Guess What?

I've actually decided to put forth some effort into my postery here. w00t.

In case you didn't notice, I have been slacking off lately, be it pulling things out of my ass at the last possible moment, resurrecting older ideas, or just flat out saying I'm done. What I think my recent lack of displaying skills has been due to, is actually a couple of factors. For instance, I haven't had the privilege of this myth called "free time" and have been all over creation for of practically last month and a half, if that. And then there's the prospect of losing my blogging buddy, and the often mentioned lack of generally interesting ideas. Not that I was any better at writing when I did have the time, but still. I'm hoping that some genuine creative drive will help make some of the things I put here actually worth a damn.

Anyhow, this post of course doesn't count. However, I will be hard at work for next week. Although it may be a bit of a challenge, since I'm on vacation pretty much the entirety of this upcoming week. But I'll be sure to make it work. After all, I am a committed blogger now. ;)

That whole "graduation" business

Yeah yeah, I know. Last week I said I was done and now I'm back almost a week later. I'm full of shit, what else is new? But come on, I friggen' graduated this week. And lack of inspiration and unappreciative friends be damned, I'm going to share my thoughts.

So yeah, the end of the school year is finally upon us and all I have to say is thank Zeus. The last few months have been more or less one big clusterfuck of highs and lows, between almost not graduating, and those always dependable 'rents of mine [btw I never thanked you two for ruining one of my most valued friendships. I really appreciate it]. If this is simply just another "chapter" in my life, I'd be more than happy to finish it. And with there being not many constructive means of relieving stress that aren't hazardous to my health, I figured that it would make sense for me to just blog about it. But if I were to be perfectly honest, I was intent on coming on here to write a post that just railed on practically everyone and everything in creation, thus reconciling my discontentment in a way that my stonefaced, timid demeanor never could. But in case you haven't noticed, that plan has been changed.

You see, as I was sitting in church earlier, I was just doing my usual routine of chilling there bored while I fantasized about a life that doesn't so closely resemble hell, and then something caught my eye. There was a little boy in across the aisle from me. He couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old, and I had noticed something peculiar about him. He was missing a leg. In it's place was a makeshift leg that looked like it was made up of thinly shaped play items (I know how that sounds, but it's what it looked like), rather than prosthetics. However, his other leg, while still intact, was covered with bandages and looked as though it had been worked on frequently. Naturally, I was completely caught off guard by this. Admittedly, that has nothing to do with my graduation, but it had to have meant something. It couldn't have been a coincidence that it was only a short while after witnessing the one-legged boy that I opted to make today's postery less, uh, profane than I was going for originally.

Those who know me well know that I don't typically know what I want or what it is I'm looking for exactly. I usually just wait around for something or someone unexpected to come my away and take me by surprise. And those who know me *very* well know why. But I recently came to the realization that over the past few months, and possibly for my entire senior year of high school, I had stopped being willing to accept new opportunities coming my way because I had been so content with the way things were going. And while I still would prefer that nice stretch of contentment to this period of adjustment, I'm thinking it would be wise of me to start being more open, especially with all the future milestones headed my way.

RAmen.

What's the use?

Sooooo, yeah. I think I've reached the point where I just stopped caring. What started out as a good opportunity to stretch my creative legs has become somewhat of a chore, or more of an assignment. It's just that I can't be bothered by something I honestly don't have any interest in, at least not like I used to. Not to mention the only person who ever bothered to read this in syndication couldn't care less about me anymore, let alone my fucking blog. But hey, I had a good run, and maybe I'll update sometime in the near future. Until that time, consider this my swan song. But I'll keep this up as a frame of reference, and who knows, maybe I'll have something of value to write about next week. Beats me.

Well, there you have it; I don't care right now. Peaceee.

2010 in Film: The Squekquel

After leaving you all hanging last week, I thought I should really make up for it this week, and have decided to turn my first official post here into a running series. Every few months, I'll check back in with short comments about each 2010 new release I see, thus satisfying both my inner writer and film buff. Enjoii.

Green Zone (Paul Greengrass)
Before I can dive into any criticisms I have, I do have to give this film an A for effort. For all of its problems, Green Zone does have a lot of ambition, being audacious enough to reach for such high-minded goals, such as being nothing more than a left-wing cousin to Rambo. Having said that, Green Zone is still the worst new release I've seen so far this year. But don't get me wrong, it's not terrible or anything, just overachievingly average [oxymoron win]. The premise itself is just one big flaw right from the get-go, dropping a fictional super-soldier into the midst of 2003 Iraq, shortly after the invasion, to re-write recent historical wrongs in our own favor. When it comes to modern action directors less interested in serving the audience rather than satisfying their own vapid fetishes, Paul Greengrass has gotten off pretty easy, despite the fact that his two Bourne films' nauseating handheld cinematography turned every fight and chase centerpiece incoherent. Thus it's no shock to find this film employing the same bump-and-jostle attention-deficit aesthetic that served as a big warning sign that you're about to waste your time, reappears here in tenfold.

Clash of the Titans (Louis Leterrier)
In a rare instance of honest studio advertising, this film has wisely been promoted for exactly what it was. Which means don't go into this thinking it looks like the stupidest film you've ever heard of, hoping to be pleasantly surprised. You won't be. Personally, I thought it looked like silly, if not completely brainless fun, and that's exactly what I got out of it. And the sooner you accept the fact that things like hurried pacing and non-existent character development are due to the fact that this film just wants to get to the next action setpiece, the sooner you'll be able to enjoy this for what it is, if that's what you're looking for. It's not trying to impress you with faux social commentary, or contrived dilemmas of humanitarian concern. Flawed, but inspired badassery.

Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaugn)
Acknowledging that where a film originates from isn't usually important to how good it is as a whole, I deem it necessary to go over some of the original graphic novel's problems. It was a franchise I never familiarized myself with, and that was due mostly to the fact that it could never find a satisfying balance between aggressively juvenile, and pitch-black cynicism. This film adaptation sidesteps that problem by chucking out the more downbeat aspects of the source material, and making aggressively juvenile the order of the day. Granted, the comics were darker and had more to say, but were also thematically unfocused, while this filmic version has admittedly been simplified but holds together better as a story. At first, said story seems like a simple parody of the Peter Parker/Spider-Man persona, but eventually developes a real heart, gaining the film a sense of humanity that the comics were mostly lacking. Granted, this film condones precisely the type of merciless, desensitized movie violence that Quentin Tarantino had in mind when he wrote the finale of Inglourious Basterds. But entertainment is entertainment, and Kick-Ass is just that from minute one, even when it doesn't have a lot on its mind.

Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau)
Earlier in my Green Zone capsule, I mentioned that despite the absolute lack of effort on nearly each level, its ambition made it salvageable as a whole. Well that can work both ways, as pride can also be a films undoing, and boy does pride wreck this one good. But the most disappointing thing about Iron Man 2 isn’t the fact that it fails, in an altogether underwhelming way, to live up to the creative success of its predecessor, but that it does so for purely misguided reasons. Sure, the script isn’t as tight as the original, but nor should it be when plots are complicated and characters with varying motives are collecting in droves. On paper, Iron Man 2 should work, but on screen, it unfolds as a film without a singular connective vision, lurching forward in fits and spurts as it strains itself to recapture the blend of drama, comedy and action that was bestowed so effortlessly on the original. If there’s any blame to be dealt out to the creative forces behind the movie, it’s that they tried too hard.

w00t.

Yello'

Sorry, no blog for this week. It's not [just] that I didn't have anything of worth or value to discuss or rample on about. I was actually quite busy this weekend...

[briangordonforpromking!]

Summer Bucket List

Over the past few weeks, with summer approaching so rapidly, I kept mulling over the things I’ve always wanted to do, yet never have. Therefore, I have opted to make my own mini “Bucket List” of sorts, with the deadline being the end of summer instead of, y’know, when I die. The goal of my posting this here is that I have some initiative to accomplish these goals. Around the time I get settled into college, provided I’m still using this page, I’ll create a follow up blog to this one, and say whether I did any of these things or not. Until that time, here goes;

1.) Attend the midnight premiere for a film
2.) Try as many strange and outlandish soda-ice cream float combinations as possible
3.) Develop a habit of hiking. [Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy a nice scenic route as much as the next guy, but I’d like to make a legit habit out of this one.]
4.) Successfully learn the way from my house to Millersville
5.) Improve substantially at playing guitar
6.) Familiarize myself better with campus [both lifestyle and surroundings] at Millersville
7.) Pass on the “Shop Rite parking lot” tradition
8.) Get involved in a recent TV series [recommendations are welcome]
9.) Start eating waffles and/or pancakes for breakfast again
10.) Make it just a little further into the ‘Vampire Chronicles’ book series. Let’s say, oh I don’t know, at least two more

If I end up thinking of any more, I’ll just add onto the list. Until then, here it is.

The Village / The White Ribbon

This really is turning into a film blog, isn’t it?

With writing and producing a film being what it is lately, it’s typical that certain new releases are a tad derivative from much more influential material. Recent cases of this would be Moon and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and 500 Days of Summer and Annie Hall, among others. Although a rarity, a newer film drawing inspiration from one that's barely a few years older does happen. Such is the case with Michael Haneke’s recent The White Ribbon, which shares many artistic and dramatic similarities with M. Night Shyamalan’s underappreciated The Village.

Although comparisons between the two films are valid, with their seemingly brothers-in-spirit setting and tonality, they couldn’t be more thematically dissimilar. To fit their basic morals into a mere sentence, The Village is about how the power of love can conquer anything, so long as it’s not a solo effort (barring the social commentary). The White Ribbon, on the other hand, is not so optimistic, and is rather an exploration of the roots of a certain kind of evil. It's also very much about how sins of one generation carry on to the next, despite (or perhaps because of) the best efforts of the adults to mold their children into "good" citizens.

The Village, great film though it is, doesn’t seem too preoccupied with fleshing out its motifs with as much complexity and precision as The White Ribbon. No matter how much they ring true, the ideas in The Village are admittedly a bit…naive. But the subject matter of The White Ribbon, dates way back to the 1950s and has been explored by such directors as Ingmar Bergman and Carl Theodore Dreyer. Oldness be damned, it still feels as relevant now as it did over 50 years ago. Even the most unpleasant characters in the film are given moments of humanity, and it's clear that they are all victims of - and perpetrators in - a rigid, repressive hierarchical society that dehumanizes people and codifies behavior to such an extent that deviating from the "norms" at all can only bring misery.

But maybe that’s the difference between contemporary mainstream and arthouse cinema. Or perhaps M. Night Shyamalan just has more faith in humanity than Michael Haneke. Whatever the case, both of these films work just as well separately as they do when observing just how much they have in common.