May the 4th Be With Us All

Suck my balls Episode II can.

May 4, 2014, marked the annual unofficial celebration of an indelible part of pop culture history that has - for better or worse - contributed to the psychological development of countless grown men and women including, perhaps most notably, the proliferation of the "slave girl" sexual fantasy. May 4th has proliferated as an international day to recognize anything and everything related to the STAR WARS property (as if it needed any more recognition) due in large part to the date's name being easy fodder for geeky punsters ("May the Force/4th be with you.") who don't mind taking the chance of sounding like an offensive homosexual stereotype and the ability of the Internet to propagate information faster than people can effectively evaluate its relative worth.

In honour of the occasion, I decided to watch the originator and slapped STAR WARS (no fucking Episode IV bullshit) into my Blu-Ray player.  As I watched what had undoubtedly been a formative text in my own personal psychological library and recited entire scenes word for word (much to the chagrin of my wife), it dawned on me what imperfect movies STAR WARS and all of its sequels and (even more so) its prequels actually were.  In fact, even as a huge fan of the series, there is still a lot of stuff, even in the original trilogy that I had grown up loving, that is either really laughably bad or patently ridiculous or some combination thereof.  

Despite the fact that STAR WARS was (aside from the special effects) quantifiably a B movie, it was - and still is - pretty fucking awesome.  It wasn't because of the originality of the plot, which is filled to the brim with cliches, convenient coincidences, and (perhaps unsurprisingly frequent) lapses in logic.  Let's face it, STAR WARS is not exactly the epitome of storytelling genius.  It wasn't because of the acting, because even Sir Alec Guinness and Harrison Ford, the arguable acting heavyweights of the film, could only elevate the dialogue only so far.  As a moral tale, it didn't really say anything that hadn't been said before or present the nuances of morality.  In fact, it does the exact opposite, simplifying morality down to a really basic good versus evil dichotomy exemplified, of course, by the Light Side/Dark Side of the Force.

Turtle Power and Life on the Edge

Living down here is great except for
those C.H.U.D assholes.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon show was pretty much required viewing for any child born in the 1980s.  By the time I was in grade 4, Ninja Turtles merchandise had become more ubiquitous than the ill-fated and short-lived Pog phenomenon that would threaten to overwhelm parents' wallets in a deluge of cheap cardboard and surprisingly painful plastic and metal projectiles ever would.  During the height of Turtle-Mania, you couldn't walk into someone's house, a school, a store, a bar, a prison, a brothel, a 1960's style barber shop where the barber shaves you with a straight razor and the endings are always happy, a Somali pirate ship, an opium den, the MIR space station, OJ's white Ford Bronco, or a brothel without being inundated with or tripping over some product proudly bearing the resemblance of or branded with the characters or symbols from the Ninja Turtle Universe.  It wouldn't surprise me if the Ninja Turtle phenomenon later inspired an entire sector of the porn industry, though the possibilities of what the final products of such nostalgic fascination might resemble fill me with a certain kind of Terror that prohibits me from actually soliciting Google for such potentially mind-warping fare.

The TMNT animated show seemed by far to garner the largest following and, I think, did the most to ensure that the brand was enshrined in the hearts of the youth.  However, the Ninja Turtles cartoon show was a candy-coated version of the live action movie and the ultimate source material in the comics that was decidedly aimed at a much more mature audience with sufficient intestinal fortitude and adequate steel content in their genitals.  The Turtles of the comics (at least the early ones) were serious assassins-in-training, and, unlike their counterparts in the neon-bright, bubble-gum flavoured cartoon show, actually put their weapons to good use, helping their enemies shuffle off their mortal coils in a fashion that would make Paul Verhoeven proud.

Problem Solved: STFU Environment

Well, we can all sleep a little sounder at night now that one of the major problems plaguing our species has been thoroughly dealt with.  That's right, world governments, leaders of industry, NASA scientists, Tibetan monks, and one super-intelligent chimp have come together in order to solve the environmental crisis known as Global Warming.  And in a surprising twist, they have actually solved it.  You heard it here first: we have officially Saved the Environment.  "But how?" you might ask.  Was it monumental social and legal reform on a massive scale?  Was some new form of free, clean, and infinite power discovered?  Did world governments cast aside the petty bickering, political maneuvering, and senseless exploitation and the slaughter of innocent civilians for their own twisted purposes in order to work together for the common Good of all Humankind?  Did Logic and Reason finally win out and keep us from destroying the only planet that we know of within reasonable travelling distance that can actually sustain human life?  Well, it was actually a lot simpler than we had originally thought.

Behold, the instrument of your salvation:

Why?  Why was I programmed to feel pain?

That's right, the environment has now been solved.  And it's all thanks to these new "eco friendly" DVD and Blu-Ray cases that have been so graciously bestowed upon us.  Well, to tell you the truth, I sleep a lot better at night now knowing that my children and their children after them will have one less thing to worry about.  If only we could travel back in time and tell our grandparents about this marvel of engineering, the height of Human Technological Innovation, that would bring about their environmental salvation, we could have saved decades of debate, uncertainty, and stress.  What fools we've all been!  The answer was so obvious, we must have just been too smart to see it.

So what the fuck is all this about?  What the fuck is wrong with this picture (both literally and metaphorically)?  How could any free-thinking, socially-conscious citizen be opposed to any effort, no matter how small, insignificant, and stupid, to work towards a viable solution to global warming?  Well, besides the fact that the solution people have come up with is a total crock, there's plenty to be bothered about by this sort of shit.

Summer Anthems and the Outskirts of Humanity... Many Things To Many People

It's not always a given, but typically each year around the time the world emerges from the winter thaw and slowly coaxes Her children back to life, I tend to get obsessed with a single song that essentially becomes my Summer Anthem. This tradition is not enshrined in stone tablets for the Masses or anything so rigidly formal, though it does in some ways inform the themes and narrative structure of that particular season of my life. I'm not sure why the annual Great Thaw inspires me to be more receptive to musical stimuli. Perhaps it is symbolic of the endless cycles of Life and Death that permeate the natural world and my constant destruction and rebirth like some kind of Dark Phoenix, but as I get older I am becoming increasingly bound by a grim inverse relationship where as age increases enjoyment of winter decreases.

The problem is that this relationship is increasing exponentially, and though the winter in my particular geographic region was particularly long, I find that my yearly cycle of depression and withdrawal in the winter months is worsening, and my psychological barriers that protect my mind from the ravages of ice, snow, wind, and various other forms of arctic sorcery seem to be weakening at an alarming rate. This year, I was getting close to Giving Up, whatever that meant. But I knew that this year I was dangerously close to that vague boundary, and I was overcome with the vague sensation of slowly being dragged to the depths of some watery abyss like my innards after consuming any quantity of Chinese food.

Fall of the Mighty... A Long Way to the Bottom with Iron Man. Third Time's a What Now?

What did you say about my mother?

There was a viral video phenomenon back in 2007 - 2008 known as Two Girls One Cup.  From what I've been told, it depicted two girls each repeatedly taking turns consuming the other's shit and vomit, which, depending on your particular proclivities, was either a window into the depths of human sexual depravity or "just another Saturday night."  I, myself, never bore witness to this cultural phenomenon.  When it was described to me by others with the inevitable epilogue, "Dude, you've got to watch it for yourself," I never felt the urge to follow up on that imperative. Based on the descriptions I heard and my conscious evaluation of what might fall into my normative range of pleasurable stimuli, I decided that I wanted absolutely no part of that.  I've seen a lot of crazy shit in a variety of media, but the Two Girls One Cup video definitely seemed to fall outside the boundaries of anything I wanted to willingly subject myself to.  It was a mature decision that I was proud of, and one of the few that I look back on with absolutely no regret.

Until now.

A little while ago, I was subjected to IRON MAN 3, the cap on Marvel's Iron Man movie trilogy and its cinematic follow-up to THE AVENGERS.  There was a lot of hype built up surrounding the film, with IRON MAN 3 shattering box office records and many fans of the genre favorably comparing the movie to Joss Whedon's massively successful AVENGERS ensemble.  I wasn't holding out much hope of greatness considering Marvel's typical appeals to mediocrity, but considering the positive energy from fans surrounding the film, I thought that perhaps we'd get a decent action film that, if not on par with the first IRON MAN, would at least provide the same level of mindless entertainment as THE AVENGERS.

The Quest for The Rock and Youth Lost in the 90s

The heart of INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE is, of course, the father/son dynamic between Indiana and his dad. It's significant to note, however, that the movie title employs a certain ambiguity and specifically leaves out mention of the object that serves as the catalyst of the crusade. By evoking the word "crusade," which itself is rife with numerous socio-political and historical implications, and then introducing an artifact central to the Judeo-Christian mythology, the filmmakers effectively misdirect the audience. The "misdirect" here, however, is more in line with its use in relation to a magic trick rather than, oh, I don't know, distracting someone so you can slip something into his drink and unwittingly make him the host of an alien life form of unknown make or model.

By the end of the movie, though, it becomes clear that the grail was a metaphor for what both Indiana and his father were really searching for, which was an emotional connection (People... People who need people...).  THE LAST CRUSADE is actually thematically similar to FIELD OF DREAMS, insofar as the main characters were on a quest for something they thought held some form of Ultimate Meaning, but really they were looking for reconciliation with dear old dad.  For me, one of the final scenes of THE LAST CRUSADE, when Henry Jones Sr. gently urges his son to "let it go" is almost as emotionally poignant as when Ray asks his dad to play catch at the end of FIELD OF DREAMS.  There's a certain catharsis in those moments.  Nothing's really solved per se, but in that moment there's a connection, and all of the shit kind of melts away and there's something Real and raw and significant.

Spring Break 4 Eva... Cultural Dysphoria Armed to the Teeth. And Bikinis to Boot.

"Just pretend it's a video game. Like you're in a fucking movie."

This is the immortal advice given by one of the young protagonists of SPRING BREAKERS to her three partners in (future) crime as they make their way towards their first armed robbery. This is not the rousing call to arms that one might expect from warriors on their way to find glory on the field of battle, unless, of course, those warriors were four, young college-aged women in the early twenty-first century on their way to commit a felony, and the field of battle was a crowded restaurant filled with unsuspecting part-time employees, slack-jawed customers, and enough MSG to satisfy a village in China for a month.

The Death of Dusty from Twister and Other Sad Tales

TWISTER is a seminal addition to the cinematic landscape of the 1990s.  Not because it was a particularly great flick.  It was pretty standard, contrived summer blockbuster fare, with precisely timed action beats to which the narrative was completely enslaved, a treasure trove of stock characters, a semi-ludicrous premise, and the typical will-they-or-will-they troubled romantic relationship that gets the focus at the most inappropriate times (like in the middle of a goddamned tornado) and that everybody in the audience knows will be resolved by the end of the (ahem) story.  It was also the movie that introduced a great many in its audience - myself included - to Philip Seymour Hoffman, though I wouldn't become aware of it until much later.  And oddly enough, it was the first role of his that I thought of when I heard of his death on February 2, 2014.

In TWISTER, Hoffman played a character named Dusty: a lovably loud and outgoing pseudo-stoner archetype with a beat up baseball cap and clothes that had rarely seen the inside of a washing machine who was almost innocently devoted to his friends and would vehemently denounce those he perceived to have compromised their integrity.  The character was essentially an exposition machine, educating the audience on such scientific concepts such as the "suck zone" and the past nude exploits of Bill Paxton.  Dusty wasn't a starring role, but it was a memorable one.  And the main reason it was memorable was because of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Looking at Hoffman's later filmography, it's hard to believe that the same dude who played Dusty in TWISTER went on to star in movies like CAPOTE, SYNECDOCHE NEW YORK, and THE MASTER and provide memorable turns in countless others like THE BIG LEBOWSKI, ALMOST FAMOUS, and MONEYBALL.  He played Ben Stiller's friend in ALONG CAME POLLY, the bad guy in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, and even showed up in the HUNGER GAMES movies as a character whose name I never bothered to remember.

The thing is, though, that whether he was playing Dusty the gravy-obsessed stoner or a cultural icon like Truman Capote, the dude was fucking present in a way that most of us never are.  It seemed that, at least in a professional capacity, he could never not go all in.  He seemed able to invest in what he was doing, or, perhaps more accurately, unable not to invest.  A lot of Hoffman's smaller roles might just have easily have been phoned in (to use the parlance of our times) and not really affected the quality of the final product in any meaningful way, but even when he wasn't in the spotlight, he fucking gave it everything he had.

There was a certain refreshing quality in the way Hoffman seemed to approach his life's work, and it wasn't in some self-sacrificing way, though passion and dedication in any context has a way of inspiring others and encouraging them to better themselves.  No, in Hoffman's case it seemed to be something far more personal.  He was refreshing because he seemed not to really give a shit about what anybody else thought.  He was never in the running to win any awards or accolades by playing Dusty (or any other character for that matter) in TWISTER.  Hell, he probably wasn't even making that much, at least not in comparison to bigger names at the time.  But he owned that shit like nobody else could (or even would).

Forty-six years on this spinning, blue orb seems like far too short a time for anybody let alone somebody like Philip Seymour Hoffman, who embodied the adaptability and commitment that seem to elude so many of us so much of the time.  For me, there are few greater things that can be said of a man than he gave it everything he had, even when it seemed unnecessary.  Because the thing is, at the end of the day, when you're lying in bed alone with your own thoughts on the precipice of twilight, sometimes the only redemption comes from the knowledge that despite all of the shit and all of the things that were beyond your control, you still made the choice to give 100 percent.  Not for any external recognition, but because it was the only thing you can accomplish with any degree of certainty on any given day.  And that's why, in moments of silent contemplation at the end of the day, my thoughts will now sometimes turn towards the man who played Dusty in TWISTER.  See you on down the trail.        

Superman Unbound: A Tale of Two Fathers (And a Bonus Messiah Complex)

Suck it, Brandon Routh

There are some things that work great on paper but seem to have some internal mechanism that prevents them from bridging the gap with implementation.  For most of us, this might manifest as everyday, mundane activities like orchestrating a simple kidnapping or arson, or a three-way with your girlfriend's hot cousin, or the impregnation of your impotent friend's wife at the couple's behest.  Then, of course, there's Superman.

I have a Superman shirt.  And it is fucking awesome.  And when I wear it, my awesome quotient invariably increases.  I always loved the idea of Superman, but I hated the character of Superman.  As a cultural icon, Superman is pretty powerful (even more so than a locomotive or a massive load shot out at Mach 3 from Ron Jeremy's massive cock).  He represents strength: not only physical, but also moral.  Invoking the tropes specific to the mythology of Superman is to draw inspiration to be our best selves.  We can look towards him as an archetype of incredible physical feats and endurance or the epitome of "good guy" morality in situations that have (comparatively) more clear ethical boundaries and we might be tempted to falter.  Superman as a symbol works great.  He's an ideal; something to strive towards but never to be attained.  Superman tracks down the owner of the lost wallet full of cash and returns it personally.  Wolverine drops the wallet off at the cop shop with all of the ID and credit cards in tact but keeps the cash as a finder's fee.  Lobo keeps the wallet, then tracks down its owner and beats the shit out of him for being a dumbass. 

A Wolf in the Hand is Worth Two in the Street

What's in your wallet?

On a large enough scale, the profane and the sublime eventually intersect and become indistinguishable. It's one of the countless indefinable, constantly shifting, and oftentimes unrecognizable lines from which the tangled web of both our cultures and our psyches are woven. Human perception is sort of a paradoxical endeavor in that it is dependent upon creating boundaries and making distinctions that are always arbitrary and subject to constant change. It's kind of weird to think about, but our understanding of the world and ourselves and every achievement and failure, every triumph and tragedy, every altruistic deed and act of pure debauchery, is dependent upon absolutely necessary yet completely meaningless distinctions.

Which is not to say that I embrace nihilism or believe that everything is meaningless. Well, actually, everything is meaningless. People, places, events, natural phenomenon, etc., are only meaningful insofar as they are attributed meaning by us. Humans are the meaning-making animal. We are a species of Prometheuses, bestowing that mystical fire of relative significance upon all that we see, and our gaze stretches far indeed.

Now I wish to follow the gaze of Martin Scorsese and his latest film The Wolf of Wall Street. This is, by far, his most postmodern work as it serves as a deconstruction of the subjectivity of morality. While there are hints throughout, the real key to the cipher was the final shot of the final scene. The movie focuses on the exploits of the real-life Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a Wall Street savant who made millions swindling people, often blue collar workers spending their life savings on the desperate hope that was peddled to them on the edge of a diabolically mesmerizing sales pitch. However, the final scene is a reversal as the camera turns its focus on the audience of a get-rich-quick seminar run by the only slightly hard-done-by Belfort. And as we look at their blank, eager faces, we see a twisted reflection of ourselves. At the same time we despise men like Belfort, we are also fascinated by them.