I'm a big fan of homoerotic tension.
I know that's an unusual, perhaps even controversial, stance to take, but I'm sticking with it. When I was tricked by advertising and hype into seeing the very bad film "Eragon" a few years ago, one of the only things I took away from it were that the teen male hero, and his male competition for the female, had more sexual tension than between either of them and the female. THAT'S GREAT FILMMAKING. Accidental filmmaking, yes, but hot n' sexy nonetheless. Not sexy? Everything else about that movie.
So despite the obvious pretty-boy ridiculousness of the lead in "Prince Caspian" when that came out, I was in on the action because dammit, I'd only ever read "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," and I wanted to see what happened next. The result was pretty nifty, I must say, with great battle sequences and a fuckin' CASTLE SIEGE. I mean, c'mon people. I know there were mice and dogs and foxes and centaurs involved, but it was a freakin' CASTLE SIEGE. That shit is awesome. It's not "Braveheart," but regardless of the reality of the characters involved, a castle is attacked, there are gigantic battle sequences, and then a duel between the King of All Narnia, and some upstart British teenager who's been training in the woods for an hour with Peter Dinklage. Great movie. Four stars on Netflix. Would watch again.
GEEK
The first two live-action Narnia movies were directed by Andrew Adamson, who previously directed the original "Shrek." I liked Shrek, and despite the complaints of some about too many pop-culture references, it had plenty of other jokes that landed, as well as some non-comedic moments that came together really well, too. And the message about "inner beauty" was an important one, which of course was squandered in all of the sequels in favor of lame poop jokes. Point Adamson, Negative Points for Shrek.
My point being is that Andrew Adamson is a competent director, and made a good enough live-action adaptation of "LW&W" that it made lots of money, and lots of people liked it. Hopefully you're one, too. If not, well, maybe fantasy just isn't your thing. That doesn't make it a bad movie.
"LW&W" was released at Christmas time that year, so when it came time for Prince Caspian, the studio thought, "These kinds of family movies do really well at Christmas. Should we release Prince Caspian at Christmas, too? ... NAHHHHH, let's dump it during the summer, because clearly "The Water Horse" is going to be a huge hit and make a billion dollars and we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket."
I did not see "The Water Horse."
NOBODY saw "The Water Horse."
Speaking of awful decisions, the studio then opted to replace Adamson for "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" with Michael Apted, who has not had a hit since 1999, with a movie called "Tomorrow Never Dies," arguably the worst of the Brosnan-Bond movies. Maybe you liked it, I dunno, but it sure as shit was no "Goldeneye." Apted is also roughly 153 years old (no, seriously, he's 69, and in no condition to be making a kids movie. The closest he's ever come to a kids movie is "Enough" starring Jennifer Lopez, which I guess also doubles as the closest he's ever come to directing fantasy. That's not a dig at women's rights, just a dig at Jennifer Lopez).
My point is that "Dawn Treader" is going to suck and I'm mad about it.
The first two films were able to mine the adventure from the story while leaving the supposed religious shenanigans in the background, if you chose to ignore them. Sure there was Aslan was supposed to be Jesus and blah blah blah, but they weren't all in your face about it. CASTLE SIEGE. Eddie Izzard. TILDA SWINTON HOTNESS. These are important movie-going experiences.
Dawn Treader? Confirmed for mediocre also-ran. It's the "Star Trek V" of this cycle, and it won't make any money, because even if Tron blows (and it might), Tron is going to make Phantom-Menace money, while Dawn Treader makes "Howard the Duck" money.
Nice one, studio.
NOT GEEK
Wardrobe was awesome. Caspian was awesome. Fuck the haters.
........Though Apted does suck a dick.
And was that the White Witch in the trailer? WHAT THE F--
Etc.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
An Open Letter to Mark Cuban
I try not to write about sports here, but this is the only blog I have, and until I can think of more than one sports idea every three months, this is where it goes:
DEAR MARK CUBAN,
Despite not having lived full-time in Houston since I was 20, I still feel a strong loyalty toward the city, despite its many abuses to me, during my upbringing. That sounds more overly dramatic than I meant it: my parents were lovely and my little brother only occasionally irritating, but of course the weather in Houston remains as oppressive as it does in Dallas, and the traffic situation down there makes the Dallas traffic look like a walk to the mailbox.
And yet I still feel fierce loyalties to the teams I grew up with, the Rockets and Astros, and by extension, the Texans. I believe there was another football team in Houston for some time, but I have erradicated all memory of it from my brain, due to abuse by a terrible owner-- words which, I must say, cannot be applied to you.
You are a wonderful owner. You have hired good people, let them do their jobs, you have been open with your fans and fans of your team, and your enthusiasm is purely contagious. You know your job, and are keenly aware that privilege is not a substitute for actual knowledge of the game and the team. And, most importantly, of all the professional sports franchise-owners in Dallas, you are the only one to actually allow your sports franchise to play in Dallas. Purists will surely say, "But hockey is a professional sport, too," to which I say, "Go back to Canada, you Molson-drinking moose-rider."
I know all this (except for the bit about Canada, which is hearsay) because I lived in Dallas for over ten years. Sure, part of it was in Denton, and part of it was in the remote outpost known as Sherman, but we all basically fall under the same Dallas umbrella (except for Ft. Worth, which hates you). I'm a fan of your work and of all the owners in professional sports today, you're the one who feels like he's most excited to be there. Not because of potential profits, but because you can actively affect the world around you and the culture in which you live. You know that a championship is more important than how many hot dogs you sold at concessions last week.
So when it was reported that you'd said, in a casual offhand way, that you weren't interested in buying the Astros... I was fine with it. Really, I was. Whatever your reasons, that's fine. One man owning a team in both Houston and Dallas is certainly a great sports sacrilege, akin to owning teams in both New York and Boston, or Los Angeles and San Francisco, but even if this was not your reason, it doesn't matter. You have a business to run, you got burned by the Cubs, burned by the Rangers, whatever. It's water under the bridge, and we needn't dwell on it. I didn't think you'd want the gig and your name never even really occurred to me when their previous owner announced the sale.
But the thing is, sports needs more people like you. Someone passionate about the game, not just someone who views it as an investment, or an excuse to stand next to cheerleaders. A rock star, as it were, with enthusiasm and intelligence, passion and personality. Someone Not Jerry Jones. Someone like you.
And so, even though I have only ever lived in four cities: Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and presently Seattle... I feel great confidence in suggesting the next sports team you should buy:
If there has ever been any more long-suffering, desperate, needy, and nowhere-to-go-but-up franchise, can any answer really be more obvious than the Detroit Lions?
Sure, we're all waiting for the owner of the LA Clippers to be declared insane and have his team wrested from his clutches, but you already own an NBA team and I think there's an ownership-cap on that. But if you must own a second team, it should be not baseball.... but football.
RATIONALE #1: The Detroit Lions are not in Texas. So no "sports bigamy" to borrow a term from another writer.
RATIONALE #2: The Detroit Lions play at Ford Field. And while the Ford Motor Company lacks the presence in Detroit that it used to have, MANY PEOPLE IN DALLAS DRIVE CARS. And I just don't mean, facetiously, like, "Many people in Dallas have feet," but rather, it is an impossibility for anyone to get anywhere in Dallas without a car. Sure, the train is coming along nicely, but not to the point where people are just selling their cars and travelling everywhere on foot and by bus (like they do in Seattle). They have cars, they love their cars, and they WILL drive them to Detroit. For you.
RATIONALE #3: The Lions are terrible. Do we need to remind you the state of the Mavericks when you first arrived? You love a project.
RATIONALE #4: Once a season you get to play Jerry Jones in open gladiatorial combat. Well, not personally, but your fans would plunk down $100 for that ticket, too.
RATIONALE #5: I'm not going to name names, but by and large, NFL owners are way, way more douchey than NBA owners. You, sir, are not a douche. You are a folk hero. Except for the HDnet thing.
RATIONALE #6: Within the last three years, Comerica Bank has left Detroit, relocating in Dallas. Think of this as giving something back to the community. If some businessman and entrepeneur from Oklahoma City wanted to give something back to Seattle, I certainly would not turn it down.
RATIONALE #7: Texas has no natural lakes. Michigan, I have seen on maps, has several. Two words, sir: LAKEFRONT PROPERTY. Or is that three words?
and finally...
RATIONALE #8: You would have an office in a state that borders a foreign country. Which, if I recall from the last presidential election, would give you foreign policy experience.
And honestly, not even a random passer-by on the street could do a worse job than the current Lions ownership, and you are far more experienced and passionate than some person that was just happening to pass by. You're Mark Cuban. You've got an illegal cigar RIGHT THERE IN YOUR NAME. There's nothing you can't do.
Speaking as someone who has never lived in, nor even set foot in, the beautiful state of Michigan, I feel myself and the people of this great nation would be behind such a bold move. For fortune favors the bold. And Americans favor cool guys with fortunes.
I for one look forward to your future adventures and endeavors,
Warmest Personal Regards,
Some Guy on the Internet
DEAR MARK CUBAN,
Despite not having lived full-time in Houston since I was 20, I still feel a strong loyalty toward the city, despite its many abuses to me, during my upbringing. That sounds more overly dramatic than I meant it: my parents were lovely and my little brother only occasionally irritating, but of course the weather in Houston remains as oppressive as it does in Dallas, and the traffic situation down there makes the Dallas traffic look like a walk to the mailbox.
And yet I still feel fierce loyalties to the teams I grew up with, the Rockets and Astros, and by extension, the Texans. I believe there was another football team in Houston for some time, but I have erradicated all memory of it from my brain, due to abuse by a terrible owner-- words which, I must say, cannot be applied to you.
You are a wonderful owner. You have hired good people, let them do their jobs, you have been open with your fans and fans of your team, and your enthusiasm is purely contagious. You know your job, and are keenly aware that privilege is not a substitute for actual knowledge of the game and the team. And, most importantly, of all the professional sports franchise-owners in Dallas, you are the only one to actually allow your sports franchise to play in Dallas. Purists will surely say, "But hockey is a professional sport, too," to which I say, "Go back to Canada, you Molson-drinking moose-rider."
I know all this (except for the bit about Canada, which is hearsay) because I lived in Dallas for over ten years. Sure, part of it was in Denton, and part of it was in the remote outpost known as Sherman, but we all basically fall under the same Dallas umbrella (except for Ft. Worth, which hates you). I'm a fan of your work and of all the owners in professional sports today, you're the one who feels like he's most excited to be there. Not because of potential profits, but because you can actively affect the world around you and the culture in which you live. You know that a championship is more important than how many hot dogs you sold at concessions last week.
So when it was reported that you'd said, in a casual offhand way, that you weren't interested in buying the Astros... I was fine with it. Really, I was. Whatever your reasons, that's fine. One man owning a team in both Houston and Dallas is certainly a great sports sacrilege, akin to owning teams in both New York and Boston, or Los Angeles and San Francisco, but even if this was not your reason, it doesn't matter. You have a business to run, you got burned by the Cubs, burned by the Rangers, whatever. It's water under the bridge, and we needn't dwell on it. I didn't think you'd want the gig and your name never even really occurred to me when their previous owner announced the sale.
But the thing is, sports needs more people like you. Someone passionate about the game, not just someone who views it as an investment, or an excuse to stand next to cheerleaders. A rock star, as it were, with enthusiasm and intelligence, passion and personality. Someone Not Jerry Jones. Someone like you.
And so, even though I have only ever lived in four cities: Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and presently Seattle... I feel great confidence in suggesting the next sports team you should buy:
If there has ever been any more long-suffering, desperate, needy, and nowhere-to-go-but-up franchise, can any answer really be more obvious than the Detroit Lions?
Sure, we're all waiting for the owner of the LA Clippers to be declared insane and have his team wrested from his clutches, but you already own an NBA team and I think there's an ownership-cap on that. But if you must own a second team, it should be not baseball.... but football.
RATIONALE #1: The Detroit Lions are not in Texas. So no "sports bigamy" to borrow a term from another writer.
RATIONALE #2: The Detroit Lions play at Ford Field. And while the Ford Motor Company lacks the presence in Detroit that it used to have, MANY PEOPLE IN DALLAS DRIVE CARS. And I just don't mean, facetiously, like, "Many people in Dallas have feet," but rather, it is an impossibility for anyone to get anywhere in Dallas without a car. Sure, the train is coming along nicely, but not to the point where people are just selling their cars and travelling everywhere on foot and by bus (like they do in Seattle). They have cars, they love their cars, and they WILL drive them to Detroit. For you.
RATIONALE #3: The Lions are terrible. Do we need to remind you the state of the Mavericks when you first arrived? You love a project.
RATIONALE #4: Once a season you get to play Jerry Jones in open gladiatorial combat. Well, not personally, but your fans would plunk down $100 for that ticket, too.
RATIONALE #5: I'm not going to name names, but by and large, NFL owners are way, way more douchey than NBA owners. You, sir, are not a douche. You are a folk hero. Except for the HDnet thing.
RATIONALE #6: Within the last three years, Comerica Bank has left Detroit, relocating in Dallas. Think of this as giving something back to the community. If some businessman and entrepeneur from Oklahoma City wanted to give something back to Seattle, I certainly would not turn it down.
RATIONALE #7: Texas has no natural lakes. Michigan, I have seen on maps, has several. Two words, sir: LAKEFRONT PROPERTY. Or is that three words?
and finally...
RATIONALE #8: You would have an office in a state that borders a foreign country. Which, if I recall from the last presidential election, would give you foreign policy experience.
And honestly, not even a random passer-by on the street could do a worse job than the current Lions ownership, and you are far more experienced and passionate than some person that was just happening to pass by. You're Mark Cuban. You've got an illegal cigar RIGHT THERE IN YOUR NAME. There's nothing you can't do.
Speaking as someone who has never lived in, nor even set foot in, the beautiful state of Michigan, I feel myself and the people of this great nation would be behind such a bold move. For fortune favors the bold. And Americans favor cool guys with fortunes.
I for one look forward to your future adventures and endeavors,
Warmest Personal Regards,
Some Guy on the Internet
Friday, November 5, 2010
The Tea Party is Batshit Nuts, and That's Okay!
Eh. Ostbensibly this blog is to split time between my Inner Citizen and Inner Geekboy, but movies have been thin in '010, and even trips to the comic book store have been less than satisfying. Which is not to say I like comic books because no no no, I'd actually prefer to see naked women. Real ones. Let's just quit while we're behind here.
THE TEA PARTY AND WHY THEY'RE FUNNY.
This is not to say EVERYthing about them is funny. Quite the contrary; aspects of them are quite terrifying, like the fact that they have their traditional conservative roots coming from the same political corner as the Nazis. That and a complete ignorance of history (or else they wouldn't call themselves 'The Tea Party') is pretty much sure to seal their fate on a national level in 2012.
I mean, look. These people make Bill O'Reilly seem reasonable. And even Bill O'Reilly bombs every time he goes on Letterman, because appealing to your tiny little Krazy Kult is not the same as mainstream acceptance. And as a comic-book reading, video-game playing, theatre-reading nerd, I know a thing or two about not being able to gain universal acceptance.
So.
In 1992, Ross Perot garnered 18% of the popular vote. Or, to use a more current but less universal example, in 2006, bigoted Texas Governor Rick Perry (the Lt. Governor under then-Gov. George 'Dubya' Bush) was re-elected after receiving approx. 45% of the vote. The remaining 55% was split between the Democratic challenger (38% or so) and author/musician/activist Kinky Friedman. And so, popular sentiment would tell you, if every person who voted for Friedman, voted instead for the Democrat, then the Democrat would have won.
Which I guess makes the Perot argument kind of invalid, because it's not like liberals were voting for him, but then again this is kind of hindsight. Also I was 16 at the time.
Anyway, through all this, the Neo-Republicans bitched and yelled and screamed about "holding the party line." They all must remain unified under their ONE candidate, because "that's what being a good Republican is all about!" ... And so they all rallied behind Bush Sr., even though he was a weak President and laid the seeds of the current Iraq mess, and they all rallied behind Dole, who lacked all charisma, and they all rallied behind Dubya, even though McCain was more charismatic and had more experience, and at least in 2000, was younger than 500. They even held the party line 8 years later with McCain/Palin, even though the country had cooled on Republican shenanigans, and the party itself had trashed the man 8 years earlier. Also Palin isn't qualified to run a 7-11.
So what do we have in 2010? DISSENT. The Republican party is splitting, with the right-wing over here, and the EXTREME right-wing over there.
This is good for Democrats.
What is, of course, NOT good for Democrats, or the people in general, is the entire Tea-Party's platform, in which they feel marginalized and stepped on and not represented by our government, much like (they say) the colonials of North America circa 1776. The reason they feel marginalized is because they ARE in the margins, and their beliefs are so uneducated and outside the mainstream that they can't ever possibly hope to maintain a foothold bigger than the one they have right now. Then again, that's at a national level. In Kentucky (for example), they're actually doing alright in the polls.
Preaching the good old days, wanting to return to "Traditional American Values," and abhorring the entire popular culture. Finger-pointing. Blaming other Americans who don't share their beliefs as the only problem, and a problem that must be stopped. Uber-conservatism, led by a charismatic leader who gives good speeches but doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.
Hitler only grew that moustache because his handlers told him it would make him popular-- Charlie Chaplin was pretty big at the time. And while Barack Obama is educated and has a record of service going back to his formative years, Hitler was rejected from art school twice and wrote a popular book in prison in which he blamed everyone else for Germany's problems.
Meanwhile Glenn Beck used to be a drive-time morning radio DJ and has a miltary-esque flat-top haircut (the military is popular with his fans, but he has never served), and has written a lot of retarded books.
I'm just sayin'.
Basically parts of the country are completely screwed, politically... but we must remain optimistic. Granted, there are just chunks of the country ignorant to history-- no doubt a result of the Republicans slashing of education-- but the same can't be said for 100% of us.
And so, Tea Party... creepy as though they may be... means the crazy nutcases who helped put Bush over Kerry in 2004... have all left the party for Insaner Pastures.
Let the good times roll.
THE TEA PARTY AND WHY THEY'RE FUNNY.
This is not to say EVERYthing about them is funny. Quite the contrary; aspects of them are quite terrifying, like the fact that they have their traditional conservative roots coming from the same political corner as the Nazis. That and a complete ignorance of history (or else they wouldn't call themselves 'The Tea Party') is pretty much sure to seal their fate on a national level in 2012.
I mean, look. These people make Bill O'Reilly seem reasonable. And even Bill O'Reilly bombs every time he goes on Letterman, because appealing to your tiny little Krazy Kult is not the same as mainstream acceptance. And as a comic-book reading, video-game playing, theatre-reading nerd, I know a thing or two about not being able to gain universal acceptance.
So.
In 1992, Ross Perot garnered 18% of the popular vote. Or, to use a more current but less universal example, in 2006, bigoted Texas Governor Rick Perry (the Lt. Governor under then-Gov. George 'Dubya' Bush) was re-elected after receiving approx. 45% of the vote. The remaining 55% was split between the Democratic challenger (38% or so) and author/musician/activist Kinky Friedman. And so, popular sentiment would tell you, if every person who voted for Friedman, voted instead for the Democrat, then the Democrat would have won.
Which I guess makes the Perot argument kind of invalid, because it's not like liberals were voting for him, but then again this is kind of hindsight. Also I was 16 at the time.
Anyway, through all this, the Neo-Republicans bitched and yelled and screamed about "holding the party line." They all must remain unified under their ONE candidate, because "that's what being a good Republican is all about!" ... And so they all rallied behind Bush Sr., even though he was a weak President and laid the seeds of the current Iraq mess, and they all rallied behind Dole, who lacked all charisma, and they all rallied behind Dubya, even though McCain was more charismatic and had more experience, and at least in 2000, was younger than 500. They even held the party line 8 years later with McCain/Palin, even though the country had cooled on Republican shenanigans, and the party itself had trashed the man 8 years earlier. Also Palin isn't qualified to run a 7-11.
So what do we have in 2010? DISSENT. The Republican party is splitting, with the right-wing over here, and the EXTREME right-wing over there.
This is good for Democrats.
What is, of course, NOT good for Democrats, or the people in general, is the entire Tea-Party's platform, in which they feel marginalized and stepped on and not represented by our government, much like (they say) the colonials of North America circa 1776. The reason they feel marginalized is because they ARE in the margins, and their beliefs are so uneducated and outside the mainstream that they can't ever possibly hope to maintain a foothold bigger than the one they have right now. Then again, that's at a national level. In Kentucky (for example), they're actually doing alright in the polls.
Preaching the good old days, wanting to return to "Traditional American Values," and abhorring the entire popular culture. Finger-pointing. Blaming other Americans who don't share their beliefs as the only problem, and a problem that must be stopped. Uber-conservatism, led by a charismatic leader who gives good speeches but doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.
Hitler only grew that moustache because his handlers told him it would make him popular-- Charlie Chaplin was pretty big at the time. And while Barack Obama is educated and has a record of service going back to his formative years, Hitler was rejected from art school twice and wrote a popular book in prison in which he blamed everyone else for Germany's problems.
Meanwhile Glenn Beck used to be a drive-time morning radio DJ and has a miltary-esque flat-top haircut (the military is popular with his fans, but he has never served), and has written a lot of retarded books.
I'm just sayin'.
Basically parts of the country are completely screwed, politically... but we must remain optimistic. Granted, there are just chunks of the country ignorant to history-- no doubt a result of the Republicans slashing of education-- but the same can't be said for 100% of us.
And so, Tea Party... creepy as though they may be... means the crazy nutcases who helped put Bush over Kerry in 2004... have all left the party for Insaner Pastures.
Let the good times roll.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The Legacy of Tron Legacy
Here's a twist:
NOT GEEK
OMG this looks GREAT! So freakin' awesome... the trailers look great, and did you hear DAFT PUNK is doing the soundtrack? The first movie was early electronica as far as the soundtrack, so the producers this time around got THE PREMIER electronica artists of 2010 for this! Is liking Daft Punk not geeky? Let's save that question for someone else's blog, "Hipster/Not Hipster."
GEEK
Dude.
People have been nutting themselves over this movie for months, and the first trailer(s) looked great. I was going to link them (for science) but could not easily find an embedded one, so I just gave up. ... Because I am a Geek, and therefore I weigh 300+ pounds, never shave, and sweat easily. Etc. Etc.
TRAILER ONE: Leaked on the net, it was just two random dudes on their light-cycles. I was cynical, but I let it slide: It's the light cycles. That's like making an X-Men movie and only showing Wolverine in the trailer. Or making a Monopoly movie, and only showing the racecar. It's what we want, but it's not indicative of the final product.
TRAILER TWO: This is the one that gave everyone wood. Slow mood-building, Bruce Boxleitner cameo (that guy looks familiar...), then BAM, score switches to electronic and we're seeing a towering, extremely familiar image of a Space Paranoid. Then the crazy guy with the air guitar. Then the hot chick on the sofa. Then Young Bridges. ZOMG WTF LOL AHHHH.
I watched this trailer about 197 times, and the first 196... okay, let me excise hyperbole (I don't really talk like that in real life): I watched the trailer literally about ten times the first week or so it was out, and after about a dozen, it started to crack for me.
I thought, "Why show these specific elements? They look cool, but what are they telling me about the story?"
Answer: Nothing.
These are things in every single story Hollywood creates. I read this in a review of a movie you and I have already forgotten about, the CGI-animated "Nine" starring celebrity voices and with Tim Burton's name in the credits because it sells tickets. But it applies to most movies: Stock characters. (1) Hero. (2) The friend of the hero/wacky comic relief who has some inherent flaw, but is there as a sounding board/deus ex machine so our hero completes the task. (3) Wise sage (4) A girl. (5) The bad guy.
Go down your mental rolodex. Yes, I just listed the cast for every Shrek and Toy Story film. And I'm not being pretentious, I really really loved Toy Story 1-2 and the first Shrek movie. I haven't seen Toy Story 3 because I am old and you need to get the hell off my lawn.
Anyway: Tron Legacy. These are just the standard movie stock characters. The hero (Flynn Jr), the friend of the hero (Bruce Boxleitner), the wise sage (quite probably Old Bridges), a girl (Olivia Wilde, who at least in the trailer serves no other purpose than to look hot and help the hero out. Really? She can't be the hero? She seems to know her way around weaponry. But this being Disney, it is her job to be pretty and tell the hero "You can do it!"), and the bad guy (presumably Young Flynn).
Well now as stylistic as the trailer is, I'm sorta cranky. But no, I tell myself. Even though everyone is super-excited for this movie, even those people who were born AFTER the original came out (1982), I will STILL withhold judgment. It's just a trailer. They make it to have as broad of an appeal as possible. TOP MEN are working on this film. TOP.... MEN.
I even ignored my own rule about, "It can't be 5-Star movie if it's the director's first film." Cuz it is. The new director has done commercials, but that's it. Then again, the director of the original Tron only ever directed the original Tron. There's wiggle-room.
THEN CAME THE MOST RECENT TRAILER. Clearly buzz is deafening for the flick, because people watched this piece of shit and ARE STILL BUZZED ABOUT THE MOVIE. You remember in Zoolander where Zoolander kept giving the same look, and Will Ferrell was all like, "AM I TAKING F&%# CRAZY PILLS?!!"
It's like that.
I am by no means a video game afficionado, and have played far fewer games than I have seen movies or even owned CD's. But while young-Bridges in the first trailer (seen only briefly) looks like simply an old-Bridges with major air-brushing (see also: Benjamin Button), in the new trailer, young-Bridges face moves, and IT LOOKS WORSE THAN VIDEO GAMES FROM 2005. Like it's not even remotely fooling anyone. Or, apparently it's fooling EVERYONE, because nobody seems to notice. It looks like ASS. It looks less-realistic than the skeletons in Pirates of the Caribbean, and that movie is five years old TOO. Do they just figure, screw it, we spent enough money, people won't notice because nobody cried foul about Gollum?
... Okay, Gollum was shot dark, but he didn't have to look human. But when he shared the screen with a real person, it looked bad, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here.
CGI-Bridges looks like shit. We still know nothing about the story. It's a first-time director.
While I am not without a childlike sense of joy, and am currently twitching in a POSITIVE way about other movies opening between now and Christmas, every single thing I've seen about Tron: Legacy points to a Phantom Menace-esque experience, or best-case scenario, Revenge of the Sith.
And while Revenge of the Sith was clearly the best of the New Three, it couldn't hold a candle to the Original Trilogy, and we all know this.
Seriously, when was the last time Disney put out quality anything? Even Pixar wasn't their doing; Pixar owned them so many times that eventually Disney shut down its own hand-drawn animation department. Because they got BEAT. By an upstart company with ACTUAL TALENT.
I am too young to be old and cynical. But the movie looks like a C+, and while de-rezzing gladiators looks pretty cool, the actual human fight choreography looks like shit, or at least the 1.5 seconds they've bothered to put in the trailer. And trust me, if it looked good, there'd be more of it.
On the upside, the entire soundtrack is on YouTube, and it is awesome.
Bring on Harry Potter. Bring on 127 Hours. Bring on True Grit.
Let's do this thing.
NOT GEEK
OMG this looks GREAT! So freakin' awesome... the trailers look great, and did you hear DAFT PUNK is doing the soundtrack? The first movie was early electronica as far as the soundtrack, so the producers this time around got THE PREMIER electronica artists of 2010 for this! Is liking Daft Punk not geeky? Let's save that question for someone else's blog, "Hipster/Not Hipster."
GEEK
Dude.
People have been nutting themselves over this movie for months, and the first trailer(s) looked great. I was going to link them (for science) but could not easily find an embedded one, so I just gave up. ... Because I am a Geek, and therefore I weigh 300+ pounds, never shave, and sweat easily. Etc. Etc.
TRAILER ONE: Leaked on the net, it was just two random dudes on their light-cycles. I was cynical, but I let it slide: It's the light cycles. That's like making an X-Men movie and only showing Wolverine in the trailer. Or making a Monopoly movie, and only showing the racecar. It's what we want, but it's not indicative of the final product.
TRAILER TWO: This is the one that gave everyone wood. Slow mood-building, Bruce Boxleitner cameo (that guy looks familiar...), then BAM, score switches to electronic and we're seeing a towering, extremely familiar image of a Space Paranoid. Then the crazy guy with the air guitar. Then the hot chick on the sofa. Then Young Bridges. ZOMG WTF LOL AHHHH.
I watched this trailer about 197 times, and the first 196... okay, let me excise hyperbole (I don't really talk like that in real life): I watched the trailer literally about ten times the first week or so it was out, and after about a dozen, it started to crack for me.
I thought, "Why show these specific elements? They look cool, but what are they telling me about the story?"
Answer: Nothing.
These are things in every single story Hollywood creates. I read this in a review of a movie you and I have already forgotten about, the CGI-animated "Nine" starring celebrity voices and with Tim Burton's name in the credits because it sells tickets. But it applies to most movies: Stock characters. (1) Hero. (2) The friend of the hero/wacky comic relief who has some inherent flaw, but is there as a sounding board/deus ex machine so our hero completes the task. (3) Wise sage (4) A girl. (5) The bad guy.
Go down your mental rolodex. Yes, I just listed the cast for every Shrek and Toy Story film. And I'm not being pretentious, I really really loved Toy Story 1-2 and the first Shrek movie. I haven't seen Toy Story 3 because I am old and you need to get the hell off my lawn.
Anyway: Tron Legacy. These are just the standard movie stock characters. The hero (Flynn Jr), the friend of the hero (Bruce Boxleitner), the wise sage (quite probably Old Bridges), a girl (Olivia Wilde, who at least in the trailer serves no other purpose than to look hot and help the hero out. Really? She can't be the hero? She seems to know her way around weaponry. But this being Disney, it is her job to be pretty and tell the hero "You can do it!"), and the bad guy (presumably Young Flynn).
Well now as stylistic as the trailer is, I'm sorta cranky. But no, I tell myself. Even though everyone is super-excited for this movie, even those people who were born AFTER the original came out (1982), I will STILL withhold judgment. It's just a trailer. They make it to have as broad of an appeal as possible. TOP MEN are working on this film. TOP.... MEN.
I even ignored my own rule about, "It can't be 5-Star movie if it's the director's first film." Cuz it is. The new director has done commercials, but that's it. Then again, the director of the original Tron only ever directed the original Tron. There's wiggle-room.
THEN CAME THE MOST RECENT TRAILER. Clearly buzz is deafening for the flick, because people watched this piece of shit and ARE STILL BUZZED ABOUT THE MOVIE. You remember in Zoolander where Zoolander kept giving the same look, and Will Ferrell was all like, "AM I TAKING F&%# CRAZY PILLS?!!"
It's like that.
I am by no means a video game afficionado, and have played far fewer games than I have seen movies or even owned CD's. But while young-Bridges in the first trailer (seen only briefly) looks like simply an old-Bridges with major air-brushing (see also: Benjamin Button), in the new trailer, young-Bridges face moves, and IT LOOKS WORSE THAN VIDEO GAMES FROM 2005. Like it's not even remotely fooling anyone. Or, apparently it's fooling EVERYONE, because nobody seems to notice. It looks like ASS. It looks less-realistic than the skeletons in Pirates of the Caribbean, and that movie is five years old TOO. Do they just figure, screw it, we spent enough money, people won't notice because nobody cried foul about Gollum?
... Okay, Gollum was shot dark, but he didn't have to look human. But when he shared the screen with a real person, it looked bad, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here.
CGI-Bridges looks like shit. We still know nothing about the story. It's a first-time director.
While I am not without a childlike sense of joy, and am currently twitching in a POSITIVE way about other movies opening between now and Christmas, every single thing I've seen about Tron: Legacy points to a Phantom Menace-esque experience, or best-case scenario, Revenge of the Sith.
And while Revenge of the Sith was clearly the best of the New Three, it couldn't hold a candle to the Original Trilogy, and we all know this.
Seriously, when was the last time Disney put out quality anything? Even Pixar wasn't their doing; Pixar owned them so many times that eventually Disney shut down its own hand-drawn animation department. Because they got BEAT. By an upstart company with ACTUAL TALENT.
I am too young to be old and cynical. But the movie looks like a C+, and while de-rezzing gladiators looks pretty cool, the actual human fight choreography looks like shit, or at least the 1.5 seconds they've bothered to put in the trailer. And trust me, if it looked good, there'd be more of it.
On the upside, the entire soundtrack is on YouTube, and it is awesome.
Bring on Harry Potter. Bring on 127 Hours. Bring on True Grit.
Let's do this thing.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Are You There God? It's Me, Warren
Dear Almighty,
If you don't exist, no one's reading this. If you do exist... are you there, God? It's me, Warren.
I had a terrifying thought today, and I was hoping you of all Entities could take care of that. There may or may not be other entities to choose from, but I just want you to know I'm coming to you first, as a token of goodwill, and because my parents had me baptized when I was too young to know what I was getting myself into.
Going about my business the other day, I realized with depressing horror that someday Christopher Walken is going to die.
Please, I beseech you: We cannot let this happen. I cannot let this happen, and You cannot let this happen. So I am writing to You. And even though every human ever born has eventually died, I pray to you that just this once, in this one lone case, you will make an exception.
Other humans might say, isn't there a more worthy cause? What about doctors, and healers, and moral authorities, and mothers and fathers and sons and daughters? What about really really sexy people?
Almighty, Christopher Walken is all of these. All of these and more.
John Malkovich is intimidatingly intelligent, but is he Christopher Walken? No, he certainly isn't.
Nelson Mandela brought an entire nation together, but did he ever make you remember a wristwatch in the same way Christopher Walken did?
Chuck Norris has perhaps kicked more ass than You have created asses, and he also has a beard that most of your followers are pretty sure you wear. But does Chuck Norris really make us think of eggplant in the same way as Christopher Walken?
Can John Malkovich, or Nelson Mandela, or Chuck Norris.... DANCE, like Christopher Walken?
No almighty, they cannot.
Christopher Walken has done many good works, and the most important of these is being Christopher Walken. He has inspired, terrified, and done that thing with his voice. To deprive the world of Christopher Walken is to steal away for generations and generations the sheer unique wonder that is... he. Generations today do not appreciate Humphrey Bogart, or Malcolm X, or FDR in the same way as they did in their heyday because their work is now quantifiable. It had a limited time on this earth, as we all do, and then it saw an end.
For Christopher Walken there must be no end. To deprive future humans of Christopher Walken would be to deprive them of a tree, or a rainstorm, or the songs of birds chirping as the orange sun rises over the horizon. It would be like omitting an entire sexual position from the repertoire of every human beyond the year 2010. Generations forward will speak of it with quiet awe, but none will believe any of it ever really existed.
For if... if INDEED you are the Almighty, then there is room for someone who lives as long but still walks and works upon this Earth. Your reasons that we all must die, "For everything there is a season..." And we would all know that we do have a season. And some young, untried soul might pipe up and say, "But why doesn't Christopher Walken's season end?"
To which we, the wise, will reply, "Because he's Christopher Fucking Walken."
I know you're good with this, and are a fan of His works. And even though I'm pretty sure it's apocryphal, I'm really sorry my relative ate that apple. Do-over?
Warmest Personal Regards,
A fan of yours but not all of your followers,
A fan of Christopher Walken's but not all his followers,
Pope-a-Dope
p.s. If it turns out you ARE Christopher Walken, is there really a reason to end the double-duty? Your mysterious ways make every film you're in awesome.
If you don't exist, no one's reading this. If you do exist... are you there, God? It's me, Warren.
I had a terrifying thought today, and I was hoping you of all Entities could take care of that. There may or may not be other entities to choose from, but I just want you to know I'm coming to you first, as a token of goodwill, and because my parents had me baptized when I was too young to know what I was getting myself into.
Going about my business the other day, I realized with depressing horror that someday Christopher Walken is going to die.
Please, I beseech you: We cannot let this happen. I cannot let this happen, and You cannot let this happen. So I am writing to You. And even though every human ever born has eventually died, I pray to you that just this once, in this one lone case, you will make an exception.
Other humans might say, isn't there a more worthy cause? What about doctors, and healers, and moral authorities, and mothers and fathers and sons and daughters? What about really really sexy people?
Almighty, Christopher Walken is all of these. All of these and more.
John Malkovich is intimidatingly intelligent, but is he Christopher Walken? No, he certainly isn't.
Nelson Mandela brought an entire nation together, but did he ever make you remember a wristwatch in the same way Christopher Walken did?
Chuck Norris has perhaps kicked more ass than You have created asses, and he also has a beard that most of your followers are pretty sure you wear. But does Chuck Norris really make us think of eggplant in the same way as Christopher Walken?
Can John Malkovich, or Nelson Mandela, or Chuck Norris.... DANCE, like Christopher Walken?
No almighty, they cannot.
Christopher Walken has done many good works, and the most important of these is being Christopher Walken. He has inspired, terrified, and done that thing with his voice. To deprive the world of Christopher Walken is to steal away for generations and generations the sheer unique wonder that is... he. Generations today do not appreciate Humphrey Bogart, or Malcolm X, or FDR in the same way as they did in their heyday because their work is now quantifiable. It had a limited time on this earth, as we all do, and then it saw an end.
For Christopher Walken there must be no end. To deprive future humans of Christopher Walken would be to deprive them of a tree, or a rainstorm, or the songs of birds chirping as the orange sun rises over the horizon. It would be like omitting an entire sexual position from the repertoire of every human beyond the year 2010. Generations forward will speak of it with quiet awe, but none will believe any of it ever really existed.
For if... if INDEED you are the Almighty, then there is room for someone who lives as long but still walks and works upon this Earth. Your reasons that we all must die, "For everything there is a season..." And we would all know that we do have a season. And some young, untried soul might pipe up and say, "But why doesn't Christopher Walken's season end?"
To which we, the wise, will reply, "Because he's Christopher Fucking Walken."
I know you're good with this, and are a fan of His works. And even though I'm pretty sure it's apocryphal, I'm really sorry my relative ate that apple. Do-over?
Warmest Personal Regards,
A fan of yours but not all of your followers,
A fan of Christopher Walken's but not all his followers,
Pope-a-Dope
p.s. If it turns out you ARE Christopher Walken, is there really a reason to end the double-duty? Your mysterious ways make every film you're in awesome.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
J for Jehovah
NOT GEEK
Well, this happened:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/8069472/Homer-Simpson-is-a-true-Catholic.html
Let me explain. No no, there is too much, let me sum up: The Vatican newspaper published a story about how, looking at the evidence, Homer J. Simpson (and son Bart) are true Catholics.
Yeah. Out of nowhere, right? Is this the Catholic Church trying to look cool, like a few months back when they declared "The Blues Brothers" to be a good Christian movie? (yeah, that happened too: in case you missed it). Is the newspaper just getting more freedom now that the Pope is German? Much like the ingredients to Coke, we will never know, but one thing remains clear:
The Catholic Church is insane.
Now, I know a thing or two about the world. I watch The Daily Show and I once read half of a Time Magazine in the dentists' office, so already I'm more informed than the entire Fox News demographic. And I know Catholics don't like being called insane. It's rude. And while I may not hold their beliefs, I respect their right to congregate, and hold meetings, much like any other independent private organization, like AA, or Canada.
Then again, they follow a fictional character, and Homer Simpson is a fictional character, so I can see where they might get confused. But make no mistake: That article exists. Which we can only take to mean that the Catholic Church, or someone very high up within it, has watched all 20+ seasons of "The Simpsons."
That is time well spent. It's like finding out Barack Obama watches "Jersey Shore." No, I'm not linking anything here. It's too painful.
MY POINT: What the paper fails to mention, outside of Homer Simpson being a Catholic (apparently), is that if he IS a Catholic, he is of course going Hell. Yes, Hell. With a capital H. H for Homer.
"Oh," sayeth the article. "We get pop culture too! We are not your grandfathers' Catholic Church! We are hip, and with-it, and get the references! Being a Catholic is cool... like The Simpsons!"
Well first of all, Catholic Church, I'd like to commend you on updating your pop culture barometer from 1692, all the way up to 1992. That's quite a leap for you and I commend you. Now if you can just give the thumbs up to women going on the pill, we might be getting somewhere.
OFFICIAL 'HEP-CAT' PRESS RELEASE: "Homer Simpson is a Catholic!"
BEHIND THE MUSIC: If Homer Simpson were a Catholic, his Priest would slap the shit out of him, and while it isn't actually likely Bart was being touched inappropriately by a Catholic priest, if he WERE, we would transfer the priest to Shelbyville and say no more about it.
Or, to put it in a less offensive way, "If Homer Simpson were real, we would ex-communicate him, but since he's not, we're trying to drum up support via the use of his wacky antics."
The following is a list of all the cardinal sins to which Homer has succumbed. If you're guessing "seven" without even scrolling down.... well, Jesus Christ, you're right.
ENVY: He's constantly envying/stealing Flanders' shit. He even coveted Flanders' wife's ass, when she was alive (Maude Flanders R.I.P.)
SLOTH: Duh
LUST: Granted, it's usually for his wife ("And I know I was dreaming because usually I dream of naked.... Marge."), but he also goes to strip clubs all the time and whistles at women in bikinis. As opposed to, say, Smithers, who avoids such temptations because he is a good Christian man and entry into Heaven is assured.
GREED: Greed for BEER.
GLUTTONY: Further Duh.
... at this point I had to bust out Wikipedia, because even after the Brad Pitt movie I couldn't remember all seven, but if I ever get famous, don't worry... the Vatican will probably try and pin me as a Catholic, too.
WRATH: "Flanders was a zombie?"
PRIDE: You've seen Homer with his shirt off, and you know he knows he looks good. Also he's got a hot wife he has sex with a lot, which puts pretty much every guy into the "I'm bulletproof" mindset.
AND THEN THERE'S THE TEN COMMANDMENTS:
1) "I am the Lord Thy God. Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me."
Homer Simpson: "Beer. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."
.... also, there was the episode where Homer sold his soul to the Devil, but then got out of it thanks to his lawyer proving his soul already belonged to Marge.
2) "No Graven Images, even though this is just a paraphrasing of the First Commandment."
I can paraphrase too, Bible. See?
(Homer is listening to football on his walkman in church)
Homer: Please, please, please, please...
Sportscaster: Yes, it's good!
Homer: IT'S GOOD. IT'S GOOD. IT'S GOOD. It's... good to see you all today.
3) "Thou Shalt Not Take My Name in Vain, Even If It IS Only My First Name, Bro."
Homer says a lot of mean things about church, but can we all agree the only reason he doesn't swear more creatively is because of the Fox censors?
4) "Remember the Sabbath Day, Keep it Holy... Yadda Yadda Yadda."
They've done entire episodes about this.
Flanders: Sport on a Sunday? I don't kn--
Rev. Lovejoy: Just play the damn game, Ned.
5) "Honor Thy Father & Mother"
Homer sure does love his mom. Homer sure does treat his dad like total shit. HILARIOUS shit.
6) "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder."
Again, I turn you to my favorite Simpsons quote of all time, "Flanders Was a Zombie?" ... Maybe it's out-of-continuity cuz it was a Halloween episode, but I'm still pretty sure I've seen him touch the skin of an unclean animal, and I'm pretty sure that's in the Bible too. Right next to the part about slavery being okay and weed being an abomination.
And oh yeah.... FRANK. GRIMES.
7) "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery."
Now here's a tricky one. While it is technically true that Homer has never physically cheated on Marge, he has developed some emotional connections of which Marge wholly disapproved. Ask a guy what cheating is, he'll say, "Boning another chick." (because yes, we really talk like that). Ask a woman what cheating is, she's more likely to say, "Forming a close, emotional bond with another woman. Oh, and also, boning another chick."
It's interesting, though, that in addition to only sleeping with Marge since they were married, the implication is that he's only had sex with Marge, EVER. Then again, the show states he knocked up Marge right after high school, and Bart is ten, which means Homer is between 28-30 years old. Bullshit on THAT.
8) "Thou Shalt Not Steal."
Which episode was it where Homer tries to get out of paying his bar tab? ALL OF THEM.
9) "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor." (also, thou shalt not neighbor false witness against thy bear).
Chief Wiggum: "Oh, yeah! You can pretty much legally kill a man in your own home."
Homer: Flanders, get over here!
Ned: High-dilly-hi!
Chief Wiggum: It doesn't count of you invite him in.
Homer: Aw. Get lost, Flanders.
Ned: Toodly-doo!
... yes, that's not the same thing as saying, "Ned killed that guy," but it's still funny.
10) "Thou Shalt Not Covet."
We covered this in the Sin list, but,
"Your wife's BUTT, is higher than my wife's BUTT...."
This is not to say Homer wanted to get with Maude, but as everyone knows, religious girls are absolutely freaky in bed. Then again, Ned has an 18-inch penis, so it's unlikely Homer was going to be able to get the job done, unless Maude had a secret fetish for fat alcoholics.
So, 7 of 7 on the sins, and 8 or 9 out of 10 on the commandments, depending on your definition of "adultery." And it's not like the Catholic church is soft on this; breaking just one Commandment puts you into Hell these days. Unless you repent on your deathbed, which is exactly what Homer has stated he plans on doing.
"Well," you might argue, "At least it's getting people talking about Catholicism. Which is only the point, really. I mean, it made you google the Ten Commandments."
Yes, that is true. It's also 1:30 a.m. and I've already forgotten them again. Also I have porn open in another window while I download Swedish Death Metal so I have something to listen to in the car tomorrow while driving to get an abortion. No, not for a woman... I'm having an abortion my ownself. Because I'm an American. Just like Homer Simpson.
Meanwhile:
If JUST Bart and Homer are Catholics, where does that leave the rest of the, as George W. Bush would say, "Nuke-yu-lar" family?
BART - Also Catholic, at least according to the Vatican. Which makes sense, considering in the movie you could totally see his penis, and as we all know, the Catholic church totally loves ten-year-old boy penis.
YES. I JUST WENT THERE. It was an easy joke and you're laughing right now, so we're all going to Hell together. But not as far down as pedophile Catholic priests. Or any pedophile, really.
LISA - Buddhist. She tries to convert her family all the time. You know who never tries to convert anyone? Homer and Bart. Yes, this sounds exactly like the behavior of Catholics. And Buddhists.
MAGGIE - Well, we can't understand anything she's saying, and she definitely killed a guy. By Republican rhetoric, she must therefore be Muslim, but that's a lame joke and a bad one. Plus I'm pretty sure she eats bacon, so... Really, she freeloads off Marge and never gets a job. So she's a Liberal and will probably one day take part in an anti-meat protest outside of a college campus. C'mon, she's the third sibling: the best AND worst of her two older ones. She is dangerous, and you know this. And you can't find a court in this land who will convict a baby. Except maybe in Texas.
MARGE - Attends Church regularly, turns the other cheek, insists her family attend Church as well, calls Homer on his shenanigans and makes him set things right. Her hairstyle went out-of-date when JFK was still alive. While she didn't wait until marriage to have sex, she did marry the first (and only) man she ever had sex with. So... yes, whether she be Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Epsicopalian, Mormon or Jehovah's Witness, Marge is truly the best Catholic of the bunch, and a good Christian all around, who sets an amazing, patient, and wholesome example of what a Christian should be.
Except the Vatican newspaper didn't mention that.
Because it's the Vatican and they hate women.
LET'S ALL SAY THREE HAIL MARYS AND DO THE HOKEY-POKEY.
GEEK:
I haven't watched The Simpsons since 2004. Who the FUCK still watches "The Simpsons?"
You know who's actually a Catholic? Peter Griffin. Literally. The show says so.
Well, this happened:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/8069472/Homer-Simpson-is-a-true-Catholic.html
Let me explain. No no, there is too much, let me sum up: The Vatican newspaper published a story about how, looking at the evidence, Homer J. Simpson (and son Bart) are true Catholics.
Yeah. Out of nowhere, right? Is this the Catholic Church trying to look cool, like a few months back when they declared "The Blues Brothers" to be a good Christian movie? (yeah, that happened too: in case you missed it). Is the newspaper just getting more freedom now that the Pope is German? Much like the ingredients to Coke, we will never know, but one thing remains clear:
The Catholic Church is insane.
Now, I know a thing or two about the world. I watch The Daily Show and I once read half of a Time Magazine in the dentists' office, so already I'm more informed than the entire Fox News demographic. And I know Catholics don't like being called insane. It's rude. And while I may not hold their beliefs, I respect their right to congregate, and hold meetings, much like any other independent private organization, like AA, or Canada.
Then again, they follow a fictional character, and Homer Simpson is a fictional character, so I can see where they might get confused. But make no mistake: That article exists. Which we can only take to mean that the Catholic Church, or someone very high up within it, has watched all 20+ seasons of "The Simpsons."
That is time well spent. It's like finding out Barack Obama watches "Jersey Shore." No, I'm not linking anything here. It's too painful.
MY POINT: What the paper fails to mention, outside of Homer Simpson being a Catholic (apparently), is that if he IS a Catholic, he is of course going Hell. Yes, Hell. With a capital H. H for Homer.
"Oh," sayeth the article. "We get pop culture too! We are not your grandfathers' Catholic Church! We are hip, and with-it, and get the references! Being a Catholic is cool... like The Simpsons!"
Well first of all, Catholic Church, I'd like to commend you on updating your pop culture barometer from 1692, all the way up to 1992. That's quite a leap for you and I commend you. Now if you can just give the thumbs up to women going on the pill, we might be getting somewhere.
OFFICIAL 'HEP-CAT' PRESS RELEASE: "Homer Simpson is a Catholic!"
BEHIND THE MUSIC: If Homer Simpson were a Catholic, his Priest would slap the shit out of him, and while it isn't actually likely Bart was being touched inappropriately by a Catholic priest, if he WERE, we would transfer the priest to Shelbyville and say no more about it.
Or, to put it in a less offensive way, "If Homer Simpson were real, we would ex-communicate him, but since he's not, we're trying to drum up support via the use of his wacky antics."
The following is a list of all the cardinal sins to which Homer has succumbed. If you're guessing "seven" without even scrolling down.... well, Jesus Christ, you're right.
ENVY: He's constantly envying/stealing Flanders' shit. He even coveted Flanders' wife's ass, when she was alive (Maude Flanders R.I.P.)
SLOTH: Duh
LUST: Granted, it's usually for his wife ("And I know I was dreaming because usually I dream of naked.... Marge."), but he also goes to strip clubs all the time and whistles at women in bikinis. As opposed to, say, Smithers, who avoids such temptations because he is a good Christian man and entry into Heaven is assured.
GREED: Greed for BEER.
GLUTTONY: Further Duh.
... at this point I had to bust out Wikipedia, because even after the Brad Pitt movie I couldn't remember all seven, but if I ever get famous, don't worry... the Vatican will probably try and pin me as a Catholic, too.
WRATH: "Flanders was a zombie?"
PRIDE: You've seen Homer with his shirt off, and you know he knows he looks good. Also he's got a hot wife he has sex with a lot, which puts pretty much every guy into the "I'm bulletproof" mindset.
AND THEN THERE'S THE TEN COMMANDMENTS:
1) "I am the Lord Thy God. Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me."
Homer Simpson: "Beer. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."
.... also, there was the episode where Homer sold his soul to the Devil, but then got out of it thanks to his lawyer proving his soul already belonged to Marge.
2) "No Graven Images, even though this is just a paraphrasing of the First Commandment."
I can paraphrase too, Bible. See?
(Homer is listening to football on his walkman in church)
Homer: Please, please, please, please...
Sportscaster: Yes, it's good!
Homer: IT'S GOOD. IT'S GOOD. IT'S GOOD. It's... good to see you all today.
3) "Thou Shalt Not Take My Name in Vain, Even If It IS Only My First Name, Bro."
Homer says a lot of mean things about church, but can we all agree the only reason he doesn't swear more creatively is because of the Fox censors?
4) "Remember the Sabbath Day, Keep it Holy... Yadda Yadda Yadda."
They've done entire episodes about this.
Flanders: Sport on a Sunday? I don't kn--
Rev. Lovejoy: Just play the damn game, Ned.
5) "Honor Thy Father & Mother"
Homer sure does love his mom. Homer sure does treat his dad like total shit. HILARIOUS shit.
6) "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder."
Again, I turn you to my favorite Simpsons quote of all time, "Flanders Was a Zombie?" ... Maybe it's out-of-continuity cuz it was a Halloween episode, but I'm still pretty sure I've seen him touch the skin of an unclean animal, and I'm pretty sure that's in the Bible too. Right next to the part about slavery being okay and weed being an abomination.
And oh yeah.... FRANK. GRIMES.
7) "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery."
Now here's a tricky one. While it is technically true that Homer has never physically cheated on Marge, he has developed some emotional connections of which Marge wholly disapproved. Ask a guy what cheating is, he'll say, "Boning another chick." (because yes, we really talk like that). Ask a woman what cheating is, she's more likely to say, "Forming a close, emotional bond with another woman. Oh, and also, boning another chick."
It's interesting, though, that in addition to only sleeping with Marge since they were married, the implication is that he's only had sex with Marge, EVER. Then again, the show states he knocked up Marge right after high school, and Bart is ten, which means Homer is between 28-30 years old. Bullshit on THAT.
8) "Thou Shalt Not Steal."
Which episode was it where Homer tries to get out of paying his bar tab? ALL OF THEM.
9) "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor." (also, thou shalt not neighbor false witness against thy bear).
Chief Wiggum: "Oh, yeah! You can pretty much legally kill a man in your own home."
Homer: Flanders, get over here!
Ned: High-dilly-hi!
Chief Wiggum: It doesn't count of you invite him in.
Homer: Aw. Get lost, Flanders.
Ned: Toodly-doo!
... yes, that's not the same thing as saying, "Ned killed that guy," but it's still funny.
10) "Thou Shalt Not Covet."
We covered this in the Sin list, but,
"Your wife's BUTT, is higher than my wife's BUTT...."
This is not to say Homer wanted to get with Maude, but as everyone knows, religious girls are absolutely freaky in bed. Then again, Ned has an 18-inch penis, so it's unlikely Homer was going to be able to get the job done, unless Maude had a secret fetish for fat alcoholics.
So, 7 of 7 on the sins, and 8 or 9 out of 10 on the commandments, depending on your definition of "adultery." And it's not like the Catholic church is soft on this; breaking just one Commandment puts you into Hell these days. Unless you repent on your deathbed, which is exactly what Homer has stated he plans on doing.
"Well," you might argue, "At least it's getting people talking about Catholicism. Which is only the point, really. I mean, it made you google the Ten Commandments."
Yes, that is true. It's also 1:30 a.m. and I've already forgotten them again. Also I have porn open in another window while I download Swedish Death Metal so I have something to listen to in the car tomorrow while driving to get an abortion. No, not for a woman... I'm having an abortion my ownself. Because I'm an American. Just like Homer Simpson.
Meanwhile:
If JUST Bart and Homer are Catholics, where does that leave the rest of the, as George W. Bush would say, "Nuke-yu-lar" family?
BART - Also Catholic, at least according to the Vatican. Which makes sense, considering in the movie you could totally see his penis, and as we all know, the Catholic church totally loves ten-year-old boy penis.
YES. I JUST WENT THERE. It was an easy joke and you're laughing right now, so we're all going to Hell together. But not as far down as pedophile Catholic priests. Or any pedophile, really.
LISA - Buddhist. She tries to convert her family all the time. You know who never tries to convert anyone? Homer and Bart. Yes, this sounds exactly like the behavior of Catholics. And Buddhists.
MAGGIE - Well, we can't understand anything she's saying, and she definitely killed a guy. By Republican rhetoric, she must therefore be Muslim, but that's a lame joke and a bad one. Plus I'm pretty sure she eats bacon, so... Really, she freeloads off Marge and never gets a job. So she's a Liberal and will probably one day take part in an anti-meat protest outside of a college campus. C'mon, she's the third sibling: the best AND worst of her two older ones. She is dangerous, and you know this. And you can't find a court in this land who will convict a baby. Except maybe in Texas.
MARGE - Attends Church regularly, turns the other cheek, insists her family attend Church as well, calls Homer on his shenanigans and makes him set things right. Her hairstyle went out-of-date when JFK was still alive. While she didn't wait until marriage to have sex, she did marry the first (and only) man she ever had sex with. So... yes, whether she be Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Epsicopalian, Mormon or Jehovah's Witness, Marge is truly the best Catholic of the bunch, and a good Christian all around, who sets an amazing, patient, and wholesome example of what a Christian should be.
Except the Vatican newspaper didn't mention that.
Because it's the Vatican and they hate women.
LET'S ALL SAY THREE HAIL MARYS AND DO THE HOKEY-POKEY.
GEEK:
I haven't watched The Simpsons since 2004. Who the FUCK still watches "The Simpsons?"
You know who's actually a Catholic? Peter Griffin. Literally. The show says so.
Monday, September 27, 2010
From the Files of WG Harding
I needed writing samples to apply for a job, and I don't have any of my journalism stuff in digital format. This is because I am very old and I wrote for newspapers in Houston, Denton, and Ft. Worth before the internet was invented.
So I slapped something together that met the journalism format. I hope someone finds this at least a little amusing.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Witnesses at a local GameStop were shocked and horrified to be trampled in a near riot Tuesday, when apparently an influx of video game enthusiasts stormed the door just past 1 a.m., as the manager was about to close the doors.
"It was the worst stampede I ever seen,” said Mary Wilson, 29, of Issaquah. “I was just up here to get a copy of Halo Reach for my 8-year-old son, and all of a sudden there were all these dudes running up toward the store like they was being chased. Except they weren’t being chased.”
So I slapped something together that met the journalism format. I hope someone finds this at least a little amusing.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Witnesses at a local GameStop were shocked and horrified to be trampled in a near riot Tuesday, when apparently an influx of video game enthusiasts stormed the door just past 1 a.m., as the manager was about to close the doors.
"It was the worst stampede I ever seen,” said Mary Wilson, 29, of Issaquah. “I was just up here to get a copy of Halo Reach for my 8-year-old son, and all of a sudden there were all these dudes running up toward the store like they was being chased. Except they weren’t being chased.”
Witnesses at the scene were few, but those in attendance did use a variety of words to describe their predicament, in the range of “horrifying” and “pants-tightening.”
"There were three or four video games that came out that night, and of course we always stay open until after midnight on release days,” said local GameStop Manager Keith Adamthwaite.
But this particular evening, Adamthwaite saw something he says he’s never seen in 20 years in the business.
“They ran up just after one o’clock,” said Adamthwaite. “There must’ve been 40 or 50 of them… I thought maybe there was a fire or something had exploded, and they were running to use our phone or something.
“But as it turns out, they had just been in an hour before, and were all there to return copies of a really horrible game.”
There was no damage to the property, said Adamthwaite, but he also said he hadn’t stopped looking, and that he had “received reports on the B-button on the Xbox demo,” which he was currently investigating.
“I couldn’t tell you what game it was… this might get back to the developers,” said Adamthwaite. “And I have a business to run.”
Adamthwaite would only say the game was NOT Halo Reach, which has been released two weeks prior.
“I mean, sure, everyone LOVED that game,” said GameStop employee Susan B. Anthony, 19, of West Seattle. “But the summer is dying down and I guess people wanted something to play on the side, but this game… I mean, I HEARD, since I don’t really play games, but THIS game was apparently really bad.”
By 1:45 a.m., the entire crowd had dispersed, some with store credit and some with cash on hand.
“It was the single most horrifying night of my life,” said Adamthwaite. “They were a diverse bunch, don’t get me wrong… tall, short, skinny, fat, pasty, tan, even a couple parents with their kids… but when I saw the look of rabid hunger in their eyes… I felt genuine fear for my safety.”
None of the other customers could be reached for comment, but shortly before presstime, the Gazette did receive one anonymous email.
“It’s his own fault for selling crappy games,” the email read, in part. “He had a poster of this thing on the wall for a month, like somehow it was on par with Halo Reach in terms of interactivity, production design, budget, story, and really cool explosions."
“It was all a lie. I feel violated.”
Adamthwaite had no comment. Representatives of Microsoft were contacted, but all they could do was point and laugh.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Autumn Dilemma
NOT GEEK
DUDE. It's football season.
GEEK
Football sucks. Play some video games. Read a book.
NOT GEEK
FUCK YOU. This is the year North Texas goes 0-12. Plus you can go right down the street and watch the Huskies lose to real teams.
GEEK
TELEVISON. MOVIES. INTERNET. LATE NIGHT JAPANESE ANIMATION. COMIC BOOKS.
NOT GEEK
CAR CHASES. FOOTBALL. HIGH-SPEED-COLLISIONS. VIOLENCE. DEFEATING THE ENEMY. BEEEEEEEEEEER.
GEEK
I'll shoot zombies, that's good enough for me.
NOT GEEK
Football is made into multiple video games EVERY YEAR. It's a mainstay on every console. Geeks should embrace the F$#CK out of that.
GEEK
Those games are entirely too complicated. If I wanted to actually play football, I could just swing my arm instead of angling the perfect nanosecond timing on an XBY-cross-arm bootleg R-button combo.
NOT GEEK
OH HO, so you admit you'd play football in real life.
GEEK
My last date was the same day your last date was, pal.
NOT GEEK
Now we're getting personal.
GEEK
We do both enjoy beer.
NOT GEEK
And boobies!
GEEK
And winning.
NOT GEEK
Agree to disagree?
GEEK
Boise State
NOT GEEK
Any team from the Big 12 that's not OU.
GEEK
YOU'RE DEAD TO ME.
NOT GEEK
You go play video games. See that hottie at the end of the bar? I'm-a slap her ass and ask her if she has any Texan in her.
GEEK
Then we can both nurse the black eye.... together...... playing...
NOT GEEK
..... video games.
AND.... SCENE.
not geek
north texas!!
DUDE. It's football season.
GEEK
Football sucks. Play some video games. Read a book.
NOT GEEK
FUCK YOU. This is the year North Texas goes 0-12. Plus you can go right down the street and watch the Huskies lose to real teams.
GEEK
TELEVISON. MOVIES. INTERNET. LATE NIGHT JAPANESE ANIMATION. COMIC BOOKS.
NOT GEEK
CAR CHASES. FOOTBALL. HIGH-SPEED-COLLISIONS. VIOLENCE. DEFEATING THE ENEMY. BEEEEEEEEEEER.
GEEK
I'll shoot zombies, that's good enough for me.
NOT GEEK
Football is made into multiple video games EVERY YEAR. It's a mainstay on every console. Geeks should embrace the F$#CK out of that.
GEEK
Those games are entirely too complicated. If I wanted to actually play football, I could just swing my arm instead of angling the perfect nanosecond timing on an XBY-cross-arm bootleg R-button combo.
NOT GEEK
OH HO, so you admit you'd play football in real life.
GEEK
My last date was the same day your last date was, pal.
NOT GEEK
Now we're getting personal.
GEEK
We do both enjoy beer.
NOT GEEK
And boobies!
GEEK
And winning.
NOT GEEK
Agree to disagree?
GEEK
Boise State
NOT GEEK
Any team from the Big 12 that's not OU.
GEEK
YOU'RE DEAD TO ME.
NOT GEEK
You go play video games. See that hottie at the end of the bar? I'm-a slap her ass and ask her if she has any Texan in her.
GEEK
Then we can both nurse the black eye.... together...... playing...
NOT GEEK
..... video games.
AND.... SCENE.
not geek
north texas!!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
BRB, ASA
WHAT.
NOT GEEK
I have nothing to say about movies games television boobies cars or sports because it's still August (for a few more hours anyway) and the large corporations of America have offered us very little this summer. Fuck 'em. It's the economy, stupid, and thank god there's still a thing called "Actual human beings" to socialize with and remind us what's actually entertaining. Unless you live in San Marcos (with apologies to Ms. Schlaege Watercolor Jones III, who is an awesome individual trapped in an old west town).
I KID, I KID. I lived in Denton for 4 years and Sherman for 2. You ain't gotta tell me shit. Sherman makes San Marcos look like Tahiti.
If Dallas is part of "DFW," then San Antonio is the second 2/3 of "ASA." I'm going to keep using this and I'm sure it will catch on.
BIG UPS:
(plural of "up" ... not the fedEx competitor)
CAREY-- Without him I wouldn't have made it to Texas at all. If you see him on the street, give him a fist-bump, though I'm pretty sure strangers do that to him anyway. Flew in Tuesday afternoon, he drove me around and allowed me to crash in a house that was already populated by his wife, his infant daughter, two energetic dogs and two snooty cats.... and, for the second and third day, his father-in-law. AND WE STILL MADE IT TO THE RIVER (well, some of us). We opted for the 3-hour float which, because of the low water, took about 4 1/2 hours. If I wasn't afeared of dropping my phone in the water, I'd have brought it, and photographed the picnic table in the middle of the river right around Mile Eight. There's some symbology or some shit. Or maybe it just seemed more awesome than I thought it was because I was on my 98th can of Shiner Bock. Thanks to Carey, Joe, Shannon and Alex for making the river that much more entertaining. Especially Alex's cartoonishly small inner tube. And yet he still managed to carry the Bud Light Lime.
SHANNON & ALEX -- I spent at least 13 whole seconds trying to combine their name into some kind of Bennifer/Brangelina hybrid, but I couldn't find enough vowels, and besides the whole point of those names is two entities merging into one. I think it's safe to say Shannon still has her full personality intact, and as per usual, takes no shit from anyone. (Though she will take beer she doesn't like in the interest of being polite. DAMMIT SHANNON. JUST ADMIT YOU LIKE BUD LIGHT. YOU WENT THROUGH IT LIKE IT WAS WATER. DELICIOUS, BUBBLY, SLIGHTLY ALCOHOLIC WATER).
Thanks to Alex, too, for driving us around, particularly all the way out to San Antonio. And he never even met me before. That's a bro.
When in San Marcos (and why would you be, but in case you are), visit the delicious and spacious Tap Room. Just down the road, I suppose you COULD visit the head shop and their interesting employees, but I'm pretty sure they sold us some inferior shit. Luckily I'm back in Seattle now where they put Meth in the water supply and prescribe marijuana to babies.
KRISTIAN, KRISTIAN'S TWO ROOMMATES WHOSE NAMES ESCAPE ME, J-MURDER -- Actually that's not true, I'm pretty sure one of Kristian's roommates was named Dave. Anyway. I haven't seen Kristian since I was still in high school, living in the house I did when I was too young to vote, he just another of Josh's friends to run around the house and annoy me. He owns his own business in Austin now, and though I did not get laid on this particular trip, having one of the Kebabs from his Kebab stand was a close second. Also it helped that he had the hook-up at the bar across the street, where "Rum and Coke" is heard by the bartenders as, "I'll have a medium-glass of rum and I guess maybe if you feel like it you can include a light splash of coke just for color."
I'm not mentioning my little brothers "longtime companion" because a) He's not reading this anyway, b) All she does is say what she's thinking, which allows for honesty but less-than-scintillating conversation, and c) The only three things she talked about at any given time, in the 24 hours I was around her (results are extremely typical), "Adam when are you coming back to Houston," "Adam why don't you come back to Houston more?" "I gained so much weight when I was pregnant, but then I had a miscarriage."
I had better conversations with their 3-year-old Husky, Jayda. She only knows three phrases and is more pleasurable to have around than that ... person... whom my brother proclaims is the most "tolerable" woman in Houston. Which I think says a lot more about Houston than anything.
Saturday we got together for lunch, and while the lake was initially off, of course it stands that minutes after making tentative Austin-plans with Shan&Alex, J's hook-up calls him to tell him the river is back on. Well shit. We hit up Lake Travis at that point, with some friends of J & K's. They had a speedboat. The friends were expert wakeboarders, Josh was a novice, and I was even worse than that, yet somehow ended up on the water with a miniature snowboard strapped to my feet. I wiped out five times, getting better each time, and while consensus was that I would've got to my feet eventually, I told 'em the sun was going down and I didn't want to waste their river-time for the additional half-hour it would've taken me. Then the pros went wake-surfing and we headed back to Kristian's house for about ten hours of ping-pong (interspersed with television, Lone Star beer, and a trip to the Alamo Draft House for "Winnebago Man").
Special thanks to Kristian again for entertaining me for the 15 hours between when my little brother left, and when I had to get on my plane. Also to San Marcos peeps for suggesting the museum. It was a tiny place, but always happy to check out art.
The plane ride from Austin to Phoenix was near-empty. The plane ride from Phoenix to Seattle had me sitting between an excitable and inquisitive 6-year-old girl (aisle), and a tattooed gentleman in his early 20s who had never flown before (window), who had to re-check with me what the airsick bag was, because when he'd gotten an answer from the 6-year-old he didn't believe it. He seemed excited to fly, but as soon as the plane was in the air, he fell asleep.
Final score? Phoenix -- 95+ degrees. Austin/San Antonio-- 90-95 degrees every day I was there. Seattle -- 62 degrees the day I arrived back.
Was extremely happy to see everyone and had only positive experiences the entire time I was in Texas (except for my little brothers taste in females). Thanks to my hosts, and thanks to Southwest Airlines. Now it is time for football.
GEEK
Damn. We didn't get to play Mafia 2.
NOT GEEK
I have nothing to say about movies games television boobies cars or sports because it's still August (for a few more hours anyway) and the large corporations of America have offered us very little this summer. Fuck 'em. It's the economy, stupid, and thank god there's still a thing called "Actual human beings" to socialize with and remind us what's actually entertaining. Unless you live in San Marcos (with apologies to Ms. Schlaege Watercolor Jones III, who is an awesome individual trapped in an old west town).
I KID, I KID. I lived in Denton for 4 years and Sherman for 2. You ain't gotta tell me shit. Sherman makes San Marcos look like Tahiti.
If Dallas is part of "DFW," then San Antonio is the second 2/3 of "ASA." I'm going to keep using this and I'm sure it will catch on.
BIG UPS:
(plural of "up" ... not the fedEx competitor)
CAREY-- Without him I wouldn't have made it to Texas at all. If you see him on the street, give him a fist-bump, though I'm pretty sure strangers do that to him anyway. Flew in Tuesday afternoon, he drove me around and allowed me to crash in a house that was already populated by his wife, his infant daughter, two energetic dogs and two snooty cats.... and, for the second and third day, his father-in-law. AND WE STILL MADE IT TO THE RIVER (well, some of us). We opted for the 3-hour float which, because of the low water, took about 4 1/2 hours. If I wasn't afeared of dropping my phone in the water, I'd have brought it, and photographed the picnic table in the middle of the river right around Mile Eight. There's some symbology or some shit. Or maybe it just seemed more awesome than I thought it was because I was on my 98th can of Shiner Bock. Thanks to Carey, Joe, Shannon and Alex for making the river that much more entertaining. Especially Alex's cartoonishly small inner tube. And yet he still managed to carry the Bud Light Lime.
SHANNON & ALEX -- I spent at least 13 whole seconds trying to combine their name into some kind of Bennifer/Brangelina hybrid, but I couldn't find enough vowels, and besides the whole point of those names is two entities merging into one. I think it's safe to say Shannon still has her full personality intact, and as per usual, takes no shit from anyone. (Though she will take beer she doesn't like in the interest of being polite. DAMMIT SHANNON. JUST ADMIT YOU LIKE BUD LIGHT. YOU WENT THROUGH IT LIKE IT WAS WATER. DELICIOUS, BUBBLY, SLIGHTLY ALCOHOLIC WATER).
Thanks to Alex, too, for driving us around, particularly all the way out to San Antonio. And he never even met me before. That's a bro.
When in San Marcos (and why would you be, but in case you are), visit the delicious and spacious Tap Room. Just down the road, I suppose you COULD visit the head shop and their interesting employees, but I'm pretty sure they sold us some inferior shit. Luckily I'm back in Seattle now where they put Meth in the water supply and prescribe marijuana to babies.
KRISTIAN, KRISTIAN'S TWO ROOMMATES WHOSE NAMES ESCAPE ME, J-MURDER -- Actually that's not true, I'm pretty sure one of Kristian's roommates was named Dave. Anyway. I haven't seen Kristian since I was still in high school, living in the house I did when I was too young to vote, he just another of Josh's friends to run around the house and annoy me. He owns his own business in Austin now, and though I did not get laid on this particular trip, having one of the Kebabs from his Kebab stand was a close second. Also it helped that he had the hook-up at the bar across the street, where "Rum and Coke" is heard by the bartenders as, "I'll have a medium-glass of rum and I guess maybe if you feel like it you can include a light splash of coke just for color."
I'm not mentioning my little brothers "longtime companion" because a) He's not reading this anyway, b) All she does is say what she's thinking, which allows for honesty but less-than-scintillating conversation, and c) The only three things she talked about at any given time, in the 24 hours I was around her (results are extremely typical), "Adam when are you coming back to Houston," "Adam why don't you come back to Houston more?" "I gained so much weight when I was pregnant, but then I had a miscarriage."
I had better conversations with their 3-year-old Husky, Jayda. She only knows three phrases and is more pleasurable to have around than that ... person... whom my brother proclaims is the most "tolerable" woman in Houston. Which I think says a lot more about Houston than anything.
Saturday we got together for lunch, and while the lake was initially off, of course it stands that minutes after making tentative Austin-plans with Shan&Alex, J's hook-up calls him to tell him the river is back on. Well shit. We hit up Lake Travis at that point, with some friends of J & K's. They had a speedboat. The friends were expert wakeboarders, Josh was a novice, and I was even worse than that, yet somehow ended up on the water with a miniature snowboard strapped to my feet. I wiped out five times, getting better each time, and while consensus was that I would've got to my feet eventually, I told 'em the sun was going down and I didn't want to waste their river-time for the additional half-hour it would've taken me. Then the pros went wake-surfing and we headed back to Kristian's house for about ten hours of ping-pong (interspersed with television, Lone Star beer, and a trip to the Alamo Draft House for "Winnebago Man").
Special thanks to Kristian again for entertaining me for the 15 hours between when my little brother left, and when I had to get on my plane. Also to San Marcos peeps for suggesting the museum. It was a tiny place, but always happy to check out art.
The plane ride from Austin to Phoenix was near-empty. The plane ride from Phoenix to Seattle had me sitting between an excitable and inquisitive 6-year-old girl (aisle), and a tattooed gentleman in his early 20s who had never flown before (window), who had to re-check with me what the airsick bag was, because when he'd gotten an answer from the 6-year-old he didn't believe it. He seemed excited to fly, but as soon as the plane was in the air, he fell asleep.
Final score? Phoenix -- 95+ degrees. Austin/San Antonio-- 90-95 degrees every day I was there. Seattle -- 62 degrees the day I arrived back.
Was extremely happy to see everyone and had only positive experiences the entire time I was in Texas (except for my little brothers taste in females). Thanks to my hosts, and thanks to Southwest Airlines. Now it is time for football.
GEEK
Damn. We didn't get to play Mafia 2.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Manliness vs. Geekiness (or, Scott Pilgrim is not Expendable)
NOT GEEK
Some fan (we assume) made a new trailer for "The Expendables," in which many explosions and guns are highlighted, culminating with the statement, "If this movie doesn't beat 'Eat Pray Love' at the box office the weekend of August 13th, we as a nation are doomed."
Yes.
Never mind that "Eat Pray Love" was directed by Ryan Murphy, director of the cult hit "Running with Scissors," and more notably creator of the TV series "Glee." Never mind that it stars Julia Roberts, one of the few lasting female American movie starts of the last 30 years. NEVER MIND THAT THE POSTER HAS HER QUIRKILY EATING ICE CREAM ON A BENCH.
And never mind that "quirkily" is probably not a word.
Romantic comedies are cute and what-not, and guys will occasionally see them on the presumption it will get them laid (at least that is what they will say to other guys; I have certainly never ever watched a Meryl Streep movie willingly *cough*) ... BUT THIS IS THE DAMN EXPENDABLES.
The greatest action heroes of the 1980's, nay, of an entire generation (save for Chuck Norris) unite to blow up every damn thing in their way. Machismo will be wielded like a double-edged sword, asses will be kicked, set pieces will detonate in a manner rarely seen since Ronald Reagan was fucking up the White House. Stallone has been building back up his empire with "Rocky Balboa" and "Rambo," and here he's got all his buddies to show the younger generation how it's done.
And also Jason Statham for no apparent reason. Good for him. Having appeared in a Uwe Boll movie is a bigger stain on his career than any ten Dolph Lundgren movies.
Go for the nostalgia. Stay for the possible homoeroticism. THE 1980'S ARE OVER. LONG LIVE THE 1980's.
GEEK
Look.
It's not that I'm not grateful for this conflagration of testosterone, because I enjoy seeing someone get punched in the face as much as the next XY-type person. I'm a fan of things exploding, but where the Rampant Geekness comes into it is, I want a story to go with it. Not simply a chain-link fence of fight scene after car chase after fight scene, in much the same way porn compilations get boring after too long. If there's not a story linking it together, who gives a fuck?
Stallone won an Oscar in 1976 for writing "Rocky," but 1976 was a long time ago. He's written a number of movies since then, but none had the same reception... and, in fact, despite his recent career Renaissance with "Rocky Balboa" (pretty good) and "Rambo" (fucking awesome), he's still only directed eight movies in his entire life.
Since 1978.
Including "The Expendables."
Paradise Alley, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky Balboa, Rambo, The Expendables.
That's it. That's the sum-total of his directorial experience.
No living human being has ever actually seen Paradise Alley, and having taken a moment to google it, I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to add it to my Netflix queue. I did recently re-watch the Rocky movies just before "Balboa" came out, and time has been kind to some, but not all.
Rocky III and Rocky IV are exceptionally manly to the point of bordering on parody, and hell, in IV, Rocky single-handedly brings down communism. Good for him. Even Schwarzenegger couldn't pull that one off.
.... And yet, despite its awesomeness, he didn't direct a movie at all between 1985 and 2006. That's 21 years. George Lucas went 20 years between directing "Star Wars" and "The Phantom Menace" .... yes, TPM came out in 1999, but this is the 'geek' section and TPM began production in 1997. Anyway. My point being:
Twenty years is a long time. Rocky Balboa was not without its flaws, and Rambo, while awesome, was actually rather short, and within weeks Stallone talked publicly about yet another Rambo sequel, in which the boy fought aliens or some fucking thing. You know.... ruining it. Bad Stallone. Bad, naughty Stallone.
Will "The Expendables" be awesome? Well, it's not even out yet, but it's already leaning toward self-parody... the 1980's hair-metal song over the trailer is actually NOT a point in its favor, because people Stallone's age have grown out of that, and people born in the 1980's don't give a fuck. You can either re-invent it, or live in the past; you can't do both.
The cast is great, and I'm sure all their checks cleared. But... what if, say, not a single famous person appeared in the movie? Or what if it were just Stallone and a bunch of no-names? (like in, say, Rambo?). Would the movie still be good? Would the dialogue still be memorable, the action sequences original?
I have no fucking idea. And when I see it Saturday afternoon (like a damn old person), those will be the things I (and you) will be judging it on, casting be damned. Because once you get over the shock of seeing Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Stallone and in the same scene together, there better be some important shit going on, or else all you're left with is.... well, your two favorite porn stars sitting on a couch together and talking about People Magazine. Entertaining for a minute, but then you're frustrated.
"Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" opens August 13th in America, at a theater near you. I'm getting my geek on, because despite Edgar Wright having directed less than 8 movies in his life, all of them have happened since 2004, and they've all been worth watching multiple times, sharing with friends, and quoting along with joyously.
Not a single "Paradise Alley" in the bunch.
And, seriously. "Rocky II" was just plain bad. Like really, really awful.
It's the 21st century now, bitches.
Some fan (we assume) made a new trailer for "The Expendables," in which many explosions and guns are highlighted, culminating with the statement, "If this movie doesn't beat 'Eat Pray Love' at the box office the weekend of August 13th, we as a nation are doomed."
Yes.
Never mind that "Eat Pray Love" was directed by Ryan Murphy, director of the cult hit "Running with Scissors," and more notably creator of the TV series "Glee." Never mind that it stars Julia Roberts, one of the few lasting female American movie starts of the last 30 years. NEVER MIND THAT THE POSTER HAS HER QUIRKILY EATING ICE CREAM ON A BENCH.
And never mind that "quirkily" is probably not a word.
Romantic comedies are cute and what-not, and guys will occasionally see them on the presumption it will get them laid (at least that is what they will say to other guys; I have certainly never ever watched a Meryl Streep movie willingly *cough*) ... BUT THIS IS THE DAMN EXPENDABLES.
The greatest action heroes of the 1980's, nay, of an entire generation (save for Chuck Norris) unite to blow up every damn thing in their way. Machismo will be wielded like a double-edged sword, asses will be kicked, set pieces will detonate in a manner rarely seen since Ronald Reagan was fucking up the White House. Stallone has been building back up his empire with "Rocky Balboa" and "Rambo," and here he's got all his buddies to show the younger generation how it's done.
And also Jason Statham for no apparent reason. Good for him. Having appeared in a Uwe Boll movie is a bigger stain on his career than any ten Dolph Lundgren movies.
Go for the nostalgia. Stay for the possible homoeroticism. THE 1980'S ARE OVER. LONG LIVE THE 1980's.
GEEK
Look.
It's not that I'm not grateful for this conflagration of testosterone, because I enjoy seeing someone get punched in the face as much as the next XY-type person. I'm a fan of things exploding, but where the Rampant Geekness comes into it is, I want a story to go with it. Not simply a chain-link fence of fight scene after car chase after fight scene, in much the same way porn compilations get boring after too long. If there's not a story linking it together, who gives a fuck?
Stallone won an Oscar in 1976 for writing "Rocky," but 1976 was a long time ago. He's written a number of movies since then, but none had the same reception... and, in fact, despite his recent career Renaissance with "Rocky Balboa" (pretty good) and "Rambo" (fucking awesome), he's still only directed eight movies in his entire life.
Since 1978.
Including "The Expendables."
Paradise Alley, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky Balboa, Rambo, The Expendables.
That's it. That's the sum-total of his directorial experience.
No living human being has ever actually seen Paradise Alley, and having taken a moment to google it, I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to add it to my Netflix queue. I did recently re-watch the Rocky movies just before "Balboa" came out, and time has been kind to some, but not all.
Rocky III and Rocky IV are exceptionally manly to the point of bordering on parody, and hell, in IV, Rocky single-handedly brings down communism. Good for him. Even Schwarzenegger couldn't pull that one off.
.... And yet, despite its awesomeness, he didn't direct a movie at all between 1985 and 2006. That's 21 years. George Lucas went 20 years between directing "Star Wars" and "The Phantom Menace" .... yes, TPM came out in 1999, but this is the 'geek' section and TPM began production in 1997. Anyway. My point being:
Twenty years is a long time. Rocky Balboa was not without its flaws, and Rambo, while awesome, was actually rather short, and within weeks Stallone talked publicly about yet another Rambo sequel, in which the boy fought aliens or some fucking thing. You know.... ruining it. Bad Stallone. Bad, naughty Stallone.
Will "The Expendables" be awesome? Well, it's not even out yet, but it's already leaning toward self-parody... the 1980's hair-metal song over the trailer is actually NOT a point in its favor, because people Stallone's age have grown out of that, and people born in the 1980's don't give a fuck. You can either re-invent it, or live in the past; you can't do both.
The cast is great, and I'm sure all their checks cleared. But... what if, say, not a single famous person appeared in the movie? Or what if it were just Stallone and a bunch of no-names? (like in, say, Rambo?). Would the movie still be good? Would the dialogue still be memorable, the action sequences original?
I have no fucking idea. And when I see it Saturday afternoon (like a damn old person), those will be the things I (and you) will be judging it on, casting be damned. Because once you get over the shock of seeing Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Stallone and in the same scene together, there better be some important shit going on, or else all you're left with is.... well, your two favorite porn stars sitting on a couch together and talking about People Magazine. Entertaining for a minute, but then you're frustrated.
"Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" opens August 13th in America, at a theater near you. I'm getting my geek on, because despite Edgar Wright having directed less than 8 movies in his life, all of them have happened since 2004, and they've all been worth watching multiple times, sharing with friends, and quoting along with joyously.
Not a single "Paradise Alley" in the bunch.
And, seriously. "Rocky II" was just plain bad. Like really, really awful.
It's the 21st century now, bitches.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Brevity is a Virtue
GEEK
CRAP. No good movies open until August 13th! NOOOOOOO! "Scott Pilgrim" FTW!!!
NOT GEEK
CRAP. No good movies open until August 13th! NOOOOOOO! "Expendables" FTW!!!
CRAP. No good movies open until August 13th! NOOOOOOO! "Scott Pilgrim" FTW!!!
NOT GEEK
CRAP. No good movies open until August 13th! NOOOOOOO! "Expendables" FTW!!!
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Trilogy Principle
This is the third blog. The second one got a bit long, but a writer I trust told me, "It doesn't matter if you're not in the mood to write-- write. Writing will put you in the mood."
You know what puts me in the mood to write? Physical labor.
NOT GEEK
What? Last week was fine. We need more scary movies. "Paranormal Activity 2" is destined to suck, though. Accountants remain stupid.
GEEK
Speaking of that, the worst movies I've ever seen are Short Circuit 2, Problem Child 2, Blair Witch 2... I didn't see Speed 2, but I have it on good authority that's pretty awful as well. Human stories are just built to be told in three acts. Shakespeare went with 5, but he had a lot of time to fill; no one in his audience was in a rush to get home and tweet about how good/bad the play was. Three acts, in and out, bam bam bam. Star Wars. Matrix. Back to the Future. Um... the Godfather. And let's say Alien. Good thing there were only three Alien movies, yep yep. And only three Superman movies. SHUT UP.
A good sequel isn't "What's next?" it's "What else?"
The greatest sequel of all-time, The Godfather Part II (with apologies to the New Testament) did not simply say, "Well the first movie was from A to B, so this next movie is B to C." No. Fuck that. Mario Puzo was a goddamn genius of 20th century literature, and yanked the rug out from under us before we even noticed there was a rug. "Bite me," he laughed. "The first movie? Fooled you. THAT was B to C. The Godfather Part II shall be A to D. DID I JUST BLOW YA MIND???"
Yes.
Which is why that's the only exception; every other example of a Part 2 just feels tacked on; we dealt with the aftermath of the ending of the first move... that gets talked about in the first ten minutes. Then it's 90 minutes of who-gives-a-crap. Which is why you'd need a third movie to tie everything together-- three-act structure.
Lord of the Damn Rings.
Friday the 13th.
No seriously, hear me out. I've never bothered to write this down, but you can actually seriously annoy someone at a cocktail party with this:
Friday the 13th isn't mindless rambling sequels into infinity. IT'S THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
Okay, not really. Sort of. LOTR was one story ("The Hobbit"), followed by a trilogy that used the first book as a jumping off point, but told its own story within that universe. It's not that different from Greek literature (Tolkien was a professor, if THE MAN is to be believed), where you'd have three serious dramas and then one light-hearted comedy, just to give everyone something to laugh about. Which is not to say "The Hobbit" was a comedy, but it sure did have a lot of singing and dancing. And dragon-incinerations. But I digress.
Friday the 13th - This is a standalone story. The killer is Jason's mother (spoiler alert!). At the end of the movie she dies; the final shot of the movie may or may not be a dream sequence in which her drowned son, Jason, jumps out of the lake and kills our heroine. Credits.
Friday the 13th 2-4 -- TRILOGY. Jason is some kind of freak of nature who goes around murdering teenagers for violating core conservative principles (see previous blog). You even see his face once or twice, under the hockey mask... he looks sort of like a Garbage Pail Kid crossed with Sloth from The Goonies. He even laughs like some 8-year-old. In one of the movies, one of the kids finds Jason's room, a shrine to his dead mother. At the end of part 4, Jason dies. No, not ha-ha, wink wink, maybe a sequel... but he DIES. He's fucking dead. The end. Game over.
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning -- Spoiler alert! That's not Jason. It's some copycat douchebag. Despite the plot still being the same, this remains the Halloween III of the series. Let us never speak of it again. Standalone movie. Copycat gets killed, and we presume buried in an unmarked grave, under an Arby's.
Friday the 13th 6-8 -- ZOMBIE TRILOGY. Part 6 (the most technically well-made film of the entire series) opens with our hero from part 4, all grown up (and played by a different actor) checking Jason's grave to make sure he's really dead. LIGHTNING STRIKE. Jason is now no longer an idiot manchild, he is now ZOMBIE JASON, as is evidenced when he rises from the grave and kills Horshack. I am not making this up. He dies once, he dies twice, he goes to Manhattan, he melts in toxic waste. The end. He's fucking dead. Game over.
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday -- In theory this is a sequel to part VIII, just because it was released next chronologically, but they make zero effort to explain how Jason got from toxic waste to back at the lake killin' folk. I don't mean, they give a lame excuse, I mean THEY NEVER EVEN MENTION IT. Jason is just there, like girl scouts in the fall. How'd he get there? We don't know. Just ACCEPT IT, BITCHES. He is Jason, your own personal lord and savior, and MAN ARE HIS STANDARDS HIGH.
So that's a standalone movie, with the film that takes place both immediately before and after not linked to it in any way, other than a hockey-mask, some obscure legend of some dude named Jason, and maybe a Crystal Lake, if you feel like mentioning it. Then comes "Jason X" in which Jason is mysteriously alive AGAIN (despite being forever definitively killed at the end of JGTH), and then goes to THE FUTURE. I can't even be bothered to wiki that one, but sufficed to say, the movie doesn't end with Jason 2.0 being sent back to the past. And yet, "Freddy vs. Jason" is back in the present. WHAT THE FUCK EVER, HOLLYWOOD. It's this kind of lack of attention to detail that got us from "Batman" to "Batman & Robin" in 3 easy steps. And Tim Burton from "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" to "Planet of the Apes."
So post Jason in Manhattan, how many standalone films is that? THREE. That's THREE movies of essentially well-funded fan-fiction (seriously. the writer of Jason X named characters after his friends from Diablo Online. Google that shit). One standalone. One trilogy. Another standalone. One different yet upgraded trilogy. Then a trilogy of standalones.
Even Freddy got in on that action, with part 1 being a great standalone, part 2 being a really gay standalone (I do not mean that in a disrespectful way, I mean it in a "this movie is about a young man's homosexuality" way, and the lead actor agrees with me), and part 3-5 actually were a trilogy of their own, containing their own continuity and even keeping some characters in common alone the way. Freddy's Dead was just a standalone to wrap it up; Jason Goes to Hell same story. Pity no one ever sent Freddy into the future... but then Wes Craven came back and made "New Nightmare," which is not only the single most underrated movie on his resume, but it completes the second trilogy. Three movies of fanfiction once again, but one of them was actually written by the creator of the damned character. And when we can cast them onto the trash heap of history; it's time for Chucky vs. Leprechaun, bitches.
See? Everything's a three-part structure. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish up my screenplay for Speed 3: Anti-Lock Brakes.
You know what puts me in the mood to write? Physical labor.
NOT GEEK
What? Last week was fine. We need more scary movies. "Paranormal Activity 2" is destined to suck, though. Accountants remain stupid.
GEEK
Speaking of that, the worst movies I've ever seen are Short Circuit 2, Problem Child 2, Blair Witch 2... I didn't see Speed 2, but I have it on good authority that's pretty awful as well. Human stories are just built to be told in three acts. Shakespeare went with 5, but he had a lot of time to fill; no one in his audience was in a rush to get home and tweet about how good/bad the play was. Three acts, in and out, bam bam bam. Star Wars. Matrix. Back to the Future. Um... the Godfather. And let's say Alien. Good thing there were only three Alien movies, yep yep. And only three Superman movies. SHUT UP.
A good sequel isn't "What's next?" it's "What else?"
The greatest sequel of all-time, The Godfather Part II (with apologies to the New Testament) did not simply say, "Well the first movie was from A to B, so this next movie is B to C." No. Fuck that. Mario Puzo was a goddamn genius of 20th century literature, and yanked the rug out from under us before we even noticed there was a rug. "Bite me," he laughed. "The first movie? Fooled you. THAT was B to C. The Godfather Part II shall be A to D. DID I JUST BLOW YA MIND???"
Yes.
Which is why that's the only exception; every other example of a Part 2 just feels tacked on; we dealt with the aftermath of the ending of the first move... that gets talked about in the first ten minutes. Then it's 90 minutes of who-gives-a-crap. Which is why you'd need a third movie to tie everything together-- three-act structure.
Lord of the Damn Rings.
Friday the 13th.
No seriously, hear me out. I've never bothered to write this down, but you can actually seriously annoy someone at a cocktail party with this:
Friday the 13th isn't mindless rambling sequels into infinity. IT'S THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
Okay, not really. Sort of. LOTR was one story ("The Hobbit"), followed by a trilogy that used the first book as a jumping off point, but told its own story within that universe. It's not that different from Greek literature (Tolkien was a professor, if THE MAN is to be believed), where you'd have three serious dramas and then one light-hearted comedy, just to give everyone something to laugh about. Which is not to say "The Hobbit" was a comedy, but it sure did have a lot of singing and dancing. And dragon-incinerations. But I digress.
Friday the 13th - This is a standalone story. The killer is Jason's mother (spoiler alert!). At the end of the movie she dies; the final shot of the movie may or may not be a dream sequence in which her drowned son, Jason, jumps out of the lake and kills our heroine. Credits.
Friday the 13th 2-4 -- TRILOGY. Jason is some kind of freak of nature who goes around murdering teenagers for violating core conservative principles (see previous blog). You even see his face once or twice, under the hockey mask... he looks sort of like a Garbage Pail Kid crossed with Sloth from The Goonies. He even laughs like some 8-year-old. In one of the movies, one of the kids finds Jason's room, a shrine to his dead mother. At the end of part 4, Jason dies. No, not ha-ha, wink wink, maybe a sequel... but he DIES. He's fucking dead. The end. Game over.
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning -- Spoiler alert! That's not Jason. It's some copycat douchebag. Despite the plot still being the same, this remains the Halloween III of the series. Let us never speak of it again. Standalone movie. Copycat gets killed, and we presume buried in an unmarked grave, under an Arby's.
Friday the 13th 6-8 -- ZOMBIE TRILOGY. Part 6 (the most technically well-made film of the entire series) opens with our hero from part 4, all grown up (and played by a different actor) checking Jason's grave to make sure he's really dead. LIGHTNING STRIKE. Jason is now no longer an idiot manchild, he is now ZOMBIE JASON, as is evidenced when he rises from the grave and kills Horshack. I am not making this up. He dies once, he dies twice, he goes to Manhattan, he melts in toxic waste. The end. He's fucking dead. Game over.
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday -- In theory this is a sequel to part VIII, just because it was released next chronologically, but they make zero effort to explain how Jason got from toxic waste to back at the lake killin' folk. I don't mean, they give a lame excuse, I mean THEY NEVER EVEN MENTION IT. Jason is just there, like girl scouts in the fall. How'd he get there? We don't know. Just ACCEPT IT, BITCHES. He is Jason, your own personal lord and savior, and MAN ARE HIS STANDARDS HIGH.
So that's a standalone movie, with the film that takes place both immediately before and after not linked to it in any way, other than a hockey-mask, some obscure legend of some dude named Jason, and maybe a Crystal Lake, if you feel like mentioning it. Then comes "Jason X" in which Jason is mysteriously alive AGAIN (despite being forever definitively killed at the end of JGTH), and then goes to THE FUTURE. I can't even be bothered to wiki that one, but sufficed to say, the movie doesn't end with Jason 2.0 being sent back to the past. And yet, "Freddy vs. Jason" is back in the present. WHAT THE FUCK EVER, HOLLYWOOD. It's this kind of lack of attention to detail that got us from "Batman" to "Batman & Robin" in 3 easy steps. And Tim Burton from "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" to "Planet of the Apes."
So post Jason in Manhattan, how many standalone films is that? THREE. That's THREE movies of essentially well-funded fan-fiction (seriously. the writer of Jason X named characters after his friends from Diablo Online. Google that shit). One standalone. One trilogy. Another standalone. One different yet upgraded trilogy. Then a trilogy of standalones.
Even Freddy got in on that action, with part 1 being a great standalone, part 2 being a really gay standalone (I do not mean that in a disrespectful way, I mean it in a "this movie is about a young man's homosexuality" way, and the lead actor agrees with me), and part 3-5 actually were a trilogy of their own, containing their own continuity and even keeping some characters in common alone the way. Freddy's Dead was just a standalone to wrap it up; Jason Goes to Hell same story. Pity no one ever sent Freddy into the future... but then Wes Craven came back and made "New Nightmare," which is not only the single most underrated movie on his resume, but it completes the second trilogy. Three movies of fanfiction once again, but one of them was actually written by the creator of the damned character. And when we can cast them onto the trash heap of history; it's time for Chucky vs. Leprechaun, bitches.
See? Everything's a three-part structure. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish up my screenplay for Speed 3: Anti-Lock Brakes.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Horror... The Horror
NOT GEEK
I think the first movie I really remember scaring the ever-loving bejeezus out of me was either "Superman II" or "The Muppet Movie."
In the former, our hero Superman goes through some sort of highly-stylized, Satan's-James-Bond-opening montage transformation in which he really does nothing more than lose his powers, but at the time I was rather on the young side and just saw a bunch of red lights and skulls and scary noises, with the upshot being, "There's a big scary light and all you can do is stand there until you're weaker than you were before." Certainly something to look forward to, when you're six.
In the latter, the climax involves a mad scientist putting Kermit into something akin to an electric chair and nearly pulling the switch, but thanks to some wacky hi-jinks, the evil, malicious scientist gets the metallic-looking upside-down bowl on his head instead, and then goes bye-bye (again, six years old here). I've of course seen both movies since, and of course quite obviously realize that a) Superman II, though groundbreaking, was really mostly silly, and b) that "mad scientist" was actually Mel Brooks. Though I still hold a grudge for "Dracula: Dead and Loving It."
I never really had a taste for scary movies much as I got older; not that they scared me away, I just didn't see the point of them. "Hey, let's go watch people get killed." (this was the 1980's, after all) ... so? You've seen one death, you've seen 'em all. Plus there's Ghostbusters and that's awesome.
The first time I really appreciated a horror movie, I was well into my 20's... I'd seen plenty as I got into high school, of course, but it was in my early 20's where I finally realized I'd never seen the original "Halloween," and one October night, decided to rectify that situation.
It was awesome.
What made it awesome was precisely the fact that I HAD seen many other slasher movies by that point. The body count of the original "Halloween" was only, as I recall, five, far and away dwarfing that of its successors (even its own sequels). But it was the scariest, tensest thing I'd ever watched to that point. It was about the mood, not about the kills. Why splatter someone if you can get a reaction just by having the killer stand across the street... unseen by the main character, but in full view of the audience?
Scary.
It was Hitchcock who posited something along the lines of, if you have two people talking over a table at a cafe, that scene can be very boring. But if you let the audience know there is a ticking bomb under that same table, all of a sudden their conversation becomes extremely tense and dramatic, without changing the interaction of the actors at all.
Of course, there are plenty of movie-goers these days who might see such a scene and complain in their blogs or facebook pages, "OMG this movie is SO boring... is the bomb gonna go off or not? Get to it!!" ... this is, of course, to miss the entire point of the scene in the previous example, but it's a natural by-product of the way modern movies are made... and the way the slasher (or rather, "horror") movie has evolved. I admit that the slasher movie is only an offshoot of the genre that is/was "horror," but certainly "slasher" is the only offshoot of it that continues to survive. But I think we can still safely assume that most people can immerse themselves in the world of a movie based on subtlety and cinematic convention, given that ten years ago "The Blair Witch Project" rang up $100 million in ticket sales, and movies like Saw, and Hostel, while doing well, have certainly never become the event-movie that BWP became all those years ago. Niche vs. Culture-as-a-whole. BSG vs. Lost. For example.
What do we have nowadays? Saw Seven? Hostel 3? (the latter is straight-to-DVD, by the way. Hilarious). Is it just the slasher movie that's dead, or is it horror altogether? "Scream" was really more a parody of the genre, once upon a time, though it did bring back the horror movie in a big way... for a little while. Now it's all remakes, reboots, and all the truly bloody movies are more about people being tortured than the good ol' classic "Teenagers running through the woods and getting splatted" classics. Good lord, man, how on earth are you supposed to get a girl to jump into your lap at the movie theater anymore?
It should be noted, though, that (a) I have not seen Paranormal Activity, and (b) That being true, the scariest movie I've seen in the last ten years was the American remake of "The Ring." And that was PG-13. (Not because it's not scary or because I'm a pussy, because it is and I'm not, but because there just wasn't any blood, and that's the kind of ignorant organization the MPAA is). Maybe I just need to watch more Japanese-horror. Or invent my own genre. Of horror. BOO!
GEEK
Pussssssssyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
By your own admission, the scariest movie you ever saw was "The Blair Witch Project," because it creates that tension that people with imagination adore and people without imagination are confused by. Kind of like how only people without imagination could actually vote for Sarah Palin. Gravitas is its own reward, but if you don't see it, no one can explain it to you. Rather like the appeal of "Lost." Or Doctor Who.
For the record, I dislike Lost and could never get into it, but that's an entirely different entry. Back to the point:
The slasher genre is indeed a sub-set of the horror genre, and the horror genre is nothing new. From Dracula to Frankenstein to The Creature from the Black Lagoon, people like seeing scary movies because they are freaking scary. Sneaking up behind someone in the dark and going "boo!", going on a roller coaster, having sex in a public place... we all get our thrills somehow, and we've all tried at least one of those things. It's the shock, the moment of surprise... it's impossible to tell what the primal attraction is, maybe it's just the endorphins in the moment after your friend or sibling shouts "Boo!" and you realize you're perfectly safe... or if you're the Boo-er, maybe just that power to make someone jump. In any event, it's awesome.
And so in the early 1970's we get the book "Jaws," which Spielberg turned into a movie (see previous blog), which was essentially a symbol for its time, and a slasher movie all at once. Scary, unseen monster, preying on the unsuspecting, one at a time.....
Halloween did it again, 3 years later. In that movie, Michael Myers was punishing his "evil" sister over and over again, having killed his actual sister for being all slutty at the beginning of the film (when he was still five years old), then killing others whom he perceived to be either her, or the boy she was with, for the remainder of the movie. That, not Jaws, was the birth of the slasher movie.
We can see it right through the sequels to Halloween, the sequels to Friday the 13th, and most of the sequels to "A Nightmare on Elm Street" -- it's even explained, point-blank, in 1996's "Scream." If you are having sex, you are a target. If you are doing drugs, you are a target. If you're doing pretty much any of the behavior your adult-peers wouldn't approve of, LOOK OUT. OR THE BOOGEY-MAN WILL GET YOU.
And yet, the Boogey-Man never kills adults. Only teenagers who are up to the kind of shenanigans our ultra-conservative overseer, Ronald Reagan, would not approve of. Does this mean no adults were doing drugs, or having sex outside marriage? Well, apparently it did. Cuz there sure were a lot of teenagers dying in these movies, and the virginal "good girl" always seemed to survive until the end. Be good kids, and the killer will spare you.
But that was a 1980's thing. Times changed and politics mellowed, Bill Clinton coming into office and taboos relaxing (particularly ones involving cigars), the budget was balanced, and America was by and large a much happier, less-repressed place. The boogey-man was no longer coming to get anyone.
And yet teenagers were still dying... in movies. What was killing them?
As we learned from the original "Scream" .... themselves. The killers in the first movie just wanted to be famous, after all; the original reality TV wanna-bes. Scream 2 just turned out to be a petty revenge story (the boogey man again.... er, woman), but she was only doing it BECAUSE some teenagers had killed her teenager in the first place. Never mind that he'd been a psychotic killer. An eye for an eye, as they say.
The killer in the third film was a teenager again, or at least had been, when he got the idea... and by the time we get to Saw and Hostel, there's no in-the-shadows Boogey-man at all. The very subjects of the movie are forced to hurt themselves, and hurt others... in order to survive. Because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or because someone else is expressing their urges to make themselves happy... at the expense of others. In "Hostel," some rich foreigners cut up Americans cuz they're bored, or something... not really sure what's going on there, but the original made an awful lot of money for torture-porn... amusing, considering the premise used for ACTUAL porn would've been way more fun. "Hello, I'm Inga. I have paid the top dollar to have the secks with yuu pretty America boy...."
Saw has 6 movies in the franchise and counting, and in each some innocent bystander must commit some horrible atrocity against some fellow human being in order to go on with their lifestyle.
Thank goodness most of us just buy a Prius instead.
I think the first movie I really remember scaring the ever-loving bejeezus out of me was either "Superman II" or "The Muppet Movie."
In the former, our hero Superman goes through some sort of highly-stylized, Satan's-James-Bond-opening montage transformation in which he really does nothing more than lose his powers, but at the time I was rather on the young side and just saw a bunch of red lights and skulls and scary noises, with the upshot being, "There's a big scary light and all you can do is stand there until you're weaker than you were before." Certainly something to look forward to, when you're six.
In the latter, the climax involves a mad scientist putting Kermit into something akin to an electric chair and nearly pulling the switch, but thanks to some wacky hi-jinks, the evil, malicious scientist gets the metallic-looking upside-down bowl on his head instead, and then goes bye-bye (again, six years old here). I've of course seen both movies since, and of course quite obviously realize that a) Superman II, though groundbreaking, was really mostly silly, and b) that "mad scientist" was actually Mel Brooks. Though I still hold a grudge for "Dracula: Dead and Loving It."
I never really had a taste for scary movies much as I got older; not that they scared me away, I just didn't see the point of them. "Hey, let's go watch people get killed." (this was the 1980's, after all) ... so? You've seen one death, you've seen 'em all. Plus there's Ghostbusters and that's awesome.
The first time I really appreciated a horror movie, I was well into my 20's... I'd seen plenty as I got into high school, of course, but it was in my early 20's where I finally realized I'd never seen the original "Halloween," and one October night, decided to rectify that situation.
It was awesome.
What made it awesome was precisely the fact that I HAD seen many other slasher movies by that point. The body count of the original "Halloween" was only, as I recall, five, far and away dwarfing that of its successors (even its own sequels). But it was the scariest, tensest thing I'd ever watched to that point. It was about the mood, not about the kills. Why splatter someone if you can get a reaction just by having the killer stand across the street... unseen by the main character, but in full view of the audience?
Scary.
It was Hitchcock who posited something along the lines of, if you have two people talking over a table at a cafe, that scene can be very boring. But if you let the audience know there is a ticking bomb under that same table, all of a sudden their conversation becomes extremely tense and dramatic, without changing the interaction of the actors at all.
Of course, there are plenty of movie-goers these days who might see such a scene and complain in their blogs or facebook pages, "OMG this movie is SO boring... is the bomb gonna go off or not? Get to it!!" ... this is, of course, to miss the entire point of the scene in the previous example, but it's a natural by-product of the way modern movies are made... and the way the slasher (or rather, "horror") movie has evolved. I admit that the slasher movie is only an offshoot of the genre that is/was "horror," but certainly "slasher" is the only offshoot of it that continues to survive. But I think we can still safely assume that most people can immerse themselves in the world of a movie based on subtlety and cinematic convention, given that ten years ago "The Blair Witch Project" rang up $100 million in ticket sales, and movies like Saw, and Hostel, while doing well, have certainly never become the event-movie that BWP became all those years ago. Niche vs. Culture-as-a-whole. BSG vs. Lost. For example.
What do we have nowadays? Saw Seven? Hostel 3? (the latter is straight-to-DVD, by the way. Hilarious). Is it just the slasher movie that's dead, or is it horror altogether? "Scream" was really more a parody of the genre, once upon a time, though it did bring back the horror movie in a big way... for a little while. Now it's all remakes, reboots, and all the truly bloody movies are more about people being tortured than the good ol' classic "Teenagers running through the woods and getting splatted" classics. Good lord, man, how on earth are you supposed to get a girl to jump into your lap at the movie theater anymore?
It should be noted, though, that (a) I have not seen Paranormal Activity, and (b) That being true, the scariest movie I've seen in the last ten years was the American remake of "The Ring." And that was PG-13. (Not because it's not scary or because I'm a pussy, because it is and I'm not, but because there just wasn't any blood, and that's the kind of ignorant organization the MPAA is). Maybe I just need to watch more Japanese-horror. Or invent my own genre. Of horror. BOO!
GEEK
Pussssssssyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
By your own admission, the scariest movie you ever saw was "The Blair Witch Project," because it creates that tension that people with imagination adore and people without imagination are confused by. Kind of like how only people without imagination could actually vote for Sarah Palin. Gravitas is its own reward, but if you don't see it, no one can explain it to you. Rather like the appeal of "Lost." Or Doctor Who.
For the record, I dislike Lost and could never get into it, but that's an entirely different entry. Back to the point:
The slasher genre is indeed a sub-set of the horror genre, and the horror genre is nothing new. From Dracula to Frankenstein to The Creature from the Black Lagoon, people like seeing scary movies because they are freaking scary. Sneaking up behind someone in the dark and going "boo!", going on a roller coaster, having sex in a public place... we all get our thrills somehow, and we've all tried at least one of those things. It's the shock, the moment of surprise... it's impossible to tell what the primal attraction is, maybe it's just the endorphins in the moment after your friend or sibling shouts "Boo!" and you realize you're perfectly safe... or if you're the Boo-er, maybe just that power to make someone jump. In any event, it's awesome.
And so in the early 1970's we get the book "Jaws," which Spielberg turned into a movie (see previous blog), which was essentially a symbol for its time, and a slasher movie all at once. Scary, unseen monster, preying on the unsuspecting, one at a time.....
Halloween did it again, 3 years later. In that movie, Michael Myers was punishing his "evil" sister over and over again, having killed his actual sister for being all slutty at the beginning of the film (when he was still five years old), then killing others whom he perceived to be either her, or the boy she was with, for the remainder of the movie. That, not Jaws, was the birth of the slasher movie.
We can see it right through the sequels to Halloween, the sequels to Friday the 13th, and most of the sequels to "A Nightmare on Elm Street" -- it's even explained, point-blank, in 1996's "Scream." If you are having sex, you are a target. If you are doing drugs, you are a target. If you're doing pretty much any of the behavior your adult-peers wouldn't approve of, LOOK OUT. OR THE BOOGEY-MAN WILL GET YOU.
And yet, the Boogey-Man never kills adults. Only teenagers who are up to the kind of shenanigans our ultra-conservative overseer, Ronald Reagan, would not approve of. Does this mean no adults were doing drugs, or having sex outside marriage? Well, apparently it did. Cuz there sure were a lot of teenagers dying in these movies, and the virginal "good girl" always seemed to survive until the end. Be good kids, and the killer will spare you.
But that was a 1980's thing. Times changed and politics mellowed, Bill Clinton coming into office and taboos relaxing (particularly ones involving cigars), the budget was balanced, and America was by and large a much happier, less-repressed place. The boogey-man was no longer coming to get anyone.
And yet teenagers were still dying... in movies. What was killing them?
As we learned from the original "Scream" .... themselves. The killers in the first movie just wanted to be famous, after all; the original reality TV wanna-bes. Scream 2 just turned out to be a petty revenge story (the boogey man again.... er, woman), but she was only doing it BECAUSE some teenagers had killed her teenager in the first place. Never mind that he'd been a psychotic killer. An eye for an eye, as they say.
The killer in the third film was a teenager again, or at least had been, when he got the idea... and by the time we get to Saw and Hostel, there's no in-the-shadows Boogey-man at all. The very subjects of the movie are forced to hurt themselves, and hurt others... in order to survive. Because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or because someone else is expressing their urges to make themselves happy... at the expense of others. In "Hostel," some rich foreigners cut up Americans cuz they're bored, or something... not really sure what's going on there, but the original made an awful lot of money for torture-porn... amusing, considering the premise used for ACTUAL porn would've been way more fun. "Hello, I'm Inga. I have paid the top dollar to have the secks with yuu pretty America boy...."
Saw has 6 movies in the franchise and counting, and in each some innocent bystander must commit some horrible atrocity against some fellow human being in order to go on with their lifestyle.
Thank goodness most of us just buy a Prius instead.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Post-Modernist Symbolism in Nimrod Antal's "Predators," or, "I Ain't Getting Laid This Week."
This is my first one, so I'm still playing with the concept/format a bit. Also it may be a bit long. If you have not seen the new movie "Predators," please don't read this, as I spoil the everloving shit out of it.
GEEK:
The first film professor I ever had was a middle-aged hippie woman who didn’t comment on the films she showed her classes; she just showed the films. Sure, she’d say, this one is French Impressionism, or that one is American Noir, but mostly she let the films speak for themselves. Every film student should have a professor like that, because a constant diet of whatever Blockbuster carries certainly removes a sense of history, and allows what would have been talented filmmakers to turn into people like Michael Bay.
The second film professor I ever had told me, the first day I ever met her, that “Jaws” was a metaphor for the Vietnam War.
I was 22 at the time, and I nodded, said something like “Hm, really?” while simultaneously in my head I was laughing, laughing, unable to wait to tell my friends what this woman had just said to me. It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. Over the next several years I would remember that often, while at the same time learning more about the world around me, including the world as it was in 1975. And of course I watched the film again on my own, more than once… because, no matter how you look at it, that’s a great movie.
The simple truth is, while yes, you can apply most ANY metaphor like that, to any movie, we can also agree that, were Jaws made today, there would be certain differences in a 2010 Jaws vs. a 1975 Jaws. Most obviously, the shark would be replaced by CGI. But there would certainly be other changes, if not to plot than to casting… three white guys as the main characters? In 2010? That’s not very PC, is it? Better put a woman on that boat. And make one of the men non-white, we’ve got to sell tickets, after all…
In 1975, the shark was communism. I’m certainly not trying to imply (though I’m unsure if Film Professor II was or wasn’t) that Spielberg, or author Peter Benchley, consciously set out to make a movie about Vietnam, that would be ludicrous. But it was the people of the early 1970’s who made that book a best-seller, and the people of 1975 who made that movie one of the top-grossing movies of all time. And it was about an unseen force, slowly creeping up on our borders, infiltrating our territory at the very edges (the beach), where we felt most safe… taking our children one by one.
No one will believe they are at risk. The chief of police (Sheriff Brody) wants to close the beaches; the local government WANTS the families out there. There’s no danger, after all. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s err on the side of our financial livelihood.
And so there are a few more deaths, and who has to go out into the sharks’ own environment—travelling, as it were, “in country” – but the blue collar hero (fisherman and ex-marine, Quint), the white collar hero (well-funded researcher Hooper) and the representative of a government agency, Sheriff Brody.
The blue-collar character dies, then the government kills the shark. Clear symbolism. Though in the book, Hooper gets it, too. Our government will save us, you see. That’s something we can all relate to. In 1975. Here in the 21st Century, our relationship with the government is a little different.
So that’s “Jaws.” That’s what turned me off being a film major forever; I managed my degree in theater and only needed one more film class to graduate. It was years after I graduated that I finally heard a film explained in a far, far more hilarious manner: “Predator” (yes, that one), was a metaphor for the gay man’s struggle against AIDS.
These things manifest themselves in subtle ways, you understand. Predator is another great movie. Sit back, relax, watch the powerful, unexplained alien pick off sweaty, oiled-up beefcakes one by one. I’ve watched this happen many times (in the movie, I mean). Jesse Ventura is a “goddamned sexual tyrannosaurus” and even he gets taken out relatively early in the movie. This is serious business.
It was 1987, and though doctors had already begun diagnosing the disease that would come to be called HIV, the federal government was uninterested in making any such announcement about it. It would take 3 more years—when Magic Johnson announced publicly he had the disease—that anyone outside the gay community seemed to take it seriously, at least at on a national, cultural level. And it had been going on for a DECADE by then. This would be like, say, a terrorist attack taking place on U.S. soil, and the president doing nothing for months, before finally explaining nothing to the people and just attacking the wrong—wait, no, okay, bad example. It would be more like, say, the worst natural disaster in the history of America nearly destroying one of its great cities, and then the President ignoring it and letting the under-funded, overworked bureaucratic government agencies deal with it instead…. Well, okay, another bad example, but that’s just the point. The government doesn’t do its job, and we notice it… because we live in this country. It’s hard to miss.
The Predator is AIDS and picks off the overly-close boys club one at a time. It attacks our heroes directly, right where they are at the time, so unlike the shark in Jaws. Also unlike Jaws, every single death is a main character, except for Arnold, who we see achieve victory in the end, when our soldier covers himself with latex, I mean mud. We all learned a valuable lesson that day. Other than “don’t go to Guatemala.”
Which brings us to “Predators,” the film released this month as not a reboot, but a sequel, altering the title slightly because “Predator 3” would just call unwanted attention toward “Predator 2,” and nobody wants that. The sequel to “Alien” was called “Aliens” anyway, and was a wildly different genre. “Predators” is still an action movie... but it’s 23 years after the original. Cultures change. The monster is neither creeping up on our own territory, nor has it arrived someplace we didn’t expect to find it. It has brought us to the fight, starting the battle before a single shot was even fired. It has kidnapped our heroes, taken them away from their homes, and left them to fend for themselves in an environment that is simultaneously familiar, yet not.
In the newest version, is the Predator terrorism? Certainly not, as our main characters don’t seem particularly afraid. They’re not sure where they are, or how they got there, but when they learn of their alien environment they soldier on, because they are a politically-correct band of multi-ethnic (and multi-gendered) soldier, representing We, the People, in this new politically correct post-1980’s America. Viva le Revolution.
It is halfway through the movie that we realize our Common Men (and Woman) are up against not one brand of Predator, but two (hence the title). We have our classic Predator, all scaly-skin and snapping jaws from the original film… and we have our taller, meaner “Larger Predator,” which has another name in the film , but “Black Predator” certainly isn’t very PC either. So we’ll stick with “LP” and “OP.”
So our common citizens must now unite against a common goal—escaping this situation they find themselves in. Our hero, Adrien Brody, has an idea. The LP’s, in their blood feud with the OP’s, have captured an OP and have tied it up in their camp. Our fearless leader (Brody) is going to free it, and in doing so forge a friendship that will get them home.
Upon doing so, the OP reluctantly seems to agree, but is soon attacked by the remaining LP, which proceeds to fight the OP to the death. LP wins. The “escape” vehicle, the spaceship, takes off, and we think our hero is aboard. LP destroys it. Back to business.
The only two forces, we can reason, that are actively fighting against the common We the People, would of course be our American two-party system, the Democrats and Republicans. Alone and tied to a relic, the Democrat begrudgingly agrees to help our hero. It is not happy to do so, of course, but it is honor-bound. It is then decapitated in short-order by a Larger Predator, which presumably brought everyone to this alien planet in the first place… it has an agenda and it will stop at nothing to achieve it. It is there to kill humans, it has wasted its resources to transport its prey thousands of miles, simply to be killed. It repeatedly ignores its own in quest of its goal. And, not for nothing, it does kill the first minority it sees.
Seriously.
The character identified as Mexican (Danny Trejo) is the first to be killed by a Predator. The African is the second to go. At the end of a glorified cameo, Laurence Fishburne runs into a Larger Predator, armed with little more than a flare, and is instantly gunned down, despite the predators supposedly having honor and not attacking unarmed prey. Twenty minutes later, another one crosses paths with a member of the Japanese Yakuza-- the man armed only with a sword, and the two fight as equals. The Japanese man up until this point has been quiet, a watchful observer, and one of only two members of the humans not wearing battle fatigues. He is only carrying a simple handgun, and is missing three fingers. Certainly a slight disadvantage, but he relies on his culture to carry out his last stand. Because we took their guns away at the end of WWII, so that is a way Americans would accept the fight.
Those two fight to the death (both die), and the earlier NP was also taken out by self-sacrifice—that time by a Russian soldier. Two superpowers, two deaths. The American does not die, however… well, one does, but he turns out to not be a soldier, but a psychopath. Predators among us. The American soldier, his Israeli female companion (who grew up in Guatemala) survive, but do not get off the planet. They’re stuck in the same shit they always were.. . it is they, themselves, who must find a way out of their situation, as no one is going to help them.
NOT GEEK:
The opening shot is of Adrien Brody falling through the air. Though not as horrifically bloody as the first movie, there are a handful of memorable deaths, and the Predators stay true to the two previous films which featured them and only them as they bad guys.
Where any other actor would stand around and look buff, or dispatch bad guys with witty repartee, Adrien Brody is a skilled actor, and makes the most of motivating his characters meager dialogue. While the stereotypical action fans won’t appreciate the subtlety, it’s still new and refreshing to hear your leading man quote Hemingway to another soldier. Just as it’s refreshing to hear a character say, “If we survive this, I am going to do SO much fucking cocaine.”
The original Predator is an action classic. Directed by John McTiernan one year before he directed “Die Hard,” it continued the great Schwarzenegger tradition. Predator 2 was directed by a glorified TV director (whose only previous hit had been “A Nightmare on Elm 5”), and starred Danny Glover as the cop on the edge, Gary Busey as the bad guy, and Maria Conchita Alonso as the requisite “Latina who is not killed by the Predator” character (one of those shows up in all three movies. Seriously).
“Predators” is not as good as the first (not enough memorable lines, not enough memorable kills), but light years better than the second. In fact, it’s the second-best movie ever made that contains the word “Predator” in the title. Definitely something worth picking up on DVD… and while it’s rated R, I couldn’t help but remember wishing, as the credits rolled, it has been rated -MORE- R. Oh well. Times they are a-changin’.
GEEK:
The first film professor I ever had was a middle-aged hippie woman who didn’t comment on the films she showed her classes; she just showed the films. Sure, she’d say, this one is French Impressionism, or that one is American Noir, but mostly she let the films speak for themselves. Every film student should have a professor like that, because a constant diet of whatever Blockbuster carries certainly removes a sense of history, and allows what would have been talented filmmakers to turn into people like Michael Bay.
The second film professor I ever had told me, the first day I ever met her, that “Jaws” was a metaphor for the Vietnam War.
I was 22 at the time, and I nodded, said something like “Hm, really?” while simultaneously in my head I was laughing, laughing, unable to wait to tell my friends what this woman had just said to me. It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. Over the next several years I would remember that often, while at the same time learning more about the world around me, including the world as it was in 1975. And of course I watched the film again on my own, more than once… because, no matter how you look at it, that’s a great movie.
The simple truth is, while yes, you can apply most ANY metaphor like that, to any movie, we can also agree that, were Jaws made today, there would be certain differences in a 2010 Jaws vs. a 1975 Jaws. Most obviously, the shark would be replaced by CGI. But there would certainly be other changes, if not to plot than to casting… three white guys as the main characters? In 2010? That’s not very PC, is it? Better put a woman on that boat. And make one of the men non-white, we’ve got to sell tickets, after all…
In 1975, the shark was communism. I’m certainly not trying to imply (though I’m unsure if Film Professor II was or wasn’t) that Spielberg, or author Peter Benchley, consciously set out to make a movie about Vietnam, that would be ludicrous. But it was the people of the early 1970’s who made that book a best-seller, and the people of 1975 who made that movie one of the top-grossing movies of all time. And it was about an unseen force, slowly creeping up on our borders, infiltrating our territory at the very edges (the beach), where we felt most safe… taking our children one by one.
No one will believe they are at risk. The chief of police (Sheriff Brody) wants to close the beaches; the local government WANTS the families out there. There’s no danger, after all. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s err on the side of our financial livelihood.
And so there are a few more deaths, and who has to go out into the sharks’ own environment—travelling, as it were, “in country” – but the blue collar hero (fisherman and ex-marine, Quint), the white collar hero (well-funded researcher Hooper) and the representative of a government agency, Sheriff Brody.
The blue-collar character dies, then the government kills the shark. Clear symbolism. Though in the book, Hooper gets it, too. Our government will save us, you see. That’s something we can all relate to. In 1975. Here in the 21st Century, our relationship with the government is a little different.
So that’s “Jaws.” That’s what turned me off being a film major forever; I managed my degree in theater and only needed one more film class to graduate. It was years after I graduated that I finally heard a film explained in a far, far more hilarious manner: “Predator” (yes, that one), was a metaphor for the gay man’s struggle against AIDS.
These things manifest themselves in subtle ways, you understand. Predator is another great movie. Sit back, relax, watch the powerful, unexplained alien pick off sweaty, oiled-up beefcakes one by one. I’ve watched this happen many times (in the movie, I mean). Jesse Ventura is a “goddamned sexual tyrannosaurus” and even he gets taken out relatively early in the movie. This is serious business.
It was 1987, and though doctors had already begun diagnosing the disease that would come to be called HIV, the federal government was uninterested in making any such announcement about it. It would take 3 more years—when Magic Johnson announced publicly he had the disease—that anyone outside the gay community seemed to take it seriously, at least at on a national, cultural level. And it had been going on for a DECADE by then. This would be like, say, a terrorist attack taking place on U.S. soil, and the president doing nothing for months, before finally explaining nothing to the people and just attacking the wrong—wait, no, okay, bad example. It would be more like, say, the worst natural disaster in the history of America nearly destroying one of its great cities, and then the President ignoring it and letting the under-funded, overworked bureaucratic government agencies deal with it instead…. Well, okay, another bad example, but that’s just the point. The government doesn’t do its job, and we notice it… because we live in this country. It’s hard to miss.
The Predator is AIDS and picks off the overly-close boys club one at a time. It attacks our heroes directly, right where they are at the time, so unlike the shark in Jaws. Also unlike Jaws, every single death is a main character, except for Arnold, who we see achieve victory in the end, when our soldier covers himself with latex, I mean mud. We all learned a valuable lesson that day. Other than “don’t go to Guatemala.”
Which brings us to “Predators,” the film released this month as not a reboot, but a sequel, altering the title slightly because “Predator 3” would just call unwanted attention toward “Predator 2,” and nobody wants that. The sequel to “Alien” was called “Aliens” anyway, and was a wildly different genre. “Predators” is still an action movie... but it’s 23 years after the original. Cultures change. The monster is neither creeping up on our own territory, nor has it arrived someplace we didn’t expect to find it. It has brought us to the fight, starting the battle before a single shot was even fired. It has kidnapped our heroes, taken them away from their homes, and left them to fend for themselves in an environment that is simultaneously familiar, yet not.
In the newest version, is the Predator terrorism? Certainly not, as our main characters don’t seem particularly afraid. They’re not sure where they are, or how they got there, but when they learn of their alien environment they soldier on, because they are a politically-correct band of multi-ethnic (and multi-gendered) soldier, representing We, the People, in this new politically correct post-1980’s America. Viva le Revolution.
It is halfway through the movie that we realize our Common Men (and Woman) are up against not one brand of Predator, but two (hence the title). We have our classic Predator, all scaly-skin and snapping jaws from the original film… and we have our taller, meaner “Larger Predator,” which has another name in the film , but “Black Predator” certainly isn’t very PC either. So we’ll stick with “LP” and “OP.”
So our common citizens must now unite against a common goal—escaping this situation they find themselves in. Our hero, Adrien Brody, has an idea. The LP’s, in their blood feud with the OP’s, have captured an OP and have tied it up in their camp. Our fearless leader (Brody) is going to free it, and in doing so forge a friendship that will get them home.
Upon doing so, the OP reluctantly seems to agree, but is soon attacked by the remaining LP, which proceeds to fight the OP to the death. LP wins. The “escape” vehicle, the spaceship, takes off, and we think our hero is aboard. LP destroys it. Back to business.
The only two forces, we can reason, that are actively fighting against the common We the People, would of course be our American two-party system, the Democrats and Republicans. Alone and tied to a relic, the Democrat begrudgingly agrees to help our hero. It is not happy to do so, of course, but it is honor-bound. It is then decapitated in short-order by a Larger Predator, which presumably brought everyone to this alien planet in the first place… it has an agenda and it will stop at nothing to achieve it. It is there to kill humans, it has wasted its resources to transport its prey thousands of miles, simply to be killed. It repeatedly ignores its own in quest of its goal. And, not for nothing, it does kill the first minority it sees.
Seriously.
The character identified as Mexican (Danny Trejo) is the first to be killed by a Predator. The African is the second to go. At the end of a glorified cameo, Laurence Fishburne runs into a Larger Predator, armed with little more than a flare, and is instantly gunned down, despite the predators supposedly having honor and not attacking unarmed prey. Twenty minutes later, another one crosses paths with a member of the Japanese Yakuza-- the man armed only with a sword, and the two fight as equals. The Japanese man up until this point has been quiet, a watchful observer, and one of only two members of the humans not wearing battle fatigues. He is only carrying a simple handgun, and is missing three fingers. Certainly a slight disadvantage, but he relies on his culture to carry out his last stand. Because we took their guns away at the end of WWII, so that is a way Americans would accept the fight.
Those two fight to the death (both die), and the earlier NP was also taken out by self-sacrifice—that time by a Russian soldier. Two superpowers, two deaths. The American does not die, however… well, one does, but he turns out to not be a soldier, but a psychopath. Predators among us. The American soldier, his Israeli female companion (who grew up in Guatemala) survive, but do not get off the planet. They’re stuck in the same shit they always were.. . it is they, themselves, who must find a way out of their situation, as no one is going to help them.
NOT GEEK:
The opening shot is of Adrien Brody falling through the air. Though not as horrifically bloody as the first movie, there are a handful of memorable deaths, and the Predators stay true to the two previous films which featured them and only them as they bad guys.
Where any other actor would stand around and look buff, or dispatch bad guys with witty repartee, Adrien Brody is a skilled actor, and makes the most of motivating his characters meager dialogue. While the stereotypical action fans won’t appreciate the subtlety, it’s still new and refreshing to hear your leading man quote Hemingway to another soldier. Just as it’s refreshing to hear a character say, “If we survive this, I am going to do SO much fucking cocaine.”
The original Predator is an action classic. Directed by John McTiernan one year before he directed “Die Hard,” it continued the great Schwarzenegger tradition. Predator 2 was directed by a glorified TV director (whose only previous hit had been “A Nightmare on Elm 5”), and starred Danny Glover as the cop on the edge, Gary Busey as the bad guy, and Maria Conchita Alonso as the requisite “Latina who is not killed by the Predator” character (one of those shows up in all three movies. Seriously).
“Predators” is not as good as the first (not enough memorable lines, not enough memorable kills), but light years better than the second. In fact, it’s the second-best movie ever made that contains the word “Predator” in the title. Definitely something worth picking up on DVD… and while it’s rated R, I couldn’t help but remember wishing, as the credits rolled, it has been rated -MORE- R. Oh well. Times they are a-changin’.
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