"You lost today, kid. ...but that doesn't mean you have to like it." - Fedora Guy
I didn't have the best relationship with my father as a kid. I still don't.
Apparently neither did Henry Jones Jr., better known as Indiana Jones. In the third installment of the franchise, Indy (Harrison Ford) returns to search for his father, (Sean Connery) who has been abducted by the Nazi party in order to find the Holy Grail. While on the surface, this film is about both Jones finding the artifact- in reality it's about Indiana discovering himself and developing a rapport with his dad.
I met Brian in the lunch line.
It was 1999. He asked me if I wanted my pudding. I'm a bit particular about my food flavors, and tapioca isn't on the 'yes' list.
Fast friends, as often troubled folk are attracted to one another. Brian was the namesake of an elder brother that was killed 17 years prior, Somehow he never stepped out of the shadow of his ghost brother he never met.
He was the first person to say "I don't give a fuck" in front of me; and still to this day is the only person I believed.
I hadn't thought of Brian for years. Until I saw John Wick. Keanu Reeves returned to the action genre as Wick, aka The Boogeyman, a legendary mob assassin. John retired from his violent life, and settled with a woman who soon after died from an unrevealed illness. John falls into a great depression, and it isn't until he receives a gift, a puppy, from his lover posthumously that life starts to look up. As fate would have it though, the dog is senseless ly murdered by some foolish thieves with ties to his old life.
I started thinking about Brian because he would often talk about his life, and how he didn't want to be here anymore. By here, he meant Earth. I thought about ambition, and happiness, and that spark we all have that gives us purpose, gives us that hunger for more.
Brian's purpose was basketball. He loved that game. Obviously more than he loved himself, because after a car accident took the athleticism out of his leg, he killed himself.
As I was watching John Wick, and its intentional blue hues, and violently delicious choreography, I thought about what happens when that spark we all have is snatched away by circumstances beyond your control. I remember the girls I hung with adored Brian when he was the school star. I wasn't exactly a friend of Brian, but I remember talking to him in that cafeteria about how disgusting tapioca is, and days later, he wouldn't be here anymore.
I wonder... What my spark is.
"And from that day forward, Frog-Child and Snake-Child never played together again. By they often sat alone in the sun, thinking about their one day of friendship. "
-African Folk Tale, The Children's Book of Virtue Movie: John Wick (2014) Director: Chad Stahelski Genre: Action, Shoot 'Em Up Starring: Keanu Reeves, Willem Dafoe, Alfie Allen Netflix: Not Yet
It's been an entire year since the last time I spoke to The Constant.
(Though it must be said, if I removed her from my life, then she really wouldn't be The Constant, would she?)
Last week I was thinking about how far I've come... romantically. 10 years ago, when I was dealing with The Constant, I couldn't bring myself to tell a girl that I loved her, or even give a decent hug. I was a deviant, the pilot of a reckless life. Now, I'm climbing out of a year long relationship with a woman that I considered giving my last name.
I can't help but think... a lot of that evolution started when I became comfortable with who I am. I am the King of Urban Legend. If any woman is ever going to love me, and be with me she's going to have to deal with everything that I've done in the past, because those experiences led me to who I am today.
Which gets me thinking about my favorite movie, because it captured that very life lesson.
In 1997, Chasing Amyhit the world and the brain of young Tescadero, and I instantly fell for it's crude, yet charming way of telling a tale of friendship, society, and the 'expected behaviors' of people dabbling in sex, and romance.
In short, the film is about comic book artists/writers particularly a pair of friends, Holden (Ben Affleck) and Banky. (Jason Lee) It's at a comic convention that Holden meets Alyssa Jones, (Joey Lauren Adams) another comic writer. During a dart game at a nearby bar, Holden and Alyssa discover they are of like minds, and it's obvious Holden has a huge crush on Alyssa, which he feels is mutual, until he learns haphazardly that Alyssa is a lesbian. Holden tries to stow his feelings, but Alyssa caves and reciprocates. This pisses off Banky, and all is well until Holden hears a nasty rumor about Alyssa, that may or may not be true. Emotional anarchy ensues that strengthens, yet at the same time poetically threatens the common ideas of love, friendship, and happiness.
Since the first time I saw this film, it spoke to me.
I related to the wild Alyssa Jones. I understood her plight, the desire to be who you are, without judgement from people who think their life plans, or what they feel is 'normal', should be applied to you. I remember a time in my life when I answered every single stress, or bad feeling in pools of whisky and the embraces of random women of all genres. Maybe I knew their names, maybe I didn't. I remember She asked me, how many women I had been with, and because I thought I loved her (maybe I did) I told her, because I wanted her to know me. I remember hearing the disgust in her voice when I couldn't come up with an answer.
And... for the longest time after that moment, I thought I was the freak. The disgrace. I allowed someone else to make me feel ashamed of myself. I allowed someone else to make me want to 'better' myself.' Because that's what you do when you are emotionally invested in someone else. You tend to put their desires above your own. Even if those desires aim to jeopardize the very actions that make you who YOU are.
I was Alyssa Jones.
I'm emotionally handicapped to this day, but now I'm wiser and refuse to allow someone else to dictate my ideas on love, or relationships because they feel that I'm flawed, or not normal.
I changed myself to please somebody who A) didn't appreciate my efforts, and B) isn't interesting to me anymore. I allowed someone else's insecurities to consume me and regret the things I had done to discover myself. Silly me, silly me.
I'm at that age where all my friends are getting married, or having kids... And I'm crushing on people is like to think only as friends and is just a clusterfuck of everything.
But that's the funny thing about love, everybody has their ideas of how it works- and we're all wrong. It's not who you love. There's no good guy, or bad woman. It's how you love. Sadly, some will never understand that. Since giving up on The Constant, I've been involved with The Variable and The Substitute, and many others in pursuit of The Candidate. I've allowed many people to love me, and I've displayed some feelings as well. Each experience has brought something different out of me, and I'm pretty sure I've done the same for them...
but ...well. You know.
Hell, maybe you aren't in my shoes, or Alyssa's maybe you're on the other side of the equation. The point is, STOP letting dumb shit prevent you from being happy. And maybe step out on that limb and tell that friend, or that girl that works at the coffee house that you like her. You never know. I'm just rambling at this point.
Aight, peace
Movie: Chasing Amy (1997) Director: Kevin Smith Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance Starring: Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Lee Netflix Streaming: Yes
I went to go see the highly anticipated, 'The Dark Knight Rises' Saturday. I was eager to go because I was curious how the series would end, and a couple friends who went to the midnight screening praised the film greatly. I left the theater afterwards disappointed at their opinion. What follows is my review of the film.
Warning: There are some slight spoilers. For the sake of length, BB= Batman Begins, TDK= The Dark Knight and TDKR= The Dark Knight Rises.
Nolan's version of the Batman tale was a gritty, dark, and satisfyingly adult vision. TDKR opens with Harvey 'Two Face' Dent falsely martyred at the hands of the mysterious vigilante, Batman. Gotham City is surprisingly crime free thanks to a new law placed in remembrance of Dent. Batman and Bruce Wayne have disappeared, with Bruce sporting a cane and an awesome limp... that they never explain. Nevertheless a storm looms on the close horizon, a storm called Bane, who aims to destroy Gotham City completely.
Add into the mix the sexy, yet dangerous, scene stealing Catwoman who only seems to care about her own self satisfying agenda.
But let's get to my opinion.
It's unfortunate that this movie came out after TDK. TDK was amazing, epic in many ways, my only real beefs with it being that at times there was too many branches of story going on in a really long movie. Secondly, my concrete belief that Heath Ledger got the girls interested in the film. His death got everyone else to go see it. Unfortunately. Because I for one, along with everyone else didn't know that man was that talented until then.
TDKR gets so wrapped up in attempting to be bigger, and better, and larger than TDK that it completely misses the very thing that should be the essential cog in a super hero movie. An actual adventure. I swear, in all of the 240 minutes or so of TDKR, if I paid money to see Batman, well I expect to see Batman y'know...be Batman. Instead I got maybe for maybe 32 minutes of Batman. The rest was Officer Blake (Josh Gordon Levitt), some orphans, a prison that's pretty damned silly, (complete with this nonsense: "Your vertebrae is sticking out" *He pushes it back in*) and some corporate takeover that kinda felt like a take on the Occupy movement. In fact, now that I think about it, I think Officer Blake had more screen time than Batman did. No, I'm sure of it. Speaking of Officer Blake, the Robin joke was cute- but what's the point in leaving him the bat mantle if you won't train him, Bruce? Hell, in BB it took you SEVEN YEARS in a super secret cult to learn how to be Batman. What's Blake gonna do?
In my opinion, there is very little excitement in TDKR. I literally got more amped up from the crowd OUTSIDE the theater. At no point in this film was I held in suspense, did I tense up and grab my armrest. For real, there will be no sell outs of Bane costumes this Halloween. There will be no 'Why So Serious?' scrawled on school lockers or train doors. In fact, I can't for the life of me remember any cool one liners from the film other than when a businessman condescendingly stated that he was in control of Bane, and Bane gently placed his massive hand on the businessman's shoulder and as he towered over him, replies: "Do you feel like you're in control?"
The action felt a little blah, and I'm trying not to compare it to anything else, but dude... in the previous movie I saw the caped crusader fucking jack knife an 18 wheeler, after a gripping and pulse racing car chase through Gotham City. (How awesome was that Batpod ejecting from the Bat Tumbler sequence??) Sorry. I started to digress there. As I was saying, TDKR doesn't have any impressive action. I get the whole pugilistic aim in the fight between Bane and Batman, but seriously, I can't honestly say I was all that moved by the fight. I speak of the first one, because the rematch was just...silly to me. To non-comic fans it fails to explain just how Bane was able to bare hand punch through solid rock columns, but whatever. Speaking of that final action scene, all of Gotham's cops fight all of Gotham's criminals in a street war. Both sides are heavily armed, yet it turns out being a huge melee. WTF.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the movie sucked, nor am I saying I didn't enjoy it. I guess I just felt like this film had so much potential, and in my opinion it failed to meet it. Sure, within all the nonsensical plots there is a genuine story going on about redemption and sacrifice.... the kind of twisted character development that made Nolan look like a cot damned genius in Memento and Inception. I just feel that instead of trying to be bigger than TDK, and be the most epic of the trilogy, it came off as just plain excessive. I'm STILL trying to see the point in the damn Batplane other than using it as a plot device in disposing of Bane/Talia's bomb.
Oh yeah. Talia Al Ghul is in the film. ...she's revealed as a "plot twist" Bats incorrectly deduces that Bane is Ra's child. *sigh* So basically, if you've ever read a comic book with Ra's Al Ghul in it, or at the least, played the highly popular video game Arkham City you would've seen that coming 2 hours prior.
Consider this: In BB we subconsciously accept that there's villains and heroes, Ra's Al Ghul is one of those villains, and he wants to blow up JUST Gotham City even though he's got a hard on for the downfall of ALL corrupt society.
In TDK the villain is bat shit crazy (pun intended) and he makes some scary ass points- points that he not only proves, but he also convinces the only beacon of hope in this hellhole of a city to become a murderous psychopath. TDKR just seems like whatever. Instead a likely progression or a new method of threat, Bane and his silly cockney accent just wants to finish what Ra's started. (no originality there, Bane) Then he frees all the prisoners and locks up the cops because the criminals are the only ones that understand how the world reallyworks. (Well, wait. Didn't the Joker show us that last time?)
Catwoman's tale is actually in my opinion the only part of the story that makes sense. Well, and Alfred who I found myself feeling SO sorry for.
Also, I felt like instead of forcing us to miss Harvey dent so much- how about remind us why Batman's leg is jacked up in the first place. (It happened in the fall saving Gordon's kid at the end of TDK)
Anyway, I'd like to take a moment to just repeat, I feel like this movie (if we could go back in time) should have been the second one. The existence of this film totally negates the SUPER EPIC ending from TDK. An ending that SHOULD be the end of a trilogy.
That whole speech Gordon gives his son/eulogy at Dent's funeral as Batman limps to his bike and then rides off into the light like a fucking cowboy riding into the fucking sunset. As that score plays in the background. WOW.
But anyway, It didn't suck, but it wasn't as epic as people are pretending it is.
It was NOT the best Batman film. In fact, it is probably the weaker of the three. (Nolan's trilogy)
It WAS NOT better than Marvel's The Avengers. If you seriously believe that, then I have to assume you also do massive amounts of peyote.
In fact, it seems to me the less of an actual comic fan you are, the more you will enjoy this film.
But what do I know. I'm just a fanboy.
It was good. Not worth $16.00 to go see it in IMAX. See it in a normal theater. Definitely NOT the greatest superhero film of the year.
Hell, I walked out of The Amazing Spider-Man more satisfied... but I know my readers.
They will say I'm biased. Whatever.
P.S. Fanboy sheep fans of Nolan...don't start no shit there won't be no shit.
P.P.S. Can I also mention the rock climbing scenes that made NO FUCKING sense? Bruce Wayne is climbing a wall, with a rope tied around his waist... (which is odd seeing how his back was supposedly JUST broken, but whatevs...) and there's a guy holding the rope at the bottom like an anchor, and he falls repeatedly with said rope tightening around the SAME DAMN WAIST AREA THAT WAS SUPPOSEDLY JUST BROKEN every time he falls, which he does a LOT. Problem.
Why is the guy holding the rope at the bottom? If he falls, and Bruce dangles in mid-air because the guy is still holding the rope- that means the rope HAS to be tied at a point higher than where he fell from. THAT'S BASIC FUCKING PHYSICS.
So... why doesn't the guy just give him some slack when he sees he's falling so the fall won't hurt as much? Or better yet...
WHY NOT RAISE HIM HIGHER OUT OF THE FUCKING HOLE?
I'm done.
"My dreams were all my own, I accounted to them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed- my dearest pleasure when free." -Mary Shelley; 'Frankenstein' or 'The Modern Prometheus'
