I knew I wanted to eventually see Shame, the second directorial effort from visual artist Steve Mcqueen about the eponymous emotional consequences of sexual addiction, it just took a bit of self-convincing. I set my jaw, bought the ticket, entered a half full theater comprised completely of middle aged/elderly couples, and immediately rethought the whole thing. I knew what I was getting into, I couldn’t say the same for them.
And what I got into was pretty much as expected: that old trope of a man dealing with sex addiction when his crazy (with a capital CRAY) sister forces herself on his life, giving us an understanding of where his problem comes from, and everything spirals down.
The concept of this movie remains interesting to me. Many, myself included, regard sexual addiction with a certain skepticism. Obviously, one has the immediate tendency to write off self proclaimed sex addicts as annoying douches. Since hearing about this movie, however, I have thought a lot about it and found myself understanding the devestation such an affliction could wreck on a person’s life. It seemed to me the cinematic trouble was that, as with most emotional disorders, the drama largely plays out internally while externally it’s just boobs and fun. And that gets to the strength of this movie, through suberb acting by both Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, Mcqueen truly captures the hollowed out despair that lies inside the character of Brandon as he destroys himself with pleasure. I have to give credit, because juxtaposing the pain and pleasure while still creating a sense of a real character was acheived to a moving degree. Not only that, but I sympathized for him. I saw what made him tick and looked down the dark tunnel of his life. Ultimately, this proved a satisfying movie. And I refuse to make any innuendos.
It did have many flaws. As said, Mcqueen truly wanted to peer inside this person, to really inhabit the sensual trials and frustrations. At times, he went in too deep. Again, there will be no innuendos. While not exactly navel-gazing, the movie had the tendency to revel in itself.
Here:
Near the middle of the movie, Michael Fassbender stands over a sink and masturbates while looking into a mirror. This sums up many of the movie’s sins and a few of its virtues. Mcqueen has a vanity with his self gratification and sometimes he deserves it. There are many long shots, played for effect to study a character in a space in time, and half of them are unneccesary. At the same time, the ones that work, do so beautifully. Also, with the concentration on the internal, it makes the environment around the main character lean toward two-dimensional. While I believed in Brandon, his work bros were laughable and I would have apprecieated a more fleshed out Manhattan giving that he spent so much time staring at it out of windows.
Discussing the vain self gratification and two dimensionality brings me to my biggest concern: Women aren’t that easy to get. It’s not that Brandon has mastered the picking up of women; I understand that sexual addiction could hone that talent. My problem lies with the sheer number of women just drawn to him of their own accord. Forever, they stared at him, openly giving themselves to him and his disorder. It took me out of the experience and seemed off.
Carey Mulligan deserves a small paragraph, in a movie totally concerened with one man and his problems, she refuses to be background. Her performance was layered, recognizable, and true. Their scenes together shone and her physical presence became a tangeable and emotional threat.
In the end, I found myself looking for a moment close to Taxi Driver, where De Niro takes Cybil Shepard to the porn theater and is confronted with how far removed he is from the rest of the world. It took a bit for me to realize that Brandon DOES understand this. He watches the tragedy unfold, seemingly helpless to stop it. This gave so much weight to the emotional connection needed. I commend Michael Fassbender. The whole movie essentially revolves around his face and expressions, and he pulls it off impressively. Somehow, the story remains subtle underneath all the boobs and fun, which made the ending hold a good deal of value. It is a tricky movie to recommend, and talking about it with people earns more smirks than interest. But, as I have said, I want art to challenge me, I want to meet it halfway, I want to put in effort. Shame did challenge me, and I put in the effort to meet it halfway. Thankfully, it was worth it.
Post script:
So, like I said, the theater was full of older couples and I bet none of them reacted in the same way as the 40ish couple who sat behind me. Hand to god, they tittered more than the audience at the Artist. And while some of it was sophomoric, the majority was finding humor in ABSOLUTELY everything in which the slightest bit of humor could be found. It made me so angry. My guess is that they were just trying to lighten the awkwardness of what they unwittingly walked in on. The highlight still, was in the very beginning. The camera is only set to capture from the neck down of a naked Michael Fassbender walking around his apartment. Without laughing, the woman behind simply says, “hmmm, his penis.”
I wish them luck.
Yesterday, while daringly texting something random in my truck. I found myself pushing the predicted word button above the alphabet for the entire message. This did not sit well with me.
As written other places, I place a distinct standard upon myself to continue creating. I will only tell a funny story a few times, and I almost never repeat my off-the-cuff quips unless they are particularly hilarious. Anymore than a few times and I feel like I come close to lying, regifting the same special present to person after person. I feel sticky, unpleasant, and lazy. Letting the wind blow away the sand painting of my hilarity continues to ensure that I create new and exciting things.
Predictive text ruins this. Simply creating a routine from my responses proves that a pattern exists. Patterns lead to malaise. Malaise leads to ennui. Ennui leads to another French word. Another French word leads to death.
I won’t let you kill me Predictive text! I will find new ways to respond. I can rejuvenate my repertoire. I will stop using the words ‘bit’ and ‘later’. I will message people and they will think that a stranger has answered them, so swept away will they be by the new elloquent forms that dance on their cellphone screens. I will lead this dance with my chin thrown back, laughing into the unknown future.
Random Movie Review: The Artist
I read the first review of The Artist about seven months ago. And in that span of time, while I waited to finally get my chance to see the film, critical opinion flew back and forth. I first remember a general upsurge of positive will and good natured excitement over such a unique movie. Then, came the backlash. A vocal contingent, loudly lauded the movie as nothing more than light fare, undeserved of so much praise. Finally, in the past few weeks, it seemed like a greater number came out to defend the movie against detractors, putting it on top ten lists and justifying the awards the film had begun to win. With all of this back and forth, I eagerly went to see the movie, wondering where I would settle, and how I could join the conversation by writing this review that so few will ever read.
To those that have never heard of this movie, and want me to explain myself, The Artist is an interesting movie in its own right. It tells the story of a silent movie star in the late 1920’s as filmmaking technology evolves to the point of including sound. The birth of ‘talkies’ spells the death of his career, and the film follows his downturn into despair as a plucky young starlet tries to save his soul. The film follows this narrative in the style of a traditional silent movie. It features a score, but all dialogue and sound effects are displayed as title cards.
So, this movie definitely knew what it wanted to be. Making no bones, it knew it wanted to charm and delight audiences with every sticky sweet bit of honey it could pour on the screen. It had a presence of mind and a singular purpose to tell a story in this way. Which, in my opinion, proved a good thing and a bad thing.
Look: it did charm me. I will say that. It made a real effort to embody the late twenties and early thirties spirit with a firm amount of tongue in cheek, which I couldn’t help but appreciate. There were many clever jokes and a few memorable lines that will make me laugh for a long time to come. I found the main performances pretty delightful. The main character, played by John Dujardin, found a way to work his face so well in the silent milieu. And such a magnanimous smile. Wry and dashing, he had more teeth than anyone I’ve ever seen.
The story interested me. As I have pretentiously taken film history classes, I was aware of the divide that struck many actors when Hollywood introduced sound to its productions. If played correctly, the filmmakers could make much of this interesting time. And, more or less, they did. You would never call this plot deep, though I felt it captured much of the time period. And, at the very end, it reveals something that did change the nature of the film and how I viewed it. The change was welcome, though I can’t quite decide whether I wish they made more of it or its subtlety held strength. Regardless, I found myself middling on this movie until the reveal, which tipped me into enjoying it.
I hear you out there, as the record scratched on that last sentence. “Why were you so middling, when you clearly enjoyed much of it?” A fair question.
A word has circulated describing this movie, and I have to mostly agree. ‘Slight’, some call it. As in, fluffly, light, not much there. And, for the most part, this is true. There are no major themes explored, lessons to learn, or truths defined. As I said in the beginning, this film knew what it wanted to be. Still, it wants to engage through its brevity and have you whimsically enjoy the spectacle. And it worked up to a point. Then, an itchy feeling crept up in the opening minutes and I turned to the friend who went with me to the theater, “This movie is just going to be people making funny faces at the camera and dog tricks, isn’t it?”
That dog.
I did not like that dog.
Stop shouting at the screen and let me say my bit.
First, all of the goodwill earned through the easy charm of the character was almost lost with the dog reactions and tricks. In my hateful eyes, that is a lazy way to win audiences over. More than lazy. A director that chooses to use the convenience of a dog to express the limited emotional range of a silent film doesn’t expect much from their audience. Now, on some levels, I get it. This movie tried to adopt classic devices. I enjoyed the physical comedy, the dancing, and the jokes that made advantage of the medium. I actually thought the movie deserved more of all three. But the base reliance for a dog to lighten the mood crosses a line between charm and pandering. They might as well have dressed a monkey in a bow tie, or put a mortarboard on a baby.
Second, the dog was completely unnecessary and the filmmakers never tried to fold it into the plot. In planning this review, I remembered my #6 movie of last year: Beginners. It also features a Jack Russell terrier. He is also cute and follows the main character around. However in that movie, he represents the loss of Ewan Mcgregor’s father, held and hugged as that which cannot be let go. It is a source of comic relief yes, but also a touchstone to the grief that softly surrounds the film.
In The Artist, they never define the dog’s place, its relationship to anyone, or why it would get so much screen time. So I felt like they were trying to pull some cute string in me very hard. And I don’t like my strings so deliberately pulled.
That said, people love that dog. I heard about it with the first review I read to the last. The dog went to the golden globes. The elderly that filled my theater simply COULD NOT stop talking about it after the movie ended. The magic worked on them, slight or not, they enjoyed the bare aspects and light plot. Which I understand. To say again, I ultimately enjoyed this movie. The final weight given to the plot, the cavalier embrace of the silent era, new takes on the style, and a shy, smiling sense of what it wanted to show, eventually led me to forgive the brazen cuteness that had me often rolling my eyes.
Random Movie Review: Carnage
Near the titular line in Polanski’s newest film, Carnage, Christophe Waltz growls to Jodie Foster, “The origin of law is brute force.” which essentially encapsulates the larger themes that are uncomfortably explored by two married couples after one’s son hits the other’s in the face with a stick. After an excessive display of social politeness and adult conflict resolution, the four characters gradually devolve into vain explorations of base emotions. In a comedic fashion, of course.
Roman Polanski loves apartments. This film follows that penned up, naked expression that he explored in Rosemary’s Baby, but more intimately in his 1965 film, Repulsion. There are many similarities to be found between these two movies (and many others), but Polanski finds lighter ground in the 2008 French play Le Dieu du Carnage. Starring, and only starring, Kate Winslett, Christophe Waltz, Jodie Foster, and John C. Reilly, the story sits around their coffee table as the polite conversation and common ground gradually fall away. As painful as it could have played out, these wonderfully skilled actors make the living room engaging and often very funny. Shifting feet, awkward glances, and bodily functions do so much to break the tension without ever being overt or slapsticky.
When the film ended, one of the two middle-aged women behind me said, “Well that could be a play, right?” There is something obvious when a film was originally intended for the stage. The limited scenes, the repetitious settings, and the continuous dialog do much to tip off the audience. Much good can come from filming plays. There are framed camera shots, close ups, and tracking shots that go a ways to express central moments. All things said, I would much rather have seen this filmed than at a theater. Polanski brings a level of lived-in comfort to the apartment. Careful crafting allows a severity to shine through along with far subtler comedic moments than can be expressed on stage.
The film falters a bit with the converse of this. I could also largely tell this was originally a play because of several grandiose and overly-theatric dialog exchanges and character turns. Characters grandly reacting in ways that were meant to reach the hearts of those in the nosebleed seats don’t work so well on close-up inspection. Also, there are turns of phrase, which seemed so inherently play-like, that it took me out of the picture from time to time. “Toss your cookies”, “High falutin’ clap trap”, and (ugh) “Odor of Cronos” are not things I expect in realistic dialog.
That said, these actors mesmerized me as they used their children as weapons, blindly forging and breaking alliances. This film (play) captures a power struggle for an unknown prize, performed marvelously. And even though the forcefulness of societal convention/harmful effects of repressing instincts theme may need a fuller examination, I did enjoy watching this cast explore it.
My Top Fiveish Movies of 2011
Okay, let’s just get in and get out. I have decided to make a top-movies-of-the-year list, you must decide whether this interests you. No hard feelings if you have read plenty of these, I’m afraid mine won’t be terribly different than the rest. However, I do have content that might win your time, oh inattentive reader. Like I do, there were several critically lauded movies that I really did not enjoy. So, I will take the time at the very end to explain my hilarious detractions to some of those films that snuck their sinister way onto other lists. Stay tuned for the hate.
Away we go…
6. Beginners
Now, I happen to be one of those people that hate spoilers, trailers, and knowing anything about a movie before I see it. Beginners proved that wrong. I knew everything about it way before hand and I still found it irresistibly charming.
Just to ruin your day, Christopher Plummer plays Ewan Macgregor’s father who comes out of the closet in his early 80’s and dies soon after of sad, sad cancer. That’s the movie. It is an autobiographical account, written and directed by Mike Mills. And, even though I, and now you, knew everything about the movie beforehand, there was an honesty and personal sincerity about it that hit home. I’ve heard some critics call it out for being sickeningly sweet, and I will admit that the love story between Mr. Macgregor and his interest does routinely brush up against the twee. Never the less, it painted an emotionally brimming and youthful account of trying to begin a new phase in one’s life, set against the background of how hard it can be to teach an old dog new tricks.
5. Martha Marcy May Marlene
Somehow, the Olson parents had another daughter. And, somehow, the universe decided to just scrap everything Mary Kate and Ashley touched and try again with this new breed that proves more beautiful and talented than anything before.
I remember one critic’s take on this movie, he remarked about how the director seemed to obsessively glorify the visage of Elizabeth Olson and her physical portrayal of an early twenties girl’s escape from a land-living commune and her increasing paranoia and frustration with the only refuge she can find. And maybe it is my sincere fascination with what I found a striking performance or my baser attraction at a simply gorgeous girl, probably something in between, but I totally enjoyed this movie.
Olson plays this wonderfully self possessed, just fucking cool girl, who is somehow smarter and more interesting than I find myself. Pardon me for using this word, but she embodies a transcendence above where normal schlubs schlub. Women like her create fashion, start trends, and don’t care about either. I believe that is why, when this same character shows cracks in her facade and begin to exhibit real, obviously deep, emotional pain, it shakes the plain upon which the movie is set.
As the film unraveled, which I find a good word for what this movie did, I found myself wondering what exactly the filmmakers wanted to show me. The disjointed narrative and falling actions forced me to ask where they wanted to take me. Only in the final scene did it come full circle and made all intentions clear. I saw other critics find this ending difficult and maybe manipulative, but it truly did work on me. It felt like it gave me a punch line to a joke I didn’t know I was hearing.
I didn’t even mention Mr. John Hawkes’ wonderful portrayal of the commune leader. So there, I did.
4. The Trip
Since this is the only comedy in this list, I guess that makes it the best comedy of the year. Apologies to the never-the-bride crowd, I just liked this movie better. And what is it, you ask insufferably. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon take an improvisational culinary tour of North England and annoy each other along the way with improvisation. Unabashedly English, it certainly hit that Anglophile bone that is lodged somewhere between my stiff upper lip and my cricket bat hand.
Although, I did laugh heartily at this movie, I place it so high on my list because of the way it dramatically portrayed a lost 40 something, which would make me cleverly label it a coming of middle age movie. You may now chuckle wryly.
In the bent cultural landscape of psychological man-children, this later in life struggle to define adulthood has affected a number of recent movies. And I ashamedly say that it strikes at something within my own determination to healthily age. This movie winningly approaches that concept with the English sarcastic exterior and never draws too much attention to that which the characters would regretfully display.
3. Drive
Hot damn, now we get to the big stuff.
As I sat in the theater watching Drive, I began to realize it as one of the best realizations of visual art I had ever seen.
I frequent art like things. So what. I know you do too. And, somewhere in the back of every one hides someone’s example of video art. You know what I mean. Usually seen as a mish mash of fractals or jagged landscaped revolving, rotating, or subtly moving. The most guttural, discordant music accompanies it, growling endlessly as a soundtrack to nothing. I do not like these things. As art, I could never dismiss the stupid things. They have just never moved me.
Drive wrapped me in synthetic fur and told me a drowsy story that numbed me until it wanted a reaction. And reaction I gave it. Soft and slow, it purred on my mind, the soundtrack being more apart of it than any movie in recent memory (musicals excluded, of course. Der.) Whether the whine of digitized orchestras or the low hum of an engine, there sang the constant white-noisy sounds, which made me feel encapsulated in a singular vision.
And then violence happened. More than any other central complaint critics gave to this movie, some were turned off by the violence, finding it jarring or unnecessary. I don’t crave violence. I don’t need it to function on some basic level. I can get by without it. In terms of this story, however, I feel like it lulled you into this character in the way that he wanted to be shown, and then it yanked you out of it, reminding you of the nature that he couldn’t avoid. As (kind of blatantly) exhibited in the film, it presented itself as a fable, overtly the scorpion and the frog. Along the same lines, the violence challenged me in the way I want art to challenge me. It showed me things I wouldn’t ask to see, but within the narrative, I’m glad I did. I’m getting all preachy and sentimental-like regarding this’un, but it charmed the hell out of me. I have no more hell here.
And it did this in such an interesting way. I never felt immersed in this film. I never felt apart of them and their troubles. It always kept me at arms length and I found myself wanting to get closer. Exactly like a painting in a museum. It exists. You see it. It does something indescribable to you. You walk closer to see which particular brush strokes move you the most. But never do you see yourself in the painting. Get out of that painting; you are too big for that frame.
Wow.
So, you ask, what could possibly top that?
2. Melancholia
Kirsten Dunst plays the bride in what, at first, seems a family drama about the worst wedding in history, only to find her struck with crippling depression while a renegade planet named Melancholia runs on a collision course with Earth.
This.
So, in order to justify this penultimate movie choice, I must, as they say in the business, get personal. I have had the lucky opportunity to deal with crushing, life shattering clinical depression. I did it! At this point, it has removed itself safely from me, but all the same, its spectre haunts me like the spectre of Communism haunted Europe. The most extreme forms that writer/director Lars von Trier shows the audience, that I have known.
With that personal bullshit out of the way, I have two reasons for adoring this movie.
First, as said, it resonated so personally with me. Many live who, rightfully, cannot understand a depression such as this, from where it springs, or why it ruins so much. I hold up this movie as visual, contextual evidence for how I have felt, what it resembled, why it devastated. Von Trier almost makes the metaphor too obvious. Almost. Depression feels like the world is being demolished and everything you have ever loved will die and you can do absolutely nothing about it. True, true.
So why did this movie make me smile with a warm fuzziness throughout and after?
The second thing I loved about this movie lies in the reminder that, when you have hit that bottom, you reach a plateau (which I’m aware doesn’t fit with the bottom image, jerk), which gives you a kind of nihilistic serenity. In short, you do not give a fuck. At the utmost end, you bask in the sadness. You absorb it. You create it. And nothing will ever matter again. This film reminded me of that fatalistic peace. It comforted me in the way that weeping comforts, in the way that screaming comforts. Von Trier’s films have a way of making me feel unclean or uncomfortable. Melancholia just made me wistfully smile and sigh contentedly for old times to which I never want to return.
And just to say it, that first 10 minutes were just some of the most breathtaking images I have probably seen.
What, oh what, could be the tops of the tops.
1. The Tree of Life
Okay okay okay. Now just stop it. I know everything you are thinking, and you pull those eyes back from your brow. Enough with the judgmental nonsense about how pretentious and posturing you find my list.
Get your own list. This one’s taken.
Now. Yes, there are dinosaurs. Yes, Sean Penn just looks all sad and walks on the beach for what is probably an exorbitant amount of time. Yes, there is an awful lot of slow nature footage with someone whispering things at you. But this movie. My good dear sweet lord, this movie.
Finding emotional and physical correlation between the birth of the universe and the death of a child, wrapped around the struggle between the force of your father and the care of your mother makes for an extremely ambitious movie. And it just works.
This film made me feel a part of a universally large network in a devastatingly real way. Yet still, in highlighting my insignificance, Terrance Malik made the individual’s growth so completely beautiful as we boil and groan against that which holds us. The natural connection cannot be avoided, but is almost never personally addressed, at least by myself. The childish rage felt as natural as the swirling eddies of space dust. I do not mean it a pun when I say how organic it all felt. Inconceivably, this movie connected the near imperceptible dots until it drew a picture of everyone.
All right, maybe that sounded a bit stupid. You can make fun of that line. I temporarily lift your judgment ban.
Still, I wept. Like, wept. Like, an hour after the movie ended. Not out of sadness, but out of the sheer beauty that I received from this vision. I now reinstate the ban on judgment.
I continually think about it. And, I always hope I do.
This movie made me feel like a better person, living in a more complete world.
But it is definitely not for everyone.
Woo, you made it this far. The pride swells from my bloated heart. If only I had some way to stop the hemorrhaging.
I have other movies I liked this year, and there are several that I have yet to catch up on. If this list requires change, you will be the first to know.
ONTO THE DISAPPOINTMENT!
At heart, I remain an optimist, but goddam do I hate things. I have just listed to you beautiful pieces that shook me in ways wonderful and unexpected. Please, allow me to bitch about the things that didn’t.
Third most irritating movie that most critics loved…
Midnight in Paris
I love Woody Allen, and have many times been an apologist for some of his lesser fare (Melinda and melinda not withstanding). While at the core of it, I found Midnight in Paris slightly whimsical and charming, I found the bulk of the movie to be inane intellectual masturbation.
Have you ever read any Umberto Eco? You don’t need to answer that. There are a few of his books that just seem like dumping grounds for all of the various scholarly schlock he has collecting with which he found nothing to do. And your job, as the reader, is to smile into your beard with each reference you get, comforted in the fact that you do know some things and can meet this, admitted, genius on some level plane. Like I say, intellectual masturbation.
I saw this movie in a theater full of people who were only too happy to chuckle first when Picasso said something that was an in-joke to someone with a passing knowledge of his life. How they smile to themselves when thrown a damn bone. Not only do I have no wish to be pleased with myself when I catch a literary or artistic reference, but I also have no desire to see a movie that tries to illicit that satisfaction. Fuck me.
You can see my hate-filled review of The Blind Side here. To summarize, I loathed that white people were made to feel good for being non-racist, like they accomplished something and needed a treat for human fucking decency. Midnight in Paris, while not nearly as awful, made me feel this way.
Second most irritating movie that everyone seemed to love…
Hugo
Okay, to start, I did think Scorcese used the visuals, particularly the 3D, very effectively. It played out like a rich wonderland with all the enchantment intended. Unfortunately, I found the whole thing just wretchedly boring. Every line required some beat where the other character just took in the dialogue. Long still moments evoked nothing that required such stillness. None of the characters embodied the complexity asked by such careful camera study. And before you call me out on needing frenetic pacing and what not, see above to how much I love the careful minimalism of Drive.
On top of all of this, the plot unfolded in an incredibly clunky way. I still cannot exactly understand what everyone sees in this movie with a plot that proves so meandering and accidental. An orphan living in a train station is skilled at clockwork, then there he has an automaton, then the girl introduces him to books, then she has a key, then out of nowhere the damn thing turns out to be concerned with film. This plot tripped down more stairs then my clumsy ass ever did. Exhaustive and frustrating, then rolled in a sheet of seaweed to make tedious sushi.
I get the Georges Méliès thing. I get what Marty wanted to say. But even for a kids’ movie, this just seemed a mess to me.
And the number one most irritating movie that everyone seemed to love….
Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Man, people really loved this movie. I mean, those whose opinions and faces I hold most dear had an unabashed whirlwind tryst with this movie. So here is why their perfectly respectable views are wrong:
1.) Just who the hell am I supposed to care about here? Jimmy john Franco is completely nothing in this movie, reading lines off of an unimpressive fortune cookie. I could not begin to tell you what his lady’s name was immediately after leaving the theater, so that’s something. And Jamey john Lithgow does a fine job with not very much.
But, of course, this is a movie about the world ending at the hands of humanity’s cruelty and unfeeling havoc with which they molest creation. So, I guess the filmmakers would rather you care about the Andy Serkis puppet show of an ape. And I simply could not. I got it. And the visuals, as soon as ole Andy got his mo cap suit on, were terribly impressive. And I understood all that he expressed. I understood the ‘fish outta water’, ‘no place to call home’, ‘who am I’ motif that his watery eyes were trying to convey. Unfortunately, he tied it around a teenage tantrum brick and kept walloping me over the head with his angst. I continually have so little patience for self involved, muttery, under-developed, unearned dispair.
I hear you now, cupping your hands over your mouths shouting boo, hissing like temperamental snakes, saying some version of “But it was meant to be teenage emotions, HE was a teenage apey thing. It fit with all the rest of his problems and whatnot.”
Put your hands down. No one likes a hisser. Sure, I MAY concede that point. Which still frustrates me, because I cannot identify with such misguided, wild emotions. They seem juvenile because they are.
BUT, wasn’t he supposed to be some biologically enhanced ape of a greater intelligence than all other, rising in supremacy with his genius? If so, you would think that he would understand Johnny Franco not having any choice in his going to the sanctuary place. You would think that Caesar would see the anguish and emotiony sad sad on his face when he visited and, I don’t know, added two and two together as four.
Yikes.
So, I just couldn’t care about anyone. That doesn’t discount it immediately, kind reader. I can enjoy a movie that just lets unremarkable characters interact with a dynamic world as it affects their lives in exciting ways.
Huh.
2.) The filmmakers set this movie in a world so utterly unbelievable and goofy that I could not make myself take it seriously. From the crazily underprotected, sloppy, and overly high tech research lab, from which Johnny steals monkey, to the embarrassingly over-the-top sadistic sanctuary (thank god they used this word to cash in on the irony), it was a disaster. Ugh.
If you want any sympathy for the humans, why not make some of them sympathizable. If not, stop having sappy moments where we realize how little we care for the characters. Why can the circus orangutan speak and follow the sign language logic of a genetically modified Caesar? Where the hell did all those extra apes coming from at the end? Where were they going? Why would they decide to go to the trees?
What a mess.
Woof. Hopefully, this makes up for any nice things I said in the first half of the post. I’m so glad that we were able to get in and get out of here with all the speed of something speedy. Have a good night and just enjoy the fact I didn’t do a full top ten.
I v. Pad
I have a sudden, desperate urge to get an iPad. Now, being mindful of my money and my time, I cannot simply rush out to get one. There are considerations, hidden and apparent, that must be evaluated. I shall explore the necessity, the probability of correct usage, the expense, and decide whether I should get nay, deserve, an iPad.
Why?
To catch the curious up on my current career aspirations, I have decided on some sort of path. You’re welcome. To help me on my way, I have a need to clearly define that which makes me most productive. This is not easy. It turns out that my attention resembles an elusive doe, traipsing through brush-filled woods, never picking a clear direction to run and always stopping to stare at something shiny.
Somehow, I have completed a number of interesting, sometimes impressive, projects in my life. They have cropped up too sporadically for my taste. If I want a workflow that suits a tenth of my ambition, I have a real need to define, structure, and refine the tools, environment, and scope of my output. I have already begun pointing everything in my apartment towards the television. So that’s done.
For a long time, I have derided those things that tend to make me more productive, thinking that I can shed them or learn better ways. This is not happening. Apparently, I require pretty peculiar milieus to keep me on task. Gone are the days where I resist this. I must learn and adapt. This means some trial and error. I have forced myself to try, or try again, different places, ideas, and very expensive superfluous touch tablets.
Why a Tablet?
“Why consider a tablet at all?” you ask in that annoying tone that you use when you ask ridiculing questions. I love my apartment and my fancy computer very much. I created a space that comforts me and I have a cat that makes incredible sandwiches. Unfortunately, it gets lonely and distracting in this space. I’ve always had an affinity for working in social environments. The white noise of a crowd’s activity pushes me to create. Also, the horrifyingly crushing weight of loneliness doesn’t sit so hard upon my cantilevered soul. Win win.
Other answers to this question: A decent laptop would cost too much, I appreciate the tactile aesthetic, and back up off my shit.
Why an iPad?
Now, let’s start with the annoyingly consumer-centric question: Why an iPad over other tablets? There are three small main reasons, I believe.
First, I have an iMac at home and I love it. It has provided a flawless performance, beautiful screen, and those obnoxious Apple stickers that my pride won’t let me put on my vehicle. I would like to think that an iPad would pair flawlessly with my home station, letting me seamlessly bounce impressive projects back and forth as I ride with the jet set to exciting locales where we raise champagne glasses constantly and belly laugh over our success in life.
Second, the ecosystem far and away exceeds the offerings of any other tablet. Their benchmark for providing both a variety and quality within their application choices has proven high. Not only this, but the choices for highly regarded productivity applications entices me far more than the Android OS (which really would be the only other option).
Third, as an avid sponge for technology news and opinion, I have still not yet heard of one other tablet that journalists say works better than the iPad. It seems a forgone conclusion that it remains the best upscale needlessly expensive touchy touch device. Not only this, but a large part of the philosophy under which Apple operates has always centered on creation. Tablets, as I will soon reveal, have a dangerous potential for solely giving recreation and promoting mere consumption of content. As I have previously made clear, if I so choose to buy one, I must use it for the productive good not the distractive evil.
Don’t you have something to admit?
I fear that I have something to confess. Now, you may feel that I haven’t been entirely truthful with you. You may feel betrayed that I have led you so far down this path without bringing up this piece of information. I assure you, I simply wanted to give you untarnished objectivity in regards to this exploration.
Now.
Let the record show that I did buy an iPad almost a year ago and returned it while I still could.
Surprise.
Please, stop lighting those torches and put those pitchforks back in the barn where they belong. I am not hay. With a windfall of Christmas and tax money, I felt flush with a richness I had not before known. Under mostly the same assumptions that I make in this article, I bought the damn thing. For two weeks, I woke up increasingly uneasy with my purchase. It seemed too much. Did I really need the thing? Don’t I have better ways to spend this money. Don’t the student loan people keep calling? After a while, it broke me. I couldn’t find the right routine and adapt to the thing. Oh sure, I worked on it plenty. I wrote a lot. I made this:
But I still continually felt like the benefits did not defray the cost. As I hinted above, the thing drove me to distraction. I’m not talking about games. I don’t sit there working, then let a game distract me. I blame the goddam internet. Always there. Always interesting. Who needs it?
So, of course, we must now ask the obvious question: Why do you think you deserve one now? Admittedly, I probably don’t. I personally believe that people can change and that we can improve ourselves to a wonderful degree. However, I also believe that this process takes time. Have I really grown enough in the past year to warrant such an expensive, dangerously-close-to-needless machine? Have I really learned how to minimize the distractive impact of the internet? I mean, I write this now from home base and I can cohesively keep it together.
With caution, I will say yes to those answers. I have thought on this for the past month, and through writing this I have come to the decision that I would like to try again with the great iPad experiment. For three short reasons:
First, I have realized that the Internet may not embody the pure evil I once thought. Along with the many refinements I have touched upon in this piece, this year has seen me funnel my Internet absorption in a way that has strengthened my critical faculties and increased the bare number of ideas for projects/writings/things to buy. I no longer view it as a complete distraction, the pure intake of so many articles/pictures/thoughts/things to buy inspires me now more than ever.
On top of this, I have discovered so many new web based tools that allow an incredibly easy distillation of browsing into one’s own creative aspiration. “ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!” screams the unbearably annoying part of me that also constantly sings to my cat and looks forward to Christmas shopping in a mall. I also know that I have only scratched the surface with news ways to develop ideas and the future can only turn brighter, because nothing could possibly go wrong, right? Based on this utterly realist point of view, I no longer have the same sense of dread for the distraction an iPad might deliver.
Second, in the vein of the earlier point, in which I discussed my attempts to define that which makes me most productive, I believe that constant access to something I could use to track, develop, and clarify new ideas could only prove a good thing. How could it not? The mood strikes me at such unpredictable times; I need to play towards the mood instead of trying to artificially create it. Pretty straight forward.
Third, fuck it. Why not? I never take vacations. I barely buy things for myself. Besides books, some movies, and a few other things, my paychecks go toward trying to save as much as possible. Which I don’t as I don’t make much.
I decided that I have grown a lot this year. It was not a great year, but I cannot say it was bad either. It was a better year than last and I am better for it. So, why don’t I just do something nice for myself while I can?
That settles it. I will buy one. This has helped. Slowly, I begin my venture into my dream of a life of metropolitan proportions. Soon: the brass buttons, the turtlenecks, and more than one French cuffed shirt.
And I can wear one of these idiotic things:
If there is one thing the world needs desperately…
It is another podcast.
So, I making one!
I have made several!
I haven’t been so vocal about it, because I have been ironing out a lot of the wrinkles in the production and content. Namely, making sure it doesn’t suck the life out of your soul and waste your time.
“So, what?” You ask. “Every jockstrap with a microphone and a 56k modem can talk about nothing.”
Ah, this is true. But I, I have something different to offer for you and your cynical life. And I’m not just talking about a broadband connection.
“Oh sure, I’ve heard that before.” You mock. “If there is one thing Barak Obama taught me, it is that change is a slow, grueling process that takes many election cycles and taut, political cooperation and compromise.”
Uh, okay. I wasn’t really expecting that, but I guess you have a point.
NONE-THE-LESS
I have something different. Truth.
Now, I will be the first to say that, after four episodes, I am still unsure whether it is a “good” (in quotation marks) idea. I don’t really care. It is fun.
In this podcast, I give you a rundown about what I watched and read during the week, sharing my well reasoned, often insightful opinions about why I dislike most things.
I can hear you now:
“Yep! Meet the new boss, same as the old boss! I knew not to buy into your two toned posters of optimism. Your bumper stickers should say, ‘O…..no, not again’.”
Hm. I mean, that’s clever, but I hope you know that I am not President Obama. Your comments are just becoming more and more irrelevant.
Anyway, I wasn’t finished. Yes, anyone can do this, and yes you should be more apt to listen, because my opinions are well defended.
However, I do all this, while trail running.
“…”
Well said.
I have a headset and I just talk while I run.
It’s idiotic.
I have been introducing a number of features to make it seem like you aren’t just listening to me breath heavily. Features such as: “What Kind of Dog is That?” “This Guy…” “This Week in Girlfriend” and “What DID I Like This Week”.
Since I record off of my phone, I also have email access. So, that.
Admit it, at some point you at least smiled at the description.
The title?
Running Monologue
-Where I run so you don’t have to.
Search for it on iTunes.
http://trailrunningmonologue.blogspot.com/
runningmonolgue@gmail.com
You’re welcome.
On Sailing…
As many do and as many do not know, one of my favorite books is Moby Dick by the stellar Lincoln Tunnel tollbooth collector Herman Melville. It is a book.
I read it during a particularly calm and boring time in my life, living in New Orleans and trying everything I could to stay away from my small and Tourette-afflicted roommate. Maybe it was the sheer escapism of the time, or perhaps I did love this classic for all it was worth, but either way, it injected the romanticism of the salt water deep, deep in my drought ridden veins. It was 9 years ago, and I still long for time on the sea.
And I don’t fuck around. When I say long for, you know this body means he longs for some shit.
I believe in all that time, i have only seen the ocean once. In a little place called Galveston, Texas.
Don’t let this nonsense fool you. This was a dumpy beach of a beach. Pardon me, but if this beach were a lady, she would spend all of her time on internet dating sites. I mean no disrespect to internet dating sites or to the, I’m sure, lovely hamlet of Galveston, I can only call them as I see them.
Regardless, I still remember wanting to be swept away into the expanse.
Sea travel, as i see it, is not dominion. I do not fantasize over it in an attempt to control and hold sway.
I see it as a very taoist communion over the untamable. I see it as a staring contest with eternity.
I see it as badass.
Ever since I read Melville’s mad ravings on how to track and kill God, part of my mind has been dedicated to one day learn to sail. It is grudgingly, though appropriately described as a …. ugh… fancy. I hold no aspirations to find a career or find glory in such a quest, I merely need to do it one day.
I need to have that feeling, however it will turn out. I need to be cast away to the mercy of the unimaginable immensity of the cold, cold sea, struggling to hold on to life and identity upon a floating piece of wood.
That sounds like pure freedom.
That sounds like pure release.
I have not as yet done this thing. Sadly. I have just been looking up the price one might pay to learn how to sail in the heart of the country, and I fear I may still be a year or so away from affording it.
It should be known that I have done other things to prepare.
I have spent an embarrassing amount of time reading up on appropriate sailing knots, and have, at times, carried around twine with me to practice.
Like a fucking idiot.
Ha! But laugh not at me. For one day I SHALL find myself upon a stolid plank of detritus, casting myself into the gaping maw of infinity. Floaties on my arms and madness in my eyes, I will lift my chin and acknowledge that which is greater than me. And gain comfort knowing that I will have found the strength to acknowledge it.
Dear god, I can’t stop hearing this in my head. I have no idea why this is so funny to me. It gets even worse if you try to explain it to someone.
On Ricky Gervais…
If I could take a personal moment real quick, I would like to share with you my endearing, fanatical, and creepy appreciation of the man that is Ricky Gervais.
I mean just look at this…
DVD covers aside, it is difficult to explain the nature of my…
hmm… I may need some whiskey.
Better.
WIthout having the luxury of a doctor’s prognosis, I think it is safe to say that last year, I had some kind of break down. I will not get into specifics, but it was bad. It lasted for near 9 months, and I’m still feeling the ramifications of the crazy way in which I acted and the backwards course I set my mind to ride. It was a time when I could not be around or talk to anyone. It is a lost year of my life.
There were three constants. Okay there were more, now that I think of it, but I’m trying to be dramatic and meaningful here, and I don’t think you can do that by saying, “uh so, there were like, around 13 or 14 constants…ish.”
There were three constants.
1. Whiskey. Mother nature’s backwash.
2. Crossword puzzles. The only thing that quieted my silly head. I’m amazing at them now. In your face.
3. Ricky Gervais.
I just checked my iTunes and I have 2.96 gigs, that’s 2.7 days if you’re counting, of both The Ricky Gervais Show, which was the podcast, as well as the XFM radio london show that he hosted, along with Stephen Merchant and Karl pilkington.
Last year I listened to only those 2.96 gigs on repeat for months.
True true.
I have specific memories of where I was during each part of those mp3 files. That is not a lie. I’m not calling it a breakdown to denote that I was in a state of good mental health.
I hate to take this a step even further away from Mr. Gervais, but let’s away.
From 12 to 21 or 22, I taped every episode of the Simpsons that I could. At the height of my empire, I believe I had somewhere in the vicinity of 15 or 16 VHS tapes filled. I not only taped them, I watched them near every night as I went to bed. They were a constant companion of mine. They were something to put on in the background and continue my meteoric rise to guitar playing professional. Those tapes were something to get lost in, if my sensitive little heart was getting all crushed. In a word, I would call The Simpsons akin to a security blanket. I had a fine childhood. My dad’s name is Guy.
But anyone who knows me will certainly agree that I have had my ups and downs. And although I rarely needed that security blanket of the Simpsons. I was so glad it existed just to sing a lullaby of hilarity to my hyper, hyper mind.
Look, I’m classically uninterested in any sort of physical comfort. I still sleep on a couch regularly. I love dressing up and I will wear that goddam tie all night. You should see this joke of a computer chair. And don’t forget the holes in the soles of my boots that I only recently stopped wearing every day….
All my socks were getting holes in them.
And so one of the things I treasure as a luxury is mental comfort. A fluffy chinchilla down micro fiber high thread count memory foam slanket that I wrap my insane little mind up as if it were a straight jacket.
That rhymed.
And last year I needed a security blanket so bad. So bad. I needed something that would turn everything that filled my head into white noise. It was like asking for something to ignore a nearby space launch. “Would you like a magazine to read during your nonanesthetic surgery…”
Enter RIcky Gervais.
Of course, he is responsible for this.
As much as I hate most television shows the world spits out, to be explored in an upcoming post, that is how much I love The Office. It is so close to perfection.
It was my adoration of this show that took me to listening to his podcasts and then finding the old radio shows and blah blah blah.
So, lets briefly discuss why I love this man. Straightly.
I don’t feel at all presumptuous at saying that I genuinely have an understanding of what kind of person he is. Jesus, you listen to months of those radio shows that span years of his life and you see a remarkable range of emotions, and the pieces aren’t that hard to put together. I’m not an idiot, however, and i will in no way claim to know the man.
Regardless, the person that comes forth in all his public media is one of almost pure childlike wonder and impulse. Impatient, impetuous, attention grabbing, and annoyed and he knows it. He delights in it. But in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone, except maybe Karl’s head. He is blunt, unapologetic, and from what I can tell, devoid of malice. Man, I sound crazy right here, boy. But I mean it.
If there is one thing that made me smile in all those months last year, it was his explosive, uncontained laughter.
Like that in my ipod headphones.
Call me ridiculous, but I just love someone have a good loud time. I’ve never been one to wish doom on those celebratory few when i am having a bad day. And I’ve also never been one to listen to sad music when I am feeling down. So, the best possible thing that I could listen to for those utterly unmentionable months was someone constantly and joyfully laughing in my head. I can’t say that it made me any better, but it is so hard to think of what i would’ve done without it.
Honestly.
I truly believe that he is a good person and it is slightly heartbreaking to know that I will never get to be best friends with him. And I’m probably completely wrong about my estimation of him. For better or for worse, he will always have a soft spot in my heart.
And that is the end of my really misguided, almost incomprehensible, attempt at explaining how a celebrity helped me through a bad time in my life. Goddam, that was stupid. I feel so 14 years old and BORED. If there was an emoticon for a disappointed frown, I would still not use an emoticon.
Ah well. I heart you Ricky Gervais. And thank you for being in the public eye enough for me to delusionally construct a viable, caring persona for you. Thanks for being a twenty something’s stuffed animal.
p.s. An unintended consequence of my months of solitude in a vacuum of Britishisms is that I developed, and to some degree still have, a slightly English affectedness to my speech. I definitely heard English people talk to me more than I spoke to others, so it was certainly some really lame form of immersive conditioning. It was honestly embarrassing. Thank god I have stopped unwittingly saying “oi”. Ugh. What a dumbass.
p.p.s. I swear next post I will start hating on things again. This positive shit just makes me hate myself.
p.p.p.s. Not really. I’m incredible.
