Fredd's Top 10 Guy Flicks

I'm quite weary of wallowing in the aftermath of the latest political blow our country has taken at the hands of the liberals currently ruling this land with their iron fist. I think I will stray back into the pop culture scene today. A few posts ago, I listed the Top 10 Chick Flicks and accordingly, being an equal opportunity sort, must also now include my Top 10 Guy Flicks. You may notice a substantial lack of representation of War films, as these are really a category unto themselves within the Guy flick genre. Criterion are simple to make the Top 10 Guy Flick list: 1) somebody's gotta die, 2) violence is mandatory, 3) love interests are kept to a minimum, and most importantly 4) most chicks gotta hate it. Without further ado, here it is, for whatever that's worth: 1. The Godfather. "What is it with men and The Godfather?" asks chick-flick diva Meg Ryan in 'You've Got Mail'. Tom Hanks sets her straight: "It is the I Ching. It is the sum of all wisdom." Greatest line: 'Leave the gun. Take the canoli.' Lots of hits, kisses of death, you name it, these goombahs do it.

2. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef race to dig up Confederate gold in one of the cheesiest Spaghetti westerns ever produced. So bad, it's great. Sergio Leone's trade mark music in the background makes it work. Greatest line: 'When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk.' Makes sense to me, but the chicks detest this one.

3. Animal House. A bunch of losers (on double secret probation) thumb their noses at Dean Wormer's dissolution of their dump of a fraternity and go on a tear through Eugene, Oregon (Fredd's home town), circa 1962. John Belusi is outstanding as 'Bluto' Blutarski, defacto leader of the pack. Greatest line: 'Thank you sir. May I have another...'

4. Rocky. All guys love this flick, as beat up, past his prime Rocky Balboa goes the distance with Apollo Creed. This one has a love interest (Adrian, portrayed by Talia Shire, sister of Francis Ford Copolla, aunt to Nicholas Cage), but I'll look the other way this time. Greatest line: Mickey (Burgess Meredith), Rocky's manager to Rocky during a work out: 'women weaken legs,' which only bolsters credibility of my no-love-interest criterium in a good guy flick.

5. The Road Warrior. Technically titled 'Mad Max II: The Road Warrior,' a very young Mel Gibson who had yet to lose his Aussie accent helps a community fend off the barbarians in the post Apocalyptic Australian outback. Lots of violence, lead by the leader of the barbarians, Lord Humongous, or variously introduced as 'The Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla.' Hey, I thought it was good. Chicks hate it, of course.

6. Robocop. Peter Weller stars in the futuristic role of cop, killed in action in 21st century Detroit, but put back together with a cyborg body using his human brain. Great line (used many times): "Dead or alive, you're coming with me." Chicks do not like this one at all. Lots of dead bodies, gun fights, it's all good.

7. The Unforgiven. Clint Eastwood heads on out to Big Whiskey to mete out justice and collect a bounty offered by a mutilated prostitute. Gene Hackman is great as Little Bill, the local sheriff who gets his in the end. Great line: Little Bill: 'You just shot an unarmed man!' Eastwood: 'Well, he shoulda armed himself.' Lots of killing, blood, violence, and again; it's all good.

8. Kelly's Heroes. Clint Eastwood leads a bunch of greedy GI's behind enemy lines to grab some unguarded Nazi gold. Lots of action, and Donald Sutherland does a good job playing weirdo 'Oddball,' a tank driver/future beatnik. Star studded, and ends on a catchy tune "Burning Bridges." Ordinarily, I would lump this into my Best War Flicks list, but the film transcends war and focuses on the human condition, such as it is.

9. Caddyshack. Bill Murray is great in this classic guy flick as the loser grounds keeper on a golf course, where oafish clod Rodney Dangerfield irks the hell out of snob Ted Knight. Chicks really, REALLY hate this one. Nobody dies, and that's a minor glitch I can overlook.

10. The Coneheads. Guys love movies with Chris Farley, and you can't go wrong with Dan Ackroyd and Jane Curtin reliving their SNL glory days with this great comedy schtick of aliens from the planet Remulak getting stranded on earth and trying to fit in. Great scene: Baldar (Ackroyd) cleaning a lawn mower spark plug for his neighbor - great stuff.

Obama's next target for destruction after health care reform: Education?

The fate of our national economic structure hangs in the balance as a few congressional 'Blue Dogs' who still have some semblance of sanity remaining in their liberal lives waffle as to whether they want to throw themselves under the bus and vote yes on this dog of a health care reform legislation. With the grace of God they will come to their senses and vote no on this God awful senate bill hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles.

Pass or fail, the Democrats are looking at a massacre of historic proportions come this November at the ballot boxes. But will Obama take note of the Zeitgeist here? Of course not. He will simply move on to his next target for destruction: pick one of three, and that would be cap and trade legislation, legalizing illegals, or ramping up the destruction of our public schools.

All three are as destructive to the economy as anything that has come before Congress in our lifetimes, this current disastrous health care reform bill notwithstanding, and that's probably making the thugs in the White House giddy with excitement. I would put my money on our public education system as Obama's next victim.

Just this morning, I saw the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan (pictured above), throwing down the gauntlet of reform for this huge sector of wasted taxpayer money, and I see nothing but terrible things going forward. Sec. Duncan was formerly the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools prior to being tapped for the top education slot in the country. His credentials? Running an already awful bureaucracy which was knee deep into the red FURTHER into the red. Sounds like a rock solid resume to me.

Now he wants to run our already horrible public school system into bankruptcy, just like he did in Chicago. He is already gearing up for a run at pouring additional billions of YOUR money into this failed system, thinking that all we need to turn things around is more money shoveled into the incompetent hands of the teachers unions.

Obama sure did pick the right guy for the job. Kansas City public schools have been run into the ground by Democrats for the last 50 years, and are now faced with shuttering 50% of their schools through sheer incompetence and corruption. Now Arne Duncan wants to take the Kansas City public school model and apply it to the entire United States.

November can't come soon enough, as these guys are spending us into oblivion.

OK, WE ADMIT IT: WE CONSERVATIVES ARE EVIL

The jig is up. There's no use in denying it anymore. It is just too obvious to everyone with half a brain; we conservatives are evil. We can't hide our true natures any longer, so why keep up the charade?

.

As conservatives, we love cutting off unemployment benefits just to see hard working (well, hard check cashing) Americans get thrown out into the streets, hopefully to languish in the gutters and die. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky) let the cat out of the bag by standing on the floor of the Senate and admitting as much, damn him to hell. We conservatives always have our camcorders at the ready to film an eviction just to watch the tears, the crying, particularly of the women and children. It warms our hearts, and we can't pretend that it doesn't.

.

That's what we're all about, and all of this rhetoric to the contrary, you know, about personal responsibility, the American Way, all of that is just a ruse. We are just flat out evil, and thrive on Schadenfreude (for those of you on the left, that means obtaining satisfaction from the misery of others).

.

And about this health care reform squabble, anyone with even half a brain can see that we evil conservatives don't give a damn about the poor and middle class getting priced out of the system. We actually encourage more of that. That way, we can grab our camcorders and watch as uninsured Americans get sick and die. We just love that. And we can't deny that we do, it's all as clear as day for anyone to see.

.

We need to stop all of the muddying of the waters, all of the obfuscation of our true intent: I'll just come right out and admit it: since we're evil, we want to take all the money from the poor Americans and keep it all in our wealthy personal off shore bank accounts. That way, we don't have to pay taxes, and get a double dip of evil: not only do the poor people get kicked into the gutters because we took their money, we get to watch them starve to death because we didn't pay any taxes on this stolen money that might have gone to social programs that would help them. A perfect evil 'two-fer' here, life just doesn't get any better for us evil conservatives.

.

And don't get me started on social programs, damn those to hell, too. All they do is keep the poor people from starving to death in the gutter, and deprive us evil conservatives a spectacle to film with our camcorders, all the while howling with our evil laughter. There, I've said it, no more living a lie. We conservatives are as evil as the day is long, and we no longer want to keep our evil bottled up inside. We want to shout our evil ways to the world.

.

It's who we are and everybody knows it. Pure evil.

Fredd's Top 10 Chick Flicks

1). Sleepless in Seattle. This one tops the list of chick flicks because it follows the basics of all chick flicks, and deviates not one bit from the chick flick script: handsome leading man (Tom Hanks) falls in love with attractive leading lady (Meg Ryan) after his son reads one of the letters sent in by the throngs of women who swooned over his phone in call about being lonely after the passing of his wife on a radio talk show. When anyone thinks of a 'chick flick,' Sleepless in Seattle immediately comes to mind, for good reason. Did I mention that they lived happily ever after? 2) Message in a Bottle. Kevin Costner (handsome but grieving leading man) falls in love with attractive leading lady after she finagles her way into his life after reading the love letters he wrote to his departed wife and then put in a bottle and throws into the sea. This is a classic chick flick in that they drag every bit of emotion out of both of these characters and at the end there is not a dry eye in the theater. This one rates very high on the chick-flick-ometer. 3) The Way We Were. Ask any chick, and they will rave about this movie, namely for the theme: handsome leading man (Robert Redford at his handsomest, and that's saying something) walks into attractive leading lady's life (Barbra Streissand), they fall in love, but don't live happily ever after since they part ways and the regret of unrequited love fills the theater. This one is for the ages, and for good reason. 4) Romancing the Stone. Handsome leading man (Michael Douglas), shows up to rescue attractive love interest (Kathleen Turner) in the jungles of Columbia, and in the end they cruise their sailboat in downtown Manhattan, presumably to live happily ever after. Chick flick theme all the way. Danny Devito plays an excellent scumbag, and lots of action, none of it too violent, as chicks rate this one high. It sticks to the chick flick script. 5) Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. This wonderful chick flick departs from the standard plot: handsome guy sweeps into town, falls madly in love with beautiful leading lady, live happily ever after, etc. etc. Nope. Chicks love this movie because Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino portray arguably the stupidest dolts that ever graced the big screen, (other than Jim Carey and Jeff Bridges in 'Dumb and Dumber'), and most women feel immeasurably superior to these two self absorbed and narcissistic idiots. One line stands out: "You know, even though we've watched Pretty Woman like thirty-six times, I never get tired of making fun of it...I just get really happy when they finally let her shop." A real feel good movie, watching these dopes stumble through life without a clue. 6). Somewhere in Time. This truly great chick flick sticks to what makes all great chick flicks: handsome leading man sweeps into town, falls madly in love with the beautiful leading lady, and they live happily ever after. And Christopher Reeve doesn't let time get in the way, he travels back through time to find Jane Seymoure, time be damned. Filmed at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan, this one is a chick flick for the ages. 7) Officer and a Gentleman. This outstanding chick flick pays homage to the tried and true chick flick theme: handsome leading man (Richard Gere) sweeps into town, falls in love with distraught woman (Debra Winger) and they live happily ever after. Guys like Lou Gossett Jr's depiction of a demanding drill sergeant, and if they ever spent anytime in the military, they knew Lou hit the nail on the head with this Oscar winning role. While Gere's love interest is not technically 'distraught,' she is not exactly happy working in a northwestern factory on the assembly line, but the ending is as chicky flicky as they come, chicks all dig this one. Trust me. 8) Thelma and Louise. This great chick flick makes the list even though it diverges completely from the commonly accepted chick flick theme: handsome leading man sweeps into town, falls madly in love with distraught woman and they live happily ever after. Not even close. Portrayed by Susan Sarandon and Gina Davis, two women go on a mayhem spree and in one particular scene, execute a rapist at close range with a hand gun, which all chicks appreciate. Great ending, and although happily ever after doesn't enter into the picture, most chicks love this flick because these two women rule, if only for a moment.

9) Dave. This one gets a two-fer, in that not only is it a great chick flick, but it uses politics (I love these films) as the prime venue for setting up the classic chick flick theme: leading man sweeps into town, and falls madly in love with the distraught woman and they live happily ever after. In a scheme hatched by an evil White House Chief of Staff (portrayed most excellently and evilly by Frank Langela), Dave (Kevin Kline) body doubles for a stricken president, and the First Lady finds out when she notices that the president has stopped acting like the arrogant politician she married. Chicks will eat this one up, and it certainly makes for a great date movie.

10) Dances with Wolves. Basic theme is of a cavalry officer denouncing his rank and joins a tribe of Sioux Indians circa 1865. Although there are plenty (or should I say 'heap big') scenes that involve war and violence in general (which are decidedly NOT chick flick criteria), this film for the most part follows the classic chick flick format of romantic leading man sweeping into a despairing woman's life and (of course) they fall madly in love and live happily ever after. Well, Kevin Costner (who starred and directed this film) swerved off the reservation a bit (pun intended) when the ending diverges significantly from the happily ever after thing, but still much of this movie tugs at the heart strings, and rates among the best chick flicks out there.

Retire in style, all on the public dime

Picture the idyllic setting of your mountain lodge on a scenic lake, your Ranger bass boat (with twin 220HP Mercury outboard engines) tied up to your private dock, and you puffing on a $10 imported cigar getting ready for a day of fishing, just you and this natural splendor. This is the way retirement should be, without a care in the world.

Most of us would think that this guy put in his 35 to 40 years in the corporate rat race, squirreled away as much money for retirement as possible, put that money to work for him in a diversified portfolio, and aggressively managed it so that he could one day live his dream in his Golden Years.

A few of these scenes of blissful retirement were acquired in just that manner. But this guy above is a New Jersey public employee union retiree, who through years with his collective bargaining agreements coercing ever more lucrative retirement benefits from the state coffers and was able to throw in the towel at age 49 and look forward to collecting $3,800,000 during his retirement, although only contributing $124,000 during his brief working years.

Doing the math, it just doesn't add up very well, does it? These unfunded retirements for millions of public union employees are burying most states in the U.S. in red ink, all the while these retirees live the high life, all on the public nickel (or the public $3,000,000 more accurately). How long has this been going on? Quite a while, ever since public employees were allowed to unionize during the Kennedy administration in the early 1960's.

Alexis de Toqueville, in his book "Democracy in America" predicted this in 1835, saying that (and I paraphrase here) when the citizenry discovered that they could vote themselves largess from the public trough, the future of our republic would soon crumble. And he has certainly been proven correct 175 years later: New Jersey is broke, California is even more broke, and these public employee unions bear the lion's share of the blame. Their greed and arrogance has brought the Garden State to its knees, and now a brave, newly elected Republican governor is showing the backbone needed to change directions.

I wish Gov. Chris Christie all the best in his endeavors to reign in this madness. The state, county, city, village and township governments in New Jersey have been put on notice that living the life of Riley on the public's dime is no longer the 'American Dream,' and these moochers in the public unions better start cutting back their lavish lifestyles, or find another line of work.

OBAMA BUDGET STRAIGHT OUT OF FANTASYLAND

How can President Obama look us in the eye with a straight face and tell us that we all need to 'start getting serious about living within our means,' and in the very next sentence propose a $3.7 TRILLION DOLLAR budget for fiscal year 2010?

.

Estimates (which are always really poorly done) of revenues flowing into the treasury coffers this year range from $2.2 to $2.4 Trillion dollars, assuming that Obama doesn't kill our economy even further. Doing the simple math, that leaves us with a deficit this year of about $1.4 TRILLION DOLLARS.

.

Just this year. Our government is completely out of control, as there is no responsibility anywhere to be seen in Washington D.C. It just doesn't exist anymore. Any fool, rube or hayseed that just fell off the turnip truck knows that this level of spending is going to destroy our economy in short order. We just don't have this kind of money, and there is nobody in the current 111th Congress with any spines whatsoever if they pass this budget.

.

Now, Obama wants to put together a deficit committee to get to the bottom of this mess, and fix things. Right. This sophomoric maneuver is no more subtle than eccentric ol' Uncle Fredd imploring young 5-year old little nephew Billy to "aw go head, Billy, just pull my finger..." He thinks that the American voting public is as dumb as a couple of thousand bags of hammers.

.

This stupid committee is going to get nothing done, other than to give Obama some cover to continue to spend money like a drunken sailor, and to push through various taxes (such as the hated Value Added Tax) to satisfy the findings of this committee. Even a fourth grade 'C' student can tell Obama that to get this deficit under control, spending has to be curbed, and curbed with some muscle.

.

This entails that many entitlements need to be cut back, and the recipients will be caterwauling like stuck pigs, but we JUST DON'T HAVE THE MONEY! We don't!! Entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits and food stamps are obvious candidates for the ax, and the 'third rail' theory be damned.

.

To think that the money fairy will continue to fly in, wave her wand and suddenly out of the sky a few trillion dollars falls into our hands (year in and year out) is just ridiculous. We have got to stop living in Fantasyland, and put an end to this crazy spending.

.

Because if we don't, I can tell you that a happy ending is nowhere on the horizon. This is the real world and not a fairy tale, and we, our children and grand children will all end up as beggars and vagabonds rather than riding off into the sunset in a pumpkin.

WHY LIBERALS THINK WRECKING OUR COUNTRY IS OKAY

If you are like me, you often wonder why liberals think the way they do. How can they possibly believe what they believe without either being stupid or evil? Since in any human population, we all fit into well defined and proven areas of a bell shaped curve (see 'The Bell Curve' by Herrnstein & Murray), the notion that all liberals are either stupid or evil just isn't possible. Herrnstein & Murray document that most of us fall within 1 standard deviation from the mean, and that would include a majority of us normal, law abiding, regular Joes and Janes out there. The more removed from the norm, like criminals, thugs, retarded folks, dummies, CBS reporters, etc., the fewer there are of them. There's just too many liberals out there (way too many, if you ask me), and that would blow the bell curve all to smithereens. And saying that with liberals the bell curve is not bell shaped is like saying that the earth is flat. The bell curve is a fact. Live with it, or join the Flat Earth Society, I hear the meetings are real interesting, in a doofus sort of way.

So there has to be another explanation as to why liberals think as they do. From this point, after ruling out stupidity and evil, we are left with two possibilities: 1) that their way of thinking is right. Yes, we have to consider the possibility that conservatives are the ones who are messing up our country, beggaring our future as conservative ideas allow the feds to spend our kids' and grand kids' money on government programs, etc. Lots of historical evidence, economic data and pure common sense as well as anecdotal evidence would rule this out. That leaves the other explanation: 2) that these liberal folks are not stupid, evil, or even right: they think their philosophy will make our country into a paradise on earth, or more accurately a Utopia if we would just let their elected liberal politicians get it done. In other words, they are good hearted but misguided.

Now, I am not talking about all liberals, mind you. Obviously there are stupid liberals (Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi), evil liberals (Ted Kennedy) and even right liberals (Harry Truman, kind of). And of course you could say the same thing about conservatives, namely that we have stupid conservatives (Olympia Snowe), evil conservatives (Jack Abramov) and wrong conservatives (Olympia Snowe gets a two-fer here).

I recently read a comment on one of Silverfiddle's posts (Western Hero, "Deficit-of-Knowledge") where some liberal bleeding heart wrote "Social Security should at least be means tested," and ''the idea that we help the elderly from early death, starvation, and end of life poverty, is a good one." Of course, reading drivel like this sent me into a rant about how wrong this pinko is to mandate that we all let the government take our money and give it to those less fortunate, and I lectured him on his view that he suggested we alter the moral of the story of 'The Grasshopper and the Ant' fable. I usually try and not get goaded into useless arguments such as this one, since I will never change any liberal's way of thinking, but this poor sap was just spewing the liberal line so thickly, I coudn't help myself.

Liberals think like this because they believe that we can all live without pain, suffering and violence if we just try. In their Utopian world, trying to make sure that nobody lives in poverty is an admirable goal, since nobody likes to see anyone suffer. Accordingly, they truly believe if they elect liberal politicians that tell them that if elected they will fight to achieve Utopia, then they have done their part to better us all.

That's a great way to go through life, thinking that if we all could just sit down with each other and sing 'Kumbaya,' nobody will ever suffer again.

Children think this way. Children have been read fairy tales by their moms and dads at bedtime, and dream of the happy ending for all of us. Most importantly here, children are never asked exactly who pays for these happy endings, because we as parents don't want to spoil the youthful innocent moment. Then, alas, these children finally grow up and find that the human condition is such that this Nirvana, Utopia, or Never-Never Land is just not possible on this Earth. Such children become conservatives.

I truly believe that liberals are just children at heart, have never grown up, and don't care to think about who ends up paying all the bills to achieve Utopia, but these immature liberals unfortunately have the ability to vote.

Not much of a happy ending, huh?