I held her as she passed on. I made sure of it. I had heard that dogs smell stuff more than they see and hear. So I made sure that pulse point, my wrist, was right before her nostrils.
I am surprised that I even had a pulse still.
Because my heart was stopping.
Rarely can I say this, and, yes, as a writer I always have to say something, but this is the hardest thing I ever had to do. She had been suffering for months, really.
And that sentence causes an extra twinge in my heart when I typed that.
She was diagnosed with intermittent lameness this past summer, the victim of untreated Lyme disease. She had been bitten by a tick over the previous summer, on a road trip to Wisconsin, and since we didn’t know, it went untreated. Her legs stopped working. She started to just drag her fluffy butt around the house. This, strangely, did not alarm us too much.
Really, Pops? Another photo? Humans with babies don't take this many pict....oh, they do.
She was living. She was barking. She had a new, younger pup of a sister and the two played and played, all the wonders of being a dog splattered out all over the house. She would occasionally feel her age with the legs bit. A baby aspirin would return her somewhat, but too excitable a moment, she would lose control of her tinkles. And then she would cry.
Cause she had an accident.
With me working as a special education teacher as I am. I slowly made the necessary adaptations needed for her to continue a life that was not like her sister’s. Floors were covered. Afternoon meetings were shifted to the morning so I could get home on time, so she didn’t have to hold her bladder too long. Slings were purchases to hold her hunches up a bit more so she could try to walk. We started to consider getting her a wheelie bit, but then we realized….she’s really, really old.
She not only couldn’t get up, she wasn’t particularly in the mood to do so. Sleeping became paramount. We’d shift her throughout the day. From the bed to the living room. To her food. Back to the bathroom, then to our bathroom so we could watch her. THen back.
No, really, I'm good, right here. Smoosh-face and all.
We lied to ourselves, saying it was because she wanted to see us. Okay, while not a total lie--we slowly realized, she was only living to make sure we wouldn’t be sad.
That’s a damn good friend.
We tracked her time. Before bed, we’d put a check if the day was ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for her and for us. And then the moments piled up. The bad started to outweigh the good. She couldn’t seem to stop urinating on herself and the tears, hers and my own piled up.
Here’s the thing, I’d put down family dogs before.
Why was this one so dang difficult.
It’s because I’m one half of a male couple. We could adopt, but we had elected not to. And the weight of that meant that our dogs took a certain, increased, importance. She didn’t deserve that much stress, honestly. She deserved to continue to be a dog until the day she passed.
But, also, as part of that composite that defined our wee family, she had the right to be loved up until the very end and know she was safe. And I was going to escort her across that bridge. I miss my grandparents. I know I’ll my parents. I’m curious to see if I’ll miss my brother, but that might be a different novel.
This, this was something I really had to have inner strength for.
If you’ve been following this blog, I went from a very religious man, to a non-religious man, to sorta religious. Agnosticism seems to play with my fancy. I know there’s more. I hope there’s more.
But not for me.
For her. She deserves huge cornfields where the popcorn falls freely, where pizza crusts can be stolen from magical plates, and you can poop anywhere you need to go. If you can even poop at all. In a way, this is the glory of world that is multi-faithful. I also understand, too, that dogs don’t need to have such petty things as a belief system. They just need to know where the next piece of string cheese is coming from-and that, is the true Glory. A faith so internalized that it doesn’t need to be stroked by ritual and worship, but, instead, it fulfilled by daily good deeds…
….and doggie biscuits.
So, in the end, I hope she’s found the heaven she deserves for being a damn good dog. I wish I can so be richly rewarded for being a damn good, what, person?
She accepted her fate with grace, the pain finally ending. No more accidents; no more internal struggle between being a good dog without accidents and the body deciding otherwise. No more worrying if you can’t reach your food bowl before the puppy snarks down your kibble.
It is said that pets can teach us so much. Dang, I wish it was just grammar and standard calculus. About the importance of life and how everything is temporary?
Who knew a canine would be able to do it with such depth before any philosopher?
One of the few images you'll see of the author...discussing kibble with his eldest corgi daughter.
In the world of social media, especially the world of Facebooking, it’s all just too easy to click. In fact, when I saw a friend post that she was interested in attending a MegaCon for comics and all-things-geeky, I lost my shit. I was like, “DUDE! You are into that kinda stuff? I’m totally and X-Man fan and love the rare Alpha Flight, heck, I even have an original…”
“Wait,” she said over the wire, “you’re into comic books?”
This led to an interesting conundrum. She elaborated that she liked the sneak peeks of movies and entertainment, but did not read comic books herself and hasn’t, ever, really. But she liked the movies!
And that’s waaaay cool.
See? I have a husOtter and he’s so awesome, he makes me proud to have him on my arm. He makes me proud to have a home. I work, daily, with making sure his comfort and joy is of the utmost importance. And that pride makes it easy to face the music with these flat-earth, Trump loving, Southerners.
“I am gay. Stop talking like that, please," I frequently have to repeat.
And they flip out. Coming out of the closet was a breeze. I worked so hard to find the dignity within myself, that I know that being who I am is the greatest of my achievements. I feel little shame in admitting that I’m gay.
But the comic book closet is a bit different.
If you squint really hard, you can see the author sitting in there, trying to hide!
I noticed something in my previous position. No one watched the television programs. They would ask what television programs I would watch in small talk; I had to invent shows instead of admit that I was running home to see the Warner Bros. Batman: The Animated Series. Part I would blame on the fact that I was the youngest person they had ever hired, at a mere twenty-two. But as the 20 years scooted forward, I noticed that my flying out to experience the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas I had to keep to myself. See, those churchies could justify my flying to the land of hookers and gambling. But to ride rides based on Paramount’s franchise?
That would be weird.
I could find kinship with others over Disney, thank goodness. Disney is a bit more universal in appeal. And movies, yes, have made it a bit easier for the comic book closet to open. Many non comic readers are seeing some excellent films, like The Watchmen and The Dark Knight and are impressed with the quality of the movie. So they go watch them and we have some commonality,
I sadly moved to a town so small that there was no comic book shop any more. Besides, with moving across the nation, I couldn’t cart all those wonderfully colored pages with me. I had to sell and downsize. Still, there’s digital readers, thank goodness, and my urges were fulfilled.
Nothing like feeling like crap after a long night and then waking up sick. You call in sick and then dig into a stack of Deadpool or Justice League: Dark.
Nice and spooky, Justice League: Dark is....
One would think that having survived the arduous process of coming out of the closet and accepting my sexuality, I would be fine with this, would have been able to generalize this to other things about being different and unique and awesome.
The fact is, even though I am a firm believer that coming out is much easier for people today--it is still a process. And dealing with it is still laboriously emotional. People don’t realize that coming out of any closet, something that isn’t part of the majority’s norms is incredibly deep. One has to come out to oneself. Then accept that reality. Then consider the impact on the immediates of family and friends. And then learn to swallow hard when the extensive stupidity and ignorance rears it head in laws and offhanded comments. Good people still say stupid things.
Luckily, I learned as teacher that there’s this thing called a teachable moment. My coworkers are wicked, deep seated, most-likely, haters. Their jokes, benign in their approachability illustrated a deep frustration and critique of certain groups.
That changed when, after several lunches, I gauged that talking about spouses was completely considered in the culture of my new job. So I did the same as them.
They quickly became educated. Some were fine and realized many things. Others? They changed as recently as last week, mostly for good.
Here’s the thing. I shouldn’t have had to gauge shit. I should be able to talk about who I am and what I love, regardless. I shouldn’t have to listen to their conversations and figure out what was the social norm.
But that was then.
We have all come so far.
I heard them tease the new hire, after catching her watching Young Justice on her phone on her Netflix account. My response?
“What episode was she watching? I missed last week’s.”
This is starting to sound like a children’s ABC book, I’m starting to realize!
And it’s awesome.
Okay, we aren’t on a streak just yet, but we’ve made it to step two of this blogging bit. Time for some deeper thoughts and moments to myself that I can bare publicly.
Heh. I said, “bare.”
My point? I’m lucky. I’ve noticed that I have something that, well, it should be, cheaper than therapy. I’m a gigglesnort. I’m an optimist, regardless of what the media wishes you to think. I’m fully aware that crime, in all honesty, is on it’s way down (and that one idiot who shoots up a public location gets all the attention); that the economy is rebounding; that things are actually okay.
Yet I write about horrible, horrible things.
Monsters. Throat slits. Violence against fellows.
You know, those kinds of things. Even my sexy scenes tend to be, well, rough.
Here’s the thing. We all have dark sides. I’ve seen tykes going all out with a stomping fest on an ant’s nest, long before they are exposed to a Fox News hate-parade. It’s pretty much inante. Make sense. Primal human had to break the necks of their food as they were learning to stand upright. They needed to have a violent place to go, before they could invent drive through at the local Stuckey's.
It’s in all of our brains. It’s the reason we ride rollercoasters. It’s why we buy tickets to The Conjuring 2. To feed that part of the brain. Not to keep it fresh. But to keep it satisfied.
Does society corrupt? Well, yes, yes it does. Research shows it left and right. How does it do so?
That dark side seeks expression. When you watch a violent programme? Sure, it might be satisfied. My thing is, if media corrupts, the numbers don't add up to the profound ratio. Too many people are exposed to the angst that is Trump.
Expressions are awesome.
Wait, okay, maybe the numbers DO add up.
It’s why scary stories tend to sell better than romances.
But those have a place, too, on the other end of the spectrum.
Today, however, we’re talking about the Dark Side.
And I’m lucky, because I’m an artist. And I’m married to one, so I’m able to see this better than most. The power of the arts is expression, mild to wild. We have that outlet. So, when the blues from my everyday job flit into my skull, I’m able to kill a room full of kittens (in the literally sense, please. Nothing wrong with kittens, natch). I’m able to have that horrible date that ends up with chains and lost eyeballs. You, dear reader, just read about the eyeball. But, keep in mind, I reached said eyeball long before you did.
As such, my husOtter is very much the same. When things are going well? He paints. When things go south for a bit? He’s painting with blues and blacks and browns. It’s all equal.
And it is much cheaper than any therapy. And, in that way, I save money. I don’t need to go to a psychiatrist. Well, I don’t need to go to one right away. Nothing wrong with talking to a therapist every now and again, my friends. But, see, even this little open-ended journal entry hits me where I need it. Like keeping a diary for the open minded. Fiction or non, every bit helps the one that created it.
If you buy the book, it really does help, too, like, with the money and such.
So, when you create, think of the cleansing that’s happening and how vital it is, not unlike water, fiber, exercise, and a decent sneeze.
I get that now. I bring this all up as I'm reading my book. There's angst galore, to be sure, but there's a bouncy-ness to it all. A happiness and, really, it's because things, in the end, are truly going well. A Star Wars movie, to be sure. Let's be real here, a war is raging, there's always conflict of some sort, within and without, but that omnipresent in ALL tales. How it plays out says volumes about the author, on several levels.
Having gone through a bit of a funk, writing had developed into a waster of time.
Sorry about that. There’s that horrible moment, when life, the universe, and everything yanks you out of reality. In this case, a beloved dog’s passing, a heart’s breaking, and a year passing. A flu bug then took the opportunity to smuggle itself into my home, using the power of stress to lower our collective immune systems. Given my exposure to so many youth in my day job, my system bounced back; my husOtter’s still crawling back into existence.
And writing became a waste of time.
So I’m using this month, blogging from A to Z, just to catch up on authoring. Writing. Freeing my mind to those stressors and to making plain writing over a variety of topics. It’s something I’ve noticed quite some time ago. I’m happy-go-lucky, even in the worst of times.
Even if the worst of times.
Because I write.
And when I don’t author? I suffer. It’s like, when I write a tale of monsters, that monster is really all of those annoyances that pile up into something terrible and I can slay it. When I criticize a film, I’m able to exercise that part of my psyche that breathes in the shadows and needs to take flight before it wounds my heart and soul.
But it takes energy. And when your energy is depleted from such unique experiences as the passing of your beloved eldest corgi, you pour what energy you have left into finding the will to live than to writing about witches and demons and heroes and old love anew. So I dailed down.
My writing suffered.
So I”m back and the timing is perfect.
I’m authoring.
And this is the first entry. I’m looking to focus on the nonfiction, here on the blog, if that’s at all possible, and seeing if this writing is going to do the healing that needs to be done.
I will admit this. With the authoring, I’m also re-reading my book. This is my seventh novel, but the first one I really took my time and started composing. And I like the direction it went. It’s, to me, the most commercially viable of my creative processes, and I’m thinking I’m having there. But there’s something else I’ve noticed about myself. The more reading I’m doing, the less writing. Frequently, I hear about how reading and writing go hand in hand, but I’ve learned from teaching that this isn’t always the case. Think about it. I know people who can read technical manuals with full memorization.
Can’t recreate a joke to save their lives.
Nor can they write fiction.
And I’ve read some of the best fiction writing from friends.
But they only read Harry Potter twenty or thirty times.
I don’t get it. So? This Blogging quest will be my goal to balance between the two. And, hopefully, I’ll be able to start my next novel at some point. I can only hope. Care to join me?
I plan on authoring some. So I find it only fitting that I start here, with the concept of authoring. I've always approached it as an art form, instead of a form of work. Even the greatest piece of fiction is a reflection of it's writer and I think I need to point this out. All this time, when I talk to people about their work, I'm trying to look only at their own writings. But the insight is sometimes profoundly unavoidable. As a teacher of writing, numerous times, I observe parts of their life, symbolically played out. Frequently, I try to reject that as creative insight, but it does happen. But I write. And they write. And this is where the expression happens, that magical tap to the inner feelings and emotions that escape our facial pronouncements. Too often, as my friend who authors the technical manuals, many don't have that moment, that boulevard, to verbalize their inner feelings. This counts for all arts. Cooking. Painting. Conversation (yes, it is an art), sports (don't believe me? Watch a player angry, sad, disgusted, or content and see how they play). My art is right before you. You are walking that road to my, well, soul, I guess. Let's start here. It explains why we get so upset, so cranky when criticism happens. It's like kicking our children. We react. We shouldn't. Because, when we post, as I am doing right now, we are asking for that criticism. And, that, too, is part of the arts. What good is a painting never shown on the walls? Peace.
Yes, even when the buzz is bad, I still go see movies that I want to see in the theater. I like to think, sometimes, the fault of an editor is why the trailer failed. Like this one. Take a gander:
I mean, yes, I think it gave away too much. Star Wars? Back in December? I still trying to figure out SOMETHING, even afterwards. This one? Why are they fighting? What? They're worshiping the Supes now? How'd.... Of course, they are generating interest. Plus? I like to see movies on the big screen, the way they were intended. So I gave this movie a chance. I paid for a ticket. Now there were further warning signs. It was released in March. Never good. Actioners tend to be released in the summer, when everyone who is a fanboy can show up again and again. Now, recently, due to the sheer myriad of Marvel titles that Disney has on release dates, those rules are being greatly reduced. The fact is, when Disney needs a bit of cash to purchase another small country, they just go ahead and release it. The audiences come in droves. Even if it's a bad movie. Why? The same reason we go to McDonald's. A trusted piece of concoction that won't give us the squirts. Same with their movies. Tried and true, even when not following a formula. The fact is, DC, which has been around much longer than the Marvel titles, is basically new to modern filmmaking. They're trying to hack back into the market that Marvel never really could in the 70s. Sure, there was Superman radio shows and campy but strong Batman shows on television in the 60s, but modern filmmaking stopped for them after Michael Keaton left Batman. Chris Nolan brought it back with Batman Begins. But he was already a gifted filmmaker before and after his DC contributions. And seeing the cash flow Marvel was flowing through, Warner Bros, owner of the DC heroes in movie formats, figured they'd jump in.
Now, I admit, I liked Man of Steel. I felt that large tankers of men battling should knock down buildings. It was a Superman movie trying to unlock the appeal that Batman was experiencing. It rubbed many wrong and that was a given. Even I saw the flaws. A wooden lead in Henry Cavill, lack of chemistry between he and Lois Lane. Which is weird, because it's freegin Amy Adams. This is the lady who gave depth to a Disney Princess in Enchanted. If she can't make sparks fly, there's something else going on.
But he did have the look, that's for sure.
So, now? We have the follow up to Man of Steel and Batman Begins--a profoundly obvious ploy to get a Justice League movie together a la The Avengers. In this story iteration Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, sees his family die AGAIN (you know...because this hasn't been lodged into our collective consciousnesses yet? See the proceeding 7!!! movies!!!), we see his work family murdered by the destructive climax of the last movie. Emotionally big on such things, he elects to figure out how to bring this Superman down. It will be difficult. Since the world is pretty much afraid of Superman, they venerate him. Lex Luther, Superman's ongoing villian from the comic book shows up with his usual nefarious plans and mechanizations to make that happen. Should I elaborate? I can if you wish, but really, we've been down this road before. The audience can predict every step, a color-by-numbers tale. Here, in the hands of Zach Synder, we find nothing really all that new. Nothing new, really. Other than the fact that this movie is VERY SERIOUS. Zach made a great and deep movie called Watchmen, based on a comic book, and it was very serious to begin with. Even one hero, called Comedian, was not very funny. So, they hired him again, and he keeps making the same movie, over and over.
WHere I'm over it is, yes, again, to Marvel. They have a talking tree and raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy. The X-Men exist because we are told they do. These realities we accept when they are present on the big screen. We are expected to cross those gaps of reality and suspend our disbelief. The world on the screen exists and this is the rule. DC's lastest endeavor treats us like children and refuses to find the humor and joyful moment at any point.
Even The Walking Dead has their jollies with skull smashing aplomb.
But not in the DC universe.
And it's that hand-holding that pushes the film away from the audience and causes such bad vibes. I'm okay with predicable plot. I'm okay with tropes. I'm even okay with the dark. But, for goodness sakes, celebrate the moments. Find those moments.
The actors try as much as they can. Ben Affleck
is actually excellent. His jawline and scowl work fine, and his skills as a performer rise above such dismay authorship this script provides. Cavill is growing as an actor, given a bit more to do here. In fact, all the actors are top notch and are trying, elevating the film a bit more from the quagmire it could arrive at.
But a giggling super villain only works if it's Joker and part of the character. Lex Luther doesn't just know he's better than everyone-he is, actually, one of the smartest men alive. He doesn't crack and giggle and make snarky comments. When the film has no humor, this is what you end up with.
I have a feeling if you like this kind of movie, you'll be fine. However, if you're not a comic book person, it might not work, but only as a prelude to bigger things. Seriously. It's truly a sequel, a bridge. One spark?
Wonder Woman. She dominates for the miniscule time on the screen. Vaguely Middle Eastern (as she should be), with the cheekbones of supermodel, Diana Prince is badass enough. I look forward to her movie. Do you know why?
She SMILES in the middle of a huge fight scene. Humor. And totally in character. Bring her back. Give her twenty new movies....I'd see them all.
I guess the first statement out of the box is the most, most obvious.
I mean, really. Only 10?
As a true cineast, I only watch entertainment news; movies have been my life for so long, they seem to outlive my love of Disney in many, many respects. There's is nothing like the conundrum that I suffer from when I ahve to choose between a new release and a day at the Parks. There's really something in there. However, there's nothing nicer than having two wonderful choices before me. I can't lose.
Movies have always been there for me. I've gone alone, gone with friends, gone with people I appreciated and people that I've detested. But the movies, even the truly bad ones, they were always there. And I cannot stop thier impact on me.
10. sex, lies, and videotape I'd already known I was a cineast. Years of managing a videotape store had shown me I could always find something. I looked them like I would a decent library. Sometimes you'd ahve something under your ability, that one book or movie that provided comfort; the other titles, both movies and books, that really challenged you.
I had already seen several art movies. There was one of my employees/coworkers and he was a swimmer and an artist. Fine as a statue. And he loved the art movies. He'd return htem with his shift, knowing full well they'd not be rented. He'd mention why this art film or that foreign title was worth it. So? I'd wait until the end of my shift and watch it on the store's big screen television with the lights out.
By the time I saw sex, lies, and videotape, I had a decent understanding of the difference between an arthouse independent movie and a full blown blockbuster.
Big C was the female lead across from me in the play Present Tense, the first play I ever had to do shirtless in. It was weird, she played my girlfriend.
Yeah, I know, I was that good of actor.
I felt I needed to act like I liked this girl and told her that I read about this art movie in Film Comment magazine and, strangely, that it had opened, of all freegin places, in Fargo (!) North Dakota. I knew if we didn't go see it, it'd close and they'd never bring an art movie back into the town again. This was the spring of 1989, so the independent movie craze was about to get underway. So? A date was born and we went.
The subject matter was massive mature, but strangely, the presentation was so digestable, there was zero discomfort from either of us. We even had coffee at the Ember's, the only place still open on that hour and, for the first time in my college career, in my fucking life, heck, I had a mature conversation about symbolism, nuance, purpose, and message.
How did it influence me? Like that first toke of a decent drug, I was hooked, my head swimming with thoughts and feelings that were complete and very, very enjoyable. For the first time, my addiction was shared with intelligence and I knew, from there, that I loved independent movies.
I probably could link it to the moment when someone starts a drug habit and gets that first hit.
9. The Crying Game. By the time I rolled around to this movie, my movie addict was going full bore. I'd not earned enough money to support that habit, so I started to moonlight managing a movie theater. It came with specific perks, in his case, free movie tickets.
I did my best to attend any movie with a GBLT theme, so make sure that my dollars communicated that those movies were worth merit and that Hollywood should look inot making more and more of those titles.
Believe it or not, I did not realize this was a GBLT movie, but, that wasn't real reason it influenced me. It influenced me in the area of writing. See, this was the first time, ever, that I noticed that the gay guy didn't die. He wasn't swishy. He even had a straight guy fall for him (if you've not seen the movie, that's kinda a spoiler). It's an amazing piece of motion picture. 'Whoa,' I remember thinging as I picked my jaw up off the floor, 'the gay guy was the good guy and survived everything.'
I could write stories like that. I don't have to have the guy die because he had the kind of love I have.
8. Brokeback Mountain. Of course, this movie did have a death onscreen, and it devasted so many of my gay male friends. You have to remember my colleagues and my peers, we had grown up in a time of AIDS where those came out of the closet to find themselves quickly interred from a deadly disease. Now? Here was a mainstream movie and for many of my friends, the sobs didn't stop after the credits rolled.
But how did it influence me? Well, watching my adult friends turning into blubbering messes, well, that was something. We'd never seen our love and our aches personified on the big screen before, as heroes, as protagonists. I'd watched Casablanca so many times and wept in the right spaces, but, well, they were straight. I could only relate to them on some love, but I don't think I could totally understand.
Then I saw this movie.
And I cried too. For there, before me, was why everyone cried in Romeo and Juliet and every other heterosexual tragic love story. It wasn't in my skull. I didn't have to figure out why people in the audience were crying when I watched this Brokeback. Instead? My heart cried for me. For the first time, I got it.
8. Clerks. This was it. Up until this point, art movies were unreachable. Beautiful people speaking poetry and making us Think Deeply.
But this movie changed the game. An arthouse movie. Jokes that were about penises and farts and Star Wars.
And it was an art movie.
It had no Deep Thoughts. The message was direct and not hidden behind symbolism and vague analogy.
Fart jokes. In glorious black and white.
Here's the thing? I'm not into comedies. At all. I'd spent so much time with the art stuff, I think I closed that part out of me, I was becoming a hipster before becoming a hipster was annoying. How did that work? The movie was such a unique experience, I realized that, true art is, at it's core, just expression.
And sometimes, taht's with fart jokes.
It influenced me on that, well, just do it. Write what you want to write. Create your art. Let the chips fall where they may.
7. Hunchback of Notre Dame. Too deep and too obscure to really find a niche on the Disney canon, I rarely mention this title, but it did, basically, have an influence on me on a way that, literally, has nothing to do with the movie itself and EVERYTHING to do with the timing of this Disney flick. See? I had left my boyfriend/husband/douchebag of 3 and a half years. Three and half years of an abuse laden daily existence. I hated myself, gorged myself and rarely found the good. He did so many drugs, so many horrid things, I would steal away to the movies, all I had left. He hated the movies because he couldn't bring alcohol in and, then, he'd tell me how fake everything was.
He'd have his affairs, usually under the guise of working late at his bank, and I would, as usual, be left alone to keep his house clean and feed our dog, my only friend. He discouraged me visiting with friends, mentioning the drug use and his possible incarceration.
I had such low self-esteem, so brow beaten to a pulp, that it took me forever to leave the schmuck. I didn't even unpack when I left him. I just dropped off everything at the studio apartment, all I could afford. I had no money left by that point. I left him my television. I left him my furniture.
And, with that remaining dollars in my pocket, I put a salve on my wounds. I went to see a Disney movie. A Disney movie about a man who thought he was misshapen, but it was the world around him that was so wrong.
Thanks, Quasi!
7. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen-My imagination is okay. Here was one of those movies where my daydreams were finally summed up.
I can be weird and, well, someone might make a movie out of my stories. Or make a movie about me making up stories.
Never had a film shown me that the creative impact has on the world around me. Remember, you're looking at one of the two people in the universe that happens to adore Journey into Your Imagination. It's the world I live in, I believe in the power of creativity and it's impact.
And here's a movie about it. The influence? Be crazy-wonderful. Tell your tale, I'm going to tell mine.
I started my first book, about a young man coming out of the closet. Not because he was merely gay, but, because, well, there were literal monsters in it and it was too crowded. And a certain Baron said, "this is the story."
6. Singles-I hated dating when I first came out of the closet. This was before the interwebs, so I was unable to meet people when I was interested. We tended to hang out in special bars. That was about it. Oh, and classified ads.
I hated it. Detested it.
And then I saw this movie.
Seems like the straight folk were having the same problem.
I wasn't alone. I was alone, physically, thinking I was going to die, slowly, alone. But, with this movie influencing me, I guess I wasn't. They were going to die alone too. We were all rallying against the dying of the light.
5. Link. I was trying to get into his pants. He was the center lineman of the Overland Blazers winning football team. He was built like a brick shithouse.
We had math together. He was in a military family and they didn't have much towards cash. He weightlifted so frequently, his saw-offed jeans slowly became daisy dukes and he was a bit too dim to notice. I'd invite him over and we'd work on his car together and he'd always take off his shirt.
And I'd buy him lunch. Feed him dinner. Anything to keep his attention on me.
It was sad, really, because I didn't realize what I was doing. And he didn't realize I was doing it either.
Link had a beautiful blonde lead. He wanted to see her. So? Sure. Whatever. Let's go see a movie.
And I watched him get happy and enjoy the movie, I realized...I'm queer. Of all movies! This isn't what I thought it was. He wasn't becoming my best friend. I wanted more from him-and so, that movie ended my attention to him.
After I convinced him we should jump in my parents' hot tub.
4. Fun With Dick and Jane. A shitty little movie about poverty and how it encourages crime. But, well, it had a powerful influence over me as well. See, when those houselights dimmed, I was hooked.
It was the first movie my memory tells me I had seen. I was really, really impressed. It was like a television show where they didn't have commercials. There were jokes. People rolling up the lawn.
It made me love these galloping tintypes called the movies.
3. My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I know I've talked about his picture before, at length, elsewhere here, but the fact remains, this movie was a huge influence on my life. It showed me that the horrible stereotypes my family were in reality weren't so bad in some respects, and the traditions they had lauded over me for so long were with deep purpose and love. I was, again, as mentioned in this very column, not alone.
And that marriage is very much about love. But it's also about a family and their very definition. And, gay or straight, every wedding redefines that marriage as it should be. Powerful stuff.
2. Farenheit 911-Okay, yeah, it was a piece of propoganda, and I admit, the bias was so profound, I could not avoid it. I thought, going in, that it was going to be a comedic piece of X-Files conspiracy about the 9/11 attacks, but, and here's the thing-
it wasn't. It did not reinforce what I already believed, nor did it knock down any ivory towers my heart and mind had built. Instead? It gave me a different perspective that changed the way I've voted since. Before, I used to really tow the middle line and look to both sides (luckily, one side was totally yahoo, so that helped) to decide where to voite. But not after this. Privativation of everything. The war machine built to benefit the few. Sending other people's children off to war.
It creeped me out. It was further elaborated on with Capitalism: A Love Story. I got it. And I didn't want to.
No more commercialism from this point onwards.
1. The Insider-This movie? This one hit me on a level that I could not believe would hit me. I had contemplated smoking, but, hey, I didn't drink any more and had way too little vices left in my world. I am sure there was a great amount of fiction here. However, if even the premise is true, about a man who blew the lid off of the smoking industry and was threatened for it, I thought-this is not someone I want to give my business to.
As I reread this list, this is probably the most personal list I've ever posted here. As such, I'm not going to mention it over on FB. But I'm seeing a lot about my suffering here, and how movies cured it. Amazing stuff and, well, I guess with news as of late, I'm a bit vunderable right now and that's saying something. Whoa. Read at your peril. I'm one messed up dude.
Every kid back in school; Hollywood waiting for all the summer production schedules to wind down. When they do? The voting academy, aka Oscar, will have a bit more living room time to pop in their DVDs the promo videos and start looking for the next Best Picture.
Whcih means what for us? It's the Attack of the Nadir. A Cusp of orphaned films.
"Bob? What do we do with this picture?"
They release it in October. Truly, these are the movies that are very hit-or-miss and do well as counterprogramming against the Hollywood slasher types that come out at this time of year.
And I think I found a hit.
Yes, it stars Matt Damon. Matt's one of those actors who really had made good on his career and tries really hard to use his star vehicles to his advantage. He was Bourne. Jason Bourne.
And he's a good actor, to boot.
Good looking, ability to match, he's something of the old school Hollywood types, who keeps cranking out movies. His latest endeavor is this appealing The Martian based on the self-published book of the same name.
And you can see why it was orphaned.
The film was made, first, by Ridley Scott. He's a very, very unique director, one of the few that has the vision and scope to take a big budget and make it shine on the screen. If you believe autheur-theory, he tends towards books and prewritten materials and marries them a production representation that literally bursts at the seams. I mean it. Most movies have several characters, shit-ton of special effects, but must follow formula that can be a predicted hit. Scott doesn't do that. All of his tales rely, heavily, on a source material and IT MUST BE EPIC.
We're talking David Lean and Sir Richard Attenbourough productions. Shots with thousands of people in period costumes. Movie sets that blot out the sun. Actors that are mere specks on the landscape.
Ridley came to my notice in the late 70s with the horror movie Alien. Not a positive picture. It was based on the source material of Giger, an artist. It was Ridley's last foray into space, and, well, knowing that picture, I figured that The Martian would have the same bleak outlook on space and beyond. In Alien, you had basic space-truckers that are mauled to death for being working class and the corporations just wanted to have their possible weapon. He was the one who also made Blade Runner (again, source material by Phil K. Dick), which showed a future where being human isn't really being human.
Not exactly family fare nor adult fare. Heavy topics shot in sequences that show how small we are.
But I have applauded him for his approach. Speilberg works with large components, but he tends to fawn and lull over topics, hence the term, 'Spielbergian.'
Not with Ridley.
But he has gone and done something that even I was shocked to see.
He made a big budget family film. Okay, I can't say a children's film, due to some language issues and shots of Damon's eggplant, but done in a manner that's approachable and mature. The movie is true joy.
Let me put it to you this way.
There's no punching.
There's no violence.
See, as an English teacher, we have to discuss conflicts in fiction. There are five.
And my students? They would always name the easiest one and could never, if ever, find an example of the others. Take a look and follow my thinking:
Person v person
Person v self
Person v nature
Person v society
Person v technology
Now, take a wild step, with all the public violence happening on campuses today, which on my students always could understand and identify?
Person vs. a person. Wars. Light saber battles. Star ships. Aliens bursting out of chests.
But what about a person vs themselves? The kids had a hard time with that one. How can you be in conflict with yourself?
I finally found that motion picture.
In "The Martian," Matt plays Mark Whatney, a effable botanist working on Mars when a storm hits and the crew has to abandon the mission. He gets left behind, ala Robinson Crusoe, and the movie starts. Here's the thing-the movie fills up with his humor and posititve vibes so much, it becomes evident that he won't die by suicide, that's for sure. We start to root for him.
Not only that, Ridley changes gears here. Even the bad guy, easily seen as the government and embodied by the extremely talented but massively underused Jeff Daniels as NASA director Teddy Sanders, is not really bad. He's doing his job and not wasting billions of tax payers' budgets by sending a mission back (of course, he does change his mind, or we'd not have a picture). The film is like a Robert Altman piece, bursting with star talent, even in smaller, two-line roles. However, this is one of the smaller faults. Ridley is used to grand scale. Unlike Altman, many famous names are pretty much wasted for, like, well, two lines.
But I enjoyed it, a reason to go to the movies and fill like you've been satisfied. It rekindled a certain sense of wonder, lost by going to Disney World too many times over and over again. It's so massively approachable, that I cannot think of anyone who would not enjoy such a piece.
Has it been so long? Have I really not written? That says something-oh, yeah, school started. And, as such, focus has been directed elsewhere.
Like lesson plans and my upcoming novel. I need to get that puppy done so I can start a new one with National Novel Writing Month.
And I have to do lesson plans before, well, everything.
That being the case, I have been still been on the case. I needed something, a spark, a fire to get me to write here again. I've been watching movies, to be sure, but, really, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark was...not worthy of a full review.
Outside of seeing that Katie Holmes got a job outside of her psycho husband, there was nothing to report. Sure, yes, I saw the original television movie as a kid and it scared the living crap out of me. Part of me migth have been the fact that I was a kid, but the details I remembered were pretty potent. Scared lady, small door in the new house, strange noises from behind said door. Good stuff. The fact is, the house this family lives in is TOO LARGE. It would never, ever, ever been built.
So don't waste your Netflix queue. If that's the only thing I remember from this movie, that's saying volumes.
Red State, however, you might want visit. Written and directed by auteur Kevin Smith, I've followed his career very closely. I was there and fell in love with his sense of humor, his creativity, and his ability to make dialogue that was witty and profound at the same time. I noticed a trend in his filmmaking, as he grew as a storyteller between film to film. His own daughter's plight shined in the much aligned Jersey Girl, but I could see what he was trying to do.
He was maturing (I think the film is highly underrated and it's shame). You can see him work with someone else's script with the terrible Cop Out. I watched him even act, wonderfully so, in the cute Catch and Release. You can see the artist in him grow and try different approaches and concepts and grow. You can even hear him narrate it on his SMODradio and various podcasts. He even ventured into television with the successful Comic Book Men (which, after a strong start, didn't do much else and started dying).
So it would come to pass that he would arrive at trying a different genre. This is not out of the ordinary, given today's slate of directors and the ability to be exposed to a variety of media to process. Look at Ron Howard. Actioners. Dramas. Comedies. Many are hits-more are misses. But each is unique and I like them all. Same with Rob Reiner. A very, very funny man, it shined through his creation of When Harry Met Sally; and then there was his uber horror, Misery. However, as a review and proponent of auteur theory, you have to find what makes the films the same to see what the strengths are.
Let me give you a terrific and very evident example. Alfred Hitchcock made only one movie. Again, his tales involved a loss of identify, humanity being small and impotent against the world around them (protagonists seen against huge monuments; reoccuring themes of mistaken identify), and, given some of his movies were true horror, some were pure comedy, some were actioners.
If I look at Rob Reiner, I see the same thing. Strong women who men learn to understand. Toxic relationships that take forever to resolve. Characters not understanding their immediate surroundings. You see that in all of his movies.
Kevin does it too. His so-called slackers as they appear, aren't lazy at all. They are smart, but caught up in an unbending system. Dogma's characters have to run through a prophecy. Clerks? They're all smart but cannot seem to get out of the rut their in. The conflicts tend to be hilarious, but there's a serious undertone with their undertakings.
Then there's this movie.
I cannot tell if I have pause because he isn't following his own rules or if, basically, he abandoned them. He has protagonists who have made bad hygiene choices and are throughly unlikeable. Their destruction isn't heartfelt, much like the deaths in such torture porn of Saw and Hostel. Bodies pile up in the corners of the film, but, by the fifth death, I'm not scared, nor do I feel I have any vested interest in doing so.
Is this disgust born out of his not following his own artwork? Maybe, possibly. But he didn't have to. Look at the movie Match Point by Woody Allen. His movies tend to be about the same interactions, slight, realistic comedies with soft edges. Then he made a drama about murder. It worked. Eeriely so. Smith could have left the comedy out and still had a strong picture.
The pacing is quick, and taht's good, but, again, everytime someone shows up on screen, they seem to be more target practice.
Where the films works? Because of his fame, he picked top talent. Michael Parks is something akimbo to Hannibal Lector. Melissa Leo plays his wife-and gives a character where there is a few lines. He can tell as story and, well, being able to write it as well helps.
Also? There's a potent themetic element here. Saw? Hostel? Dead teeenagers make no statements. But Kevin's intelligence on what makes headlines is profoundly evident. There are shades of the Branch Davidians and every other gun spouting church. This is topical in the horror department and a profound statement.
However, again, the pendulum swings back-and he pulls a deus machina. Have you ever seen Psycho? Movie starts strong, but then, for some reason, has a cop stand there and talk to us in the audience explaining everything-without using the camera to tell the rest of the story. Odd and a huge critique of the famed movie. Mr. Smith does the same thing here. It was too clean and there was a huge chunk of the movie that was avoided for some reason.
It was...weird.
And massively abrupt.
So? This movie plays to the middle of the road. You'll have to go and watch and tell me what you think. For me? I think Tusk might be slightly better... as a dark comedy.
