Why "The Breakfast Club" is a Terrible Source of Love Advice

Okay, I have to begin this post with an important note: I fucking love The Breakfast Club. I watched it for the first time when I was in the eighth grade, and nine years later, it's still my favourite movie of all time. There aren't very many people I've liked for nine years, let alone movies.

But holy shit, does this movie ever have a fucked-up view of how love works.

No, I know for a fact that you don't.

The movie tells the story of what happens when five teenagers from five different cartoonishly 80's high school cliques end up trapped in the library together for Saturday detention. The five of them are tasked with writing an essay that explains just who they think they are - an assignment that sounds more like something a street gang would give to initiates than a high school principal would give to five clearly disturbed teenagers - and the kids spend the day doing absolutely everything but writing their essays. Despite the movie's assertions that classifying people by cheap labels is wrong, no one but me and the movie's cast actually remembers the kids' names - they're just called the Princess, the Athlete, the Brain, the Basket Case, and the Criminal, labels that make me resent my own high school for not having more creative social cliques.

1

Over-Analyzing "As Above, So Below": How Not to Conduct Archeological Research

I love bad horror movies.

As I previously mentioned on this blog, I don't ask a lot of my horror movies. If I can walk out of a theatre with half a clue about what I just saw and why everybody is dead, I'm more or less satisfied. Demons with only a tenuous grounding in any kind of backstory? Eh, sure. Ghosts that haunt specific locations miraculously travelling halfway around the world? Yeah, why not? Supernatural beings who spend inordinate amounts of time racking up the family's utility bill before causing any kind of real harm? Fuck it, fine. But what I can't tolerate are horror movies that amount to little more than a long chain of plot holes, jump scares and screaming.

I'm looking at you, Oculus.

So I had high hopes for As Above, So Below. Unlike the last, say, 487 found footage horror movies I've seen, this one wasn't about a nebulously evil supernatural presence terrorizing a family. No, this one was about a team of naive anthropologists/sketchy French treasure hunters discovering a horrifying secret in the catacombs beneath Paris. It had everything it needed to be great - a unique setting, a fuckload of human remains, and a legitimate reason for the entire movie to be filmed in the dark. There was no way they could fuck this up.

8

Three Romantic Gestures from the Movies That Will Tell Your Lover You're a Sociopath

Before I get started, let's get something straight: taking any kind of romantic advice from me is not a good idea. Asking me for help with your love life is like screaming financial questions at the dead salmon in your refrigerator. Everyone around you can see that you're making a huge mistake, and any good that comes from it is probably all in your head.

Me, pursuing a mate in the wild.

With that said, I'm still a better source of advice than the average romantic comedy. Before you try to replicate something you see on the big screen, be aware that the following shows should only be imitated by sociopaths.

0

Over-Analyzing "The Imitation Game": Why You Still Know Nothing About Alan Turing

Alan Turing invented everything.

If you can see this article, you owe your entire lifestyle to this man.

Alan Turing was a computer scientist, decades before we even knew what computer scientists were. It was his work in the mid-20th century that gave rise to the laptop I'm writing this on, the iPhone you're reading this on, and all the other pretty, beeping toys we rely on to get through the day in 2015. It's hard to even picture a world without Alan Turing's influence. There'd be no computers. No software. No artificial intelligence. No microchips in our cars, no GPS devices, no automated robots and no smart devices that keep us from maiming ourselves on a daily basis. This man created the modern world, and for decades, he was all but forgotten. 

Until now.

4