How to Date Out of Your League

The holy grail of dating is to actually find a girl who’s hot but is still willing to go out with you.  And as you’ve already figured out, that’s really hard.  But even if you’re not as attractive or as suave as that friend who has so much sex you want to punch him, even if you “have no game,” there are a few ways to tip the scales in your favor.  These aren’t magic bullets.  They’re practical, actionable things that you can do to help you snag that gorgeous girl who it turns out has low enough self esteem to actually go for you.

1. Actually Ask Girls Out on Dates

Look, you can’t date out of your league if you don’t have the balls to actually ask a girl out on a date.  Sure, you might be able to get lucky at a party with a drunk girl, but as you’ve already experienced, it’s harder to do that consistently than you fantasized about in high school.  So many guys whine inwardly about not being a chick-magnet and forget it’s because they don’t actually put themselves out there and talk to any girls.

If you want to date a girl who’s out of your league, you have to man up and make a move.  Just talk to her.  If you already know her, ask her if she wants to go out to dinner; if you don’t, ask for her number.  And I hate to say it, but the Swingers rule is true: don’t call her right away.  Don’t be Jon Favreau.

The key is to be perceptive.  The problem for most guys who are unlucky with girls is not that they’re bad looking, it’s that they’re oblivious.  Girls make it very obvious when they don’t like what you’re doing (and for the record, pick-up lines and transparent attempts to impress her never work).  If she’s interested, she won’t be looking around the room for her girlfriends to save her.  She won’t be responding to your questions in polite two-word answers.  In fact, she won’t have to respond to too many of your questions, because she’ll be asking you questions, too.

If you’re not getting the signs, move on.  Rejection sucks at first, but if you actually follow this advice and go talk to a lot of girls, two things happen: one, rejection will stop sucking so much, and two, your ratio of rejections/non-rejections will very slowly begin to balance out.  I promise you: the world won’t run out of hot girls.  Especially in college towns.

2. Don’t Talk About Yourself.  At All.

“When I was in seventh grade, I was really into Magic: The Gathering.”

“Yeah, I love movies!  I even went to the midnight opening of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.  Sat in the front row.”

“While I was masturbating this morning I was thinking about my mom…”

Okay, so all of those are pretty extreme examples of what not to say to a girl.  (Or anyone.)  The other so-obvious-it’s-a-movie-cliché no-no?  Talking about an ex-girlfriend.  I’m going to be straight with you here: if you even have the urge to talk about your ex-girlfriend, you’re not ready to get out there yet, and you’re doomed to fail.

But the “don’t talk about yourself” rule extends beyond just the obvious.  I really mean don’t talk about yourself at all.  You know why?  You’re not interesting.  You work in the scheduling department of a non-profit?  You taught yourself web design?  Your football team made sectionals in high school?  Your professor is just super, super lame?  Don’tcaredon’tcaredon’tcaredon’tcare.

Depending on exactly how “out of your league” the girl is, she’s probably not interesting either.  Unless she’s Mary-Louise Parker’s illegitimate daughter who got the hot genes from her mom and currently works as a spy for the CIA, chances are she’s just some random bitchy princess you want to sleep with, in which case — pat yourself on the back — she’s even less interesting than you.  If you ever want her to go down on you, just shut up and listen.

3. But At the Same Time, Don’t Be a Pussy.

There’s shutting up and listening to her stories, and then there’s letting her whine to you about this guy who’s mean to her and she’s so glad she has a really, really great friend like you.  If you’ve gotten to the latter point, you’re beyond saving.

It’s not a secret anymore that in general, girls are attracted to guys who don’t treat them well.  And it makes perfect sense: she’s really hot and has lived a life of everyone, especially guys like you, tripping over themselves to please her.  The one guy who does things differently catches her attention.

But there’s two things wrong with that rule.  First, you can only really pull it off if you’re good-looking.  If you’re a hot jerk, you’re a badass; if you’re an average-looking jerk, you’re a tool.  It’s not fair, but such is life.

The other problem is that most of you who need to read articles like this one are too nice.  You literally cannot be a jerk to a girl.  Your parents taught you manners, thank you very much, and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that.

There’s not.  The solution?  Just be assertive. That means, simply, that you should come across like a man who knows what he wants.  When you ask her out, give her a specific time, place, and activity.  Never say “I don’t care, what do you want to do?”  If she asks your opinion on something, give it to her.  Etc.

If she does specifically ask you about yourself, you’re permitted to tell her that you have a steady job or are well on your way down a lucrative career path.  No, she’s not seriously considering you as a mate yet, but if you think there’s no difference between “I’m studying to be a lawyer” and “I’m an English major,” you’re wrong.

The 10 Worst Movies to Open at #1

It’s not hard for a bad movie to open on top of the weekend box office chart — a combination of heavy marketing, recognizable stars, and a simple concept pretty much assures it.  Every month, for example, a new bad horror movies comes and goes.  Remember The Messengers, Darkness Falls or Urban Legends: Final Cut?  They were all the #1 movie in America at one point.

Romantic comedies work the same way: Forces of Nature, Monster-in-Law, and Failure to Launch all topped the box office in their day.  And then there’s the awful kids’ movies that lazy parents pay for: Scooby Doo…Pokemon…The Pacifier…and the list goes on.

The thing about all these movies is that they’re passively bad.  Everybody already knew they would suck, and they’re quickly forgotten.  Sometimes, however, a movie opens at #1 that is really bad.  Offensively bad.  Beg-for-your-money-back, sign-of-the-impending-apocalypse bad.  Here are the 10 Worst Movies to Open at #1.  Read more

The 15 Most ‘Glorious’ World War 2 Movies

OK, so maybe “glorious” isn’t the right word to describe WW2, but these movies certainly are badass. We’re really psyched about this weekend’s release of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, so we thought we’d take a look at some of the best cinematic World War II offerings of the past. In the effort to narrow down the list, we’re not counting Holocaust movies, nor are we counting TV movies — sorry, but watching Band of Brothers just would’ve taken way too long.  Recent flicks like Valkyrie and Miracle at St. Anna both have their moments, but they’re too new.  So, without further adieu, here are The 15 Most Glorious World War 2 Movies. Read more

The 20 Most Anticipated Movies of 2010

Seth Rogen fatigue is setting in, so we left The Green Hornet off the list. Ditto to the inevitable Nightmare on Elm Street remake, even though it landed Jackie Earle Haley to play Freddy Krueger. Remakes of Clash of the Titans and Death at a Funeral and the possible Ben Stiller/Tom Cruise comedy The Hardy Men might be good, but there were too many other interesting movies to pick from.

Check out the 20 Most Anticipated Movies of 2010, here!

5 Action Sequences You Would Definitely F*ck Up

Ever watch an action scene in a movie and think to yourself, “that definitely wouldn’t work in real life”?  Heck, ever see an action scene you think would work?  See, action heroes aren’t just heroes, they’re gods.  Plug yourself into any action movie situation, even the seemingly plausible ones, and it becomes obvious: even with the right training, you would hopelessly, hopelessly fail.  Take these five common scenarios:

5. The Escape Sequence

James Bond gets captured in every single one of his movies.  But with the exception of Die Another Day, he stays captured for about fifteen minutes before he finds a handy escape route or tricks the guards.  (Die Another Day, which also features an invisible car and a character named “Jinx” whom everybody inscrutably calls “Jince,” begins with a pointless six-month stint in North Korean captivity.)

You or I couldn’t really escape, mostly because we’re not double-oh agents.  And therefore things wouldn’t go very smoothly:

• We would look for an air duct to crawl through, but even if we found one, it would actually be screwed onto the wall and not easily removable.
• We would try to trick the guards, but the guards wouldn’t turn out to be quite as stupid as Bond henchman.
• Any attempt to Judo Chop the guards would result in them punching us in the face and/or shooting us outright.
• And most unfortunately, there would be no super-hot girl hanging around who works for the bad guy but really wants to jump our bones, so much so that she’d help us escape.

4. The Car Chase in a Tightly-Packed City

These have been around forever, but the Bourne series used them to great effect in all three movies.  The 2008 Dennis Quaid/Matthew Fox flick Vantage Point also had a terrific car chase on the super-narrow streets of Spain, as well as classics like Ronin and The French Connection.  But let’s be honest: pretty much anybody would crash in less than ten seconds.

It’s not just the ninety-degree turns that any car should have to slow down to less than 30 MPH for.  It’s not just that you would get stuck behind things constantly.  It’s really that in a crowded, cramped city, you’re going to hit somebody.  The hero can’t look bad, so he never does: Matt Damon doesn’t hit any old ladies while he’s gunning it away from Karl Urban in India at the beginning of The Bourne Supremacy.  But you and I would.  Luckily, our horror at murdering an innocent due to plain old reckless driving would be cut short when Karl Urban walked up to us and killed us.

3. That Cliché Where Two Characters Are in Close-Up and then You Hear a Shot, and then One of Them Slowly Falls

Remember the end of Minority Report?  Max Von Sydow had framed Tom Cruise for a murder, Cruise finally figures it out, and the two of them are squaring off on a balcony.  Von Sydow has the gun, but he also knows he’s been exposed and his life’s work will be ruined, so as the two draw closer to each other, the question is: is he going to shoot Cruise, or himself?

The two of them get up really close to each other so you can only see their faces, and then you hear the gunshot.  Both their eyes widen, neither of them move, but then ever so slowly, Von Sydow falls to the floor.

Unfortunately, I had seen the exact same thing happen in the 1998 sci-fi TV movie Chameleon.  Really.  So the Minority Report version didn’t have much of a “wow” factor.  But, of course, it got me thinking: why does the person who didn’t get shot just sort of…stand there?

Because if it were me, I would freak the hell out.  Think about it: somebody is exactly one foot away from you, has a loaded gun, and fires said loaded gun.  Would you (A) stand there with wide eyes, quivering slightly, until the other person decided he was going to fall down, or (B) scream like a girl and jump backward?  Yeah, me too.

2. Resisting the Femme Fatale

Another staple of James Bond: a random hot girl shows up in his room and tries to seduce him; he goes for it, but then realizes she’s trying to kill him at the last second and a fight ensues.  This happened most famously in Goldfinger, thanks to the best pun in the history of movies.  Bond eventually electrocutes the chick in the bathtub, and before he leaves the room, he looks at her and says: “Shocking.”

But if it were me?  True, a girl coming onto me would be a new experience, but I certainly wouldn’t take the time to get all suspicious about it.  Stab me, shoot me, whatever you were planning on: my mind is going to be on exactly one thing.  And I’m guessing yours would be, too.  Hey, we’re only human.

1. Everything John McClane Has Ever Done

A bunch of people complained about Live Free or Die Hard turning Bruce Willis’s John McClane into too much of a superhero, I guess as opposed to an ordinary guy.  To them I say: did you ever see Die Hard 2?  The climax of that movie features him blowing up a plane that’s already in the sky while he’s standing on the runway thanks to some impossibly perfect timing and a whole lot of gasoline.  That would require me to get my lighter to work on the first try, so…no.

How about the classic scene from the first Die Hard in which McClane is barefoot and walks over the broken glass?  He just does it.  I, personally, would’ve taken a more crafty approach, like maybe taking off my shirt and sweeping all the glass away.  One of Professor Snape’s goons probably would’ve killed me in the process, but I think it’d be worth the risk.  Because that glass would’ve really hurt.

The 8 People You’ll Meet In Your Hometown Bar This Summer

Well, school’s over for the year.  You former freshman have moved back in with your parents and secured that summer job and, after the first couple of weeks, have discovered a sad truth: while you’re a college student, summers blow.

You’re working forty hour weeks in menial labor.  None of your college buddies are around anymore.  Your parents don’t seem to appreciate when you show up at your house drunk at 4 a.m.  Your mom still does your laundry, but she’s sharing her car with you, so you have to let her know when you’re going anywhere.  You never thought you’d ask this, but: is it September yet?

You call up the ever-dwindling number of people you still talk to from high school and see what they want to do, and at some point, somebody suggests going to the bar — you know, that crap-tastic small town dive bar filled with locals.  Sure, why not?  When you walk in, here’s what you can expect to find: Read more

The 20 Most Anticipated Movies of 2010

Seth Rogen fatigue is setting in, so we left The Green Hornet off the list. Ditto to the inevitable Nightmare on Elm Street remake, even though it landed Jackie Earle Haley to play Freddy Krueger. Remakes of Clash of the Titans and Death at a Funeral and the possible Ben Stiller/Tom Cruise comedy The Hardy Men might be good, but there were too many other interesting movies to pick from.

So what does that leave? Well, it’s an accepted fact that Hollywood has run out of ideas and is just coasting on remakes and sequels, so while putting together this list, we tried to come up with as many totally original movies as we could. In the end, we’ve got four sequels, three of which are based on books; four additional non-sequels based on books; three movies based on TV shows; and one based on a well-known legend.

That left only six original movies. Oh well. Despite that, we think we put together a damn good list. Read more

6 Things That Suck About the New Star Trek Movie (SPOILER ALERT)

You’re in for a treat this summer: Star Trek is poised to be a popular success on the level of Iron Man.  It’s exciting, funny, and entertaining in ways that are accessible both to die-hard Trekkies and average movie lovers… except for the parts where it sucks.

I had a chance to see Trek at an advance screening last week, and yes, I liked it a lot.  But the critics have already started over-praising it Dark Knight-style, and I know everybody else is going to join in soon too.  So allow me, just for a moment, to counterbalance the raves with some sanity and present to you the reasons Star Trek might not be the best thing ever.  (Be warned that there are spoilers in this article.) Read more

Network TV is Dead

Network TV has been dying for years, but in the 2008-2009 which ends this coming month, it finally croaked.  If some of you don’t care, well, no crap.  Did you check out Better Off Ted the other night?  Yeah, me either.

It didn’t used to be like this — networks rolling out dozens of new shows each year only to cancel them four episodes into their runs.  In 1953 — yep, I’m going way back — an episode of I Love Lucy aired that played on 71% of all television sets in the United States.  Just yesterday I heard that ABC is considering renewing Scrubs for a ninth season.  The percentage of television sets tuning into Scrubs in its eighth season?  3.5. Read more

5 Positive Side Effects of the Resurgence of Pirates

Sure, the made-up swine flu pandemic may be the hottest item in 24-hour news these days. But if you ask us, killer viruses are still nothing compared to f**king pirates! With these 21st Century swashbucklers re-taking over the high seas, a whole new element has been added to life here on Earth. Here are 5 reasons having these lawless thieves around isn’t such a bad thing. Read more

Top 10 Summer Movies Guaranteed to Bomb

By now, it’s easy to know what to expect from the summer movie season. There will be a few movies with big robots (Transformers 2, Terminator). There will be at least one superhero movie (Wolverine). At least one Judd Apatow movie (Funny People) and at least one Adam Sandler movie (Funny People, again). Then there will be another movie only produced by Apatow (Year One). Finally, there will be a critically-acclaimed Pixar movie (Up) and, yep, it’s also a Harry Potter year.

Chances are, they won’t all be good. But we’re excited about them anyway, because they deliver everything we want out of summer movies: explosions, laughs, and, well, that’s pretty much it. We’re easily satisfied.

But then there are other movies. Movies that somehow find themselves in the summer season amidst all these blockbusters that just don’t jive with the summer spirit. They’re too serious, too treacly, or too completely, horribly awful. We present to you the top ten summer movies of 2009…that we guarantee will bomb. Read more

What the Wolverine Leak Means for the Future of Piracy

Twentieth-Century Fox was the butt of a big prank this April Fool’s Day, when news broke that a copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine was leaked onto the net. Movies get leaked habitually, sure, but the circumstances combined to make it feel like a first: It was a DVD-quality copy. Of a massive, big-budget superhero movie. Online a full month before the movie’s release.

The bootleg spread like wildfire, and by some accounts there were over one hundred thousand downloads on the first day alone. That’s a lot of conceivable box office revenue.

It felt like a first, but it also might be a last. Because the way I experienced it, April Fool’s Day marked the end of piracy’s glory days — the day piracy stopped being casually tolerated by everyone but studio heads.

This goes beyond Fox’s you-messed-with-the-wrong-people response to the incident (they put out a statement which went something like, and I’m paraphrasing, “we’re working with the FBI to make sure whomever was responsible will spend the rest of their life worrying about dropping the soap”). And it goes beyond the firing of FoxNews.com‘s Roger Friedman, who won the Stupidest (Ex-)Columnist in the World award for writing a review of the bootleg and encouraging people to watch more movies online illegally. (Seriously, man. Twentieth-Century Fox and Fox News are sibling companies, what kind of false sense of job security did you have?)

It also goes beyond whether the movie was any good or not. I’ve read good and bad things; the majority of responses haven’t been promising, but then again, we’re talking about the internet. Do the disparagers really think watching it on a fifteen-inch screen with unfinished special effects will provide the same experience sitting in a movie theater will? No, they just like being negative.

What it really boils down to is that the online fan community itself condemned the leak. Universally.

Ain’t It Cool News, the granddaddy of online movie spoiling and fanboy bitching, ran a story called “We Don’t Want your Wolverine Movie Reviews,” explaining, “the only way you’re seeing it right now is through illegal channels, and we’re not going to condone that.”

JoBlo.com downplayed its potential effects, saying that “while there will always be a percentage of internetizens who actively seek pirated/bootleg/camera copies of movies, it’s probably safe to say that the average consumer still prefers the theater experience.”

TheBadandUgly.com said they stopped watching the bootleg after a couple minutes, in order to get the better theatrical experience: “Just because you can watch a rough-sketch and go somewhere on the internet to read the entire plot,” the article says, “does not mean you, I or anyone knows what X-Men Origins: Wolverine looks like. Because it isn’t done.”

And DarkHorizons.com summed things up by saying “It’s an act that cruelly robs thousands of people of not just months of hard effort, but their potential livelihood as well.”

That was the reigning sentiment: even if you don’t care about hurting a big studio, you’re hurting the hundreds of hardworking crew members who spent months on the project. If piracy translates into lost revenue, that’s going to translate into smaller budgets and fewer jobs.

If you really want a nail in the coffin? Even some pirates are speaking out against the leak. The New York Times ran a story called “Some Pirates Won’t Watch Illegal Wolverine”, while Gizmodo came out with a “Pirate’s Code of Conduct”, which contained gems like “save action flicks…for the big screen” and ” if you really like it and can afford to do so, buy it.”

Does this mean everyone in the world has suddenly found a stringent set of morals? That’s pretty doubtful. But the tide of public opinion has turned.  And I am sure about one thing:

The fourteen-year-old who stole the copy of Wolverine from his dad’s postproduction and posted it online thinking he was cool is totally crapping his pants right now.

How to Avoid Responsibilities After Graduation

It’s the beginning of April, and that means many of you will be graduating from college shortly. Depending on how savvy of an undergrad you are, you’ve either milked the college thing for all it’s worth — i.e., you still live in a dorm and get a meal plan — or you haven’t, and you live in a disgusting apartment where a good day involves a fight with your roommate over the dishes.

If you’re the latter case, you’ve already experienced a taste of the depressing jolt of reality that leads people to write songs like “I Wish I Could Go Back to College.” But believe it or not, it gets worse.

See, once you’re out of college, all bets are off. Chances are, Mom and Dad were paying your rent in college; they’ll stop now. You’ll be expected to find a job — in one of the worst economic climates this country has ever seen. And you’ll be expected to take on responsibilities that you’ve never had before: some combination of electric bills, laundry, car insurance, health insurance, cooking, heat, and trash. Oh, you already pay car insurance? Good for you. Here are six more bills, and by the way, you’re in credit card debt.

One more thing: you won’t have friends anymore. Maybe a few of them will stick around, and maybe you’ll still go out drinking with them, but in general, get used to being a loser.

Now that I’ve thoroughly depressed you, I think it’s the perfect time to offer you some advice.

Go to grad school.

My senior year of college, I was intent on not going to graduate school. I spent four years worth of tuition on a screenwriting major, and I was determined that graduate school would only put off the inevitable: my immediate success in Hollywood. It was my time to unleash me into the world.

That was my first mistake: you want to put off the inevitable. At all costs. Because the true inevitable amounts to unemployment or, if you’re lucky and didn’t choose a B.S. major like I did, a job you have to get up at 7 a.m. for.  In grad school, you may have to find an apartment, but you’ll never have to get up at 7 a.m. unless you’re in business school.  You can even still schedule your own classes!  If you shun grad school, the days of deciding not to take three classes in a row because you like taking naps at 2 p.m. are over.  Forever.

If you won’t go to grad school, at least move in with your parents.

Welcome to easy street — and the only thing you need to give up in exchange is a little piece of your dignity.  Your mom and dad won’t really want you anymore, but they’ll take you — and cook for you, and take out your garbage, and pay all the utility bills.  You may have to make your bed or mow the lawn every once in a while — but that’s it.  The carefree days of high school are back.

You may have to move away from all your college buddies, but this way you can get back in touch with all those people who never left your hometown after graduation. Be nice to them, okay? You’re one of them now.

This scenario might sound like hell to you right now.  But I guarantee you, six months into the real world, it’s going to sound like paradise.

If you refuse to move in with your parents, at least get a female roommate.

If you have a girlfriend, move in with her. Afraid of commitment? Tough. When she’s doing your dishes, keeping your apartment from looking like a bomb went off, and keeping all the bills organized, you’ll thank me.

No girlfriend? Try to find a platonic female roommate. One of my old college buddies lived with a female friend for a year and it worked great because they created a system: he’d take out the trash if she’d do all the dishes. Naturally, the second job was way more time consuming and much worse, but since he could stand a sink full of dishes and she couldn’t, she was forced into it. That’s the kind of deal you need to make.

Whether you move in with your girlfriend or just a random girl, you won’t be getting laid nearly as much as you’re imagining, but at least in the second scenario it’ll be excusable.

If you can’t find a female roommate, go take a road trip, live in a hostel, backpack overseas, anything.

Don’t live alone or with a male roommate. For the sake of your sanity, don’t.  Living alone, your apartment will be messy, and to your horror you’ll find that you’re actually starting to care. You’ll have to pay all the bills yourself, including rent, and trust me, you can’t afford it. And you will go completely stir crazy. (Okay, one clear cut win here: you’ll have unparalleled masturbatory freedom. Unplug those headphones and open your bedroom door!)

A male roommate will split the costs and provide somebody to hang out with, right? Wrong. It was easy to get along in college because neither of you had to worry about anything in that tiny dorm room. Now you have to share a kitchen, and guess what? You’re about to get roaches. You’ll also have to split the cable bill, which is impossible: either you can never get the check from him, or he forgets to send it in on time, resulting in an absurdly large late fee. You’ll grow to slowly hate each other until you have thoughts about moving into your own place, but — remember? — you can’t afford it. Congratulations, you’re trapped.

Sell all your possessions and go live in a youth hostel instead. Trust me, it’s better. If you help out with stuff, chances are you can live there for pennies or for free. Or go on a road trip. Or convince your parents that you “just need a year to figure out what I want to do” and make them finance a trip to Europe. Maybe the recession will be over by the time you come back.

If all else fails, at least live near a relative.

Don’t underestimate free laundry and the occasional dinner invite.

5 Things Fallout 3 Taught Me About Life

Bethesda Softworks’ Fallout 3 is a really remarkable video game for lots of reasons, but above all, it’s immersive — you can be anyone you want, look any way you want, get a job, eat meals, listen to the radio, read, and even buy a house. It came out late last year and I only recently emerged from playing it (and only then after my girlfriend switched off my power strip).

When I faced the real world again, though, I realized something had changed. I was sharper and more nimble than I was before. My time in the world of Fallout 3 had actually helped me cope with the real world — thanks to some very important lessons the game taught me. In no particular order, here are my top five: Read more