this qualifies as a Hot Take.
Like what you read this week? Enjoy last week’s #HotTakesTuesday with Jack O’Shea. And don’t forget to check back every Tuesday for another issue of Hot Takes Tuesday with Jack O’Shea, brought to you by.
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