The Future is Now: The Good, The Bad, and The Irreversible

If ever there was a movie for which the phrase "Your reputation precedes you" has applied, Irreversible is it. Written and directed by Gaspar Noé and released back in the halcyon days of 2002 in complete defiance of all that was ever considered good and holy, Irreversible quickly established itself in the cinematic cannon among cinephiles of all varieties, amateur and professional alike, as a rite of passage. Especially in the circles in which I travelled, it was considered required viewing, on par with other emerging and cult classics like Memento and Donnie Darko, part of a dark ritual of initiation. For whatever reason, it was a rite that I had never performed until fifteen years after the fact, even delaying nearly a year after picking up a used copy of the DVD (in pristine condition) at a local shop that deals in such wares.

Well, it wasn't for whatever reason. Irreversible is known for two things even by people who have never seen it: the reverse chronological structure of the narrative and that scene. You know, the scene where Monica Bellucci is brutally raped. Yeah, that scene.

I'm usually not squeamish when it comes to all varieties of fucked up shit portrayed in cinema. But something about Irreversible curled itself around my brain and wouldn't let go. As is usually the case with these things, my mind took those small kernels, planted them in the fertile earth of my imagination, watered them with ambiguity, and watched the Legend grow.

Star Wars Episode II: Send in the Clones, Don't Bother, They're Here

This film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit this screen.

Those fateful words will basically serve as the epitaph of an entire age of cinema. To most modern movie goers, those are words of a bygone era, but to cinephiles of certain age, they were a constant reminder of the subpar state of our home video versions of films. In those dark times, before the advent of the widescreen TV, audiences were forced to suffer through releases of films where it was possible that upwards of fifty percent of the image was chopped off just to account for the vast difference in aspect ratios between the original film stock and our televisions. In our darkest hour, "widescreen" versions of movies were paraded as some kind of special edition. Basically, it was a fucking travesty.

It always seemed appropriate to me, then, that out of my entire Star Wars movie collection, the only DVD that still bore those terrible words--Full Screen Edition--emblazoned across the top, those same, terrible words that were no doubt inscribed on the very gates of hell themselves, was my copy of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, my least favourite of the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

I have a distinct memory of sitting on my roommmate's bed watching a trailer for Star Wars Episode II on his Mac and wondering aloud about the effectiveness of the subtitle Attack of the Clones. I don't remember exactly what it was that I said, but I do remember that it wasn't positive. I wasn't so much unimpressed as I was bewildered. For whatever reason, it didn't seem Star Wars-ian enough to me. It didn't seem to fit with my idea of Star Wars, which was, of course, the obviously correct one, and George Lucas and everyone else be damned.