In all the craziness, I found a way to watch The Expendables 3.
In the midst of all of it, the craziness, the new classes, the new schedule, the getting up at 5:30 am in the morning again, to the going to bed at midnight, to the projects, the football practice and homework times 3, I found time to watch of all movies, The Expendables 3.
Let’s go back to the beginning though. When we left Seattle, we left a lot of dumb things behind. The trees, the traffic, the weather, the roads, the taxpayers that like to vote for every new tax increase, bills, etc. But we left behind two very important, very hard to stomach things behind. 1) Our amazing 60 inch marvel of HD wonder. The TV that we created so many memories with. From the first shot of 1080P pixels showing Doc Rivers talking about the Celtics road victory to the final shot of some random Olympic event before Skynet came back to claim it so they could destroy the world (either that or the people we sold it to), this television weaved every pixel inside my bitter heart.
No thanks. I’m good with my 60 inch marvel of HD wonder.
The second thing I clung to until the final hour was the cable service. Though the bill was really good at following inflation and good at rising at the same rate as my paycheck declined, I miss the sheer vastness and endless options of entertainment the old Xfinity or Comcast or whatever you want to call the greatest show on earth. It even had a remote that would listen to you. It listened to me more in the few months we had it than my kids have ever listened to me. It was heartbreaking to leave the TV/Cable combo behind. Way more than any so-called “friends” I had, Facebook or face to face, or otherwise.
Anyways, now that we are here, we don’t have my best friend Cable. We have a TV, but not nearly the machine that old friend 60 was. And Roku and Apple TV are okay, but since we only have Amazon Prime, the television options are limited. Don’t even get me started on the 4 channels (2 in English and 2 in Espanol).
So back to present. I was trying to find something that wasn’t black and white colored or a 10 year old indy film on Amazon Prime, when out of nowhere, Expendables 3 appeared on the screen. I like action movies, and this one pretty much promised that, so I bit. A little too late in the evening, and I hadn’t seen Expendables 1 or 2, but I started it and thought I would just catch the beginning.
What started as a just a desperate attempt to find anything to lift the bitter weighty weight on my shoulders, turned into an obsession. How was it that so many people that I remember from the 80’s and 90’s could appear in one movie? How was it that we could have so many inside jokes, for instance, the names like Stallone’s name being Barney(Rubble? The Dinosaur?), Statham’s name being Christmas(how many lame jokes came from that one), or Dolph Lundgren’s name being Gunner Jensen(was his middle name Magnum?). Or when Wesley Snipe’s character was asked what he did to get himself in jail and he reply’s to the camera sarcastically, “Tax evasion.” (for those of you that don’t know, Wesley Snipes has tax evasion problems in real life). Or Arnold Swarzenegger continually telling people to, “Get to the Choppa”.
I’ll do it now.
The best part of the whole movie was the dialogue. Not that action movies need compelling dialogue, but this one really didn’t need it. Because even if you had the volume up to 50 and you had it on Surround Sound 7.1, you couldn’t understand a word these guys said. Statham’s UK accent, Arnold with Austrian-California Governer accent, Dolph Lundgren with his Swedish-Russian accent, Jet Li with his Chinese accent, but worst of all Sylvester Stallone with his New York-Philadelphian Rocky accent. I haven’t understood a word of his since he was born.
Yet I couldn’t take my eyes off this movie. Possibly because I love unrealistic action, maybe because I couldn’t believe Mel Gibson as a bad guy(cough, cough) or because I would have understood a foreign film without subtitles better than I could understand any of the dialogue. But isn’t that what we all love about movies? They way they challenge us to be better at something (even if it is trying to understand what the heck people are saying?)
ARRRRRRGGGHHHHH
Bitter Expendable Bendable
Ben's Bitter Blog 
Ah, forgot I wanted to see that movie! Yeah, thanks for the reminder!!
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It was kind of funny because the whole time I was trying to figure out what Arnold, Sylvester and Statham were trying to say. It was a cluster.
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Love these movies!!!! I’ve been so behind on reading your blog….I’ve missed your sarcasm, bitterness and quirky ways! Happy Saturday! Hoping you’re piling up today with pizza, football, video games and whatever else you crave!
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I’ve missed the chatting too. I’ve been busy with school, so I haven’t been able to keep up with comments and blogging as much as I’ve wanted.
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Action movies are for the action anyway, not the dialogue. They help inactive people like you and me to kind of get a feel for what it would be like to be active. Someone should come up with a way to mute the dialogue while keeping the rest of the sound, such as the sound of car crashes and explosions.
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It was pretty funny to see Stallone and gang stumble around at 60+ a little better than me at 43.
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Oh my gosh this looks awful. I have to see it.
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It was amazing in its awfulness. I couldn’t look away. And neither could Stallone.
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I’ve only seen the first Expendables, and oddly enough, I saw it with my mom. But we both left that movie more invigorated than after any chick flick we’ve watched together.
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And isn’t that what the movies are all about? Trying to invigorate yourself instead of being depressed by all the dialogue and inauthentic emotions of a chick flick?
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The only potential problem was that we felt so macho that we entertained the notion of beating up a fellow movie-goer who had his phone out during the film.
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The person who had their phone out deserved to beaten by some aggressive movie goers.
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Glad you found a movie and old friends to help in hard times.
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Yeah, the movie was quite enjoyable to not hear any dialogue from.
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I’m waiting for Expendables 4 when John Wayne comes back from the dead to play Chase Manhattan an aging banker who must rescue the rest of the Expendables who are stranded in the Andes and are about to eat each other to say alive.
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I think you know a little bit too much about it, therefore must be a screenwriter.
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Nah, I’ve just seen Expendables 1 and 2 — it’s a trilogy like Lord of The Rings
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I bet you can’t wait to see the 3rd. It won’t be complete without seeing how the 3rd ends up. I promise I won’t spoil it unless I have already.
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I felt a little vindicated to hear you missing cable so much. I know so many people who eschew cable entirely, relying on Netflix or Hulu or some other computer thing I don’t understand (I haven’t understood much since the last century). I LOVE cable television! I don’t even watch much network TV, except for say Castle re-runs on TNT. I live for Investigation Discovery and Oxygen as well as any other channel that will show endless episodes of Dateline and Snapped. I’m glad you enjoyed your movie. I’ve missed all the Expendables so far.
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Yeah, as much as cable bills are skyrocketing, it was fun to just be able to watch nothing, and flip through all the channels whenever I felt like it.
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Is this the Expendables movie in which Stallone at one point declares: “I AM The Hague!”?
I remember going to the cinema with some friends (the guys picked the movie, needless to say), and one friend came in a bit too late after the break. I couldn’t help but tell him to “hurry up, you missed all the important bits” and then hearing the entire row behind me join me in my snickering :p
But I totally get it: even a bad movie is better than no movie.
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So true. I don’t remember that line, but honestly, I don’t remember hearing or understanding hardly anything that anyone said in the film (except maybe Mel Gibson). It was just fun to watch stuff blow up.
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I suppose that was exactly what they wanted to achieve with the movie 😉
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Yep, that is for sure.
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So now it’s bitter movie reviews? I demand some bitter popcorn!
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I’ve done some bitter reviews in the past. You know that. And yeah, there is some popcorn, but it is sprinkled with bitter butter.
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Bitter makes it better!
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Especially when there is batter.
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