Like a loving cat bringing home a mangled bird corpse, I bring you this:
Five movies that will enrich your life immensely and make your friends appreciate you more.
1) The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th dimension - As a young child I loved this movie greatly, it played a major part in creating the ideal of "cool" in my fresh and impressionable mind. The hero wasn't some imperfect alcoholic struggling with decisions, making moral judgments. NO! He was the epitome of cool, given it was an 80s cool, but cool none the less. Brilliant, cool under pressure, on the cutting edge of fashion. And this was the first movie to set the "Aliens as Rasta dudes" trend. My favorite part was the alien guy pulling on the jelly teat-like appendages in order to drive the giant meatball.
2) Ishtar - Technically this movie was a flop (as was Buckaroo Banzai), but it features all the good stuff you expect from an 80s action buddy adventure. Think Lawrence of Arabia meets Seinfeld. Hilarious dialogue and wacky situations make for a good time: I want to buy a blind camel! HA! My sister and I would play out the vultures in the desert scene every time we had a huge expanse of sand to crawl around in. And not to mention Isabelle Adjani... For you folks out there that are drawn to her like a dung beetle to a campfire: let's just say it'll do for you what the alien pulling on the jelly teat-like appendages did for me, as a young boy.
3) The Fifth Element - In my personal opinion, this movie is the cream of the cream of Luc Besson's repertoire. The first time I saw this movie I really wasn't impressed, but what did I know, I was just some lame teenager. I saw this movie again later on in life and I really enjoyed it. I got all the quick one liners and appreciated the most excellent vision of the future that it portrays. If you enjoy the technicalities of films then this is a really tight movie. Layers of details and the different story lines come together to make it a great film. And for all you fashionistas: Jean-Paul Gaultier did the costume design work, and while you're watching try and guess who's a model and who's an actor! Really a great movie and one of my all time favorites, I really think this could have been the new Star Wars, instead of those horrible new Star Wars'.
4) Last Tango In Paris - I think this is one of Marlon Brando's (May the blessing of Jah the most High be upon him) best roles. The dialogue is absolutely outstanding, some of the best writing I've heard yet, and I think a lot of it was improvised. It's got everything (and probably a little more) you could possibly want from a Euro flick. Wild cut scenes of the movie within a movie. Long soliloquies in a foreign language. An overwhelming sense of laissez faire malaise (Parlez Vous?) smeared all over it. I love this movie because the French avant-garde parts are really French. The American one-linerism is really American. And the absurdity of the "let pretentious art fall flat on it's face" Italian surrealism brings it all together. If none of that made any sense then your BS detector is set on high. But seriously, this movie will get a response out of you one way or t'other. I personally think that this is such a great comedy (Commedia dell'arte if you will) that those with less finely tuned comedic feelers will view this strictly as a tragedy. I mean come on! "I want you to smell the dying farts of the pig"! Don't tell me you wouldn't giggle a little bit at that!
5) John Carpenter's The Thing - As far as science fiction movies go this is one of the best ones. The special effects are great non-cgi. The plot is suspenseful and thrilling, and it will leave you questioning which of your friends are human. But it has more than just that: It is also an excellent filmographic treatise on human nature. Throughout the film there is an underlying revelation of our desire to push ourselves as humans almost to the brink of destruction to better know what we are(you really should turn down your BS detector). The ending is left open, but in my opinion it is a fitting end to the discussion: Only a human that isn't infected by the hyper-survivalist alien thing would take a drink of alcohol. It's a very artful and subtle balance between leaving an opening and firmly closing the book that makes this movie one of my top picks. Plus it has Wilford Brimley!
Friday, May 23, 2008
Sunday, May 04, 2008
The Chaubwegee Chronicles 2250: The Legend of the Great Editor Pt. 1
I walked down Main St. just past the library in the ancient capital of the NWO, Orange, Old New Jersey. I had just finished conducting business with a client. She had searched for decades for an authentic Dr. Henry Jones Kotobukiya figurine from early in the millenium. I had three(thanks to my connections at the Revered and Most Holy Council of Chaub Wegee). She paid handsomely for the figurine and after I had paid my business fees to the Beloved Council of Chaub Wegee, I made about 17,462.58 Yuan. Enough to finally get me a liter of gasoline to extend my life by another 3 years beyond capacity.
I rounded the corner to Lincoln avenue when I heard shuffling in the dark alley behind the Post Office. I pointed my middle finger at the void and scanned with my SuperMegaBlackBerry. The reading came back as two humans with 33% Methcrackoine content combined. At those levels they were probably just spammers or Myspace tweakers. I continued on, as I passed I heard them moving.
"Hey, how old are you?" one asked in a raspy rattle. Awww CRAP!!!! "What ethnicity would you say that you identify with the most?" the other one chimed in in perfect sequence. I started to run without looking back, I knew what they were.
"Would you like to take a quick survey? It will only take 2 minutes!" the raspy one yelled out picking up his speed in pursuit.
"We just want to ask about your satisfaction level!" the other yelled.
Advertisers. The dregs of society. And these were the lowest of the low: Focus Groupies. In the year 2012 all advertising had been banned when extensive global research and the subsequent proofs from the knowledge base of the Alien Overlords showed that there were no direct correlations between sales and advertising. Most of them found quasi-validation as bloggers and "educationalists", but the majority slithered into the underworld with the Mole People or out into the vast wastelands of New North Canada and Minnekotia. Out there they formed large bands that roamed the countryside compiling databases and demographics info, sending Hunter/Seeker teams into civilization to update their files and mailing lists. "We would like to know what radio stations you listen to!" old Raspy asked again hoping that I would stop just enough for them to water-board answers from me. I knew their game, after they had squeezed out all the useless information from me, they would drill out my brain to ensure that nobody else got the info and that there were no duplications in their system.
My training at the Revered Chaub Wegee Academy had only reached Simple Disarming and Completing the Sale techniques. I hadn't yet been given clearance in deadly hand to hand close quarters combat. I ran down an alley hoping to lose them, only to discover that it was a dead end. I turned around and pushed my back against the wall. I wasn't going down without a fight.
They stopped a few yards from me. Raspy pulled out a drill while his partner rolled back the sleeves of his pink Armani shirt. "We give you coupon at end of survey," Raspy wheezed out. His partner tittered and stared at my head with googley eyes.
Just then I heard glass breaking above me.
"That's: We will give you coupons at the end of this survey!" I heard an angry and fed up voice scream down. A blur came crashing down on Raspy, crushing his body and ruining his wool three-piece suit and throwing his trendy retro style eyeglasses by my left foot. I saw a flash of steel and Raspy's friend flopped to the ground in two halves.
I looked at the hulking mass before me. It was mostly machine parts but I could see the basic outline of a human form.
"They was gonna kill me..." I blubbered. "They WERE going to kill you," it corrected me as it turned around and pointed a huge sword at my face. My eyes went from the tip of the blade, to the cybernetic arm, to the piercing eyes. I looked down and saw that it wore a name tag. Hello, my name is... "RENGRI" was scrawled in blood red.
"It's YOU..." I whispered in awe.
I rounded the corner to Lincoln avenue when I heard shuffling in the dark alley behind the Post Office. I pointed my middle finger at the void and scanned with my SuperMegaBlackBerry. The reading came back as two humans with 33% Methcrackoine content combined. At those levels they were probably just spammers or Myspace tweakers. I continued on, as I passed I heard them moving.
"Hey, how old are you?" one asked in a raspy rattle. Awww CRAP!!!! "What ethnicity would you say that you identify with the most?" the other one chimed in in perfect sequence. I started to run without looking back, I knew what they were.
"Would you like to take a quick survey? It will only take 2 minutes!" the raspy one yelled out picking up his speed in pursuit.
"We just want to ask about your satisfaction level!" the other yelled.
Advertisers. The dregs of society. And these were the lowest of the low: Focus Groupies. In the year 2012 all advertising had been banned when extensive global research and the subsequent proofs from the knowledge base of the Alien Overlords showed that there were no direct correlations between sales and advertising. Most of them found quasi-validation as bloggers and "educationalists", but the majority slithered into the underworld with the Mole People or out into the vast wastelands of New North Canada and Minnekotia. Out there they formed large bands that roamed the countryside compiling databases and demographics info, sending Hunter/Seeker teams into civilization to update their files and mailing lists. "We would like to know what radio stations you listen to!" old Raspy asked again hoping that I would stop just enough for them to water-board answers from me. I knew their game, after they had squeezed out all the useless information from me, they would drill out my brain to ensure that nobody else got the info and that there were no duplications in their system.
My training at the Revered Chaub Wegee Academy had only reached Simple Disarming and Completing the Sale techniques. I hadn't yet been given clearance in deadly hand to hand close quarters combat. I ran down an alley hoping to lose them, only to discover that it was a dead end. I turned around and pushed my back against the wall. I wasn't going down without a fight.
They stopped a few yards from me. Raspy pulled out a drill while his partner rolled back the sleeves of his pink Armani shirt. "We give you coupon at end of survey," Raspy wheezed out. His partner tittered and stared at my head with googley eyes.
Just then I heard glass breaking above me.
"That's: We will give you coupons at the end of this survey!" I heard an angry and fed up voice scream down. A blur came crashing down on Raspy, crushing his body and ruining his wool three-piece suit and throwing his trendy retro style eyeglasses by my left foot. I saw a flash of steel and Raspy's friend flopped to the ground in two halves.
I looked at the hulking mass before me. It was mostly machine parts but I could see the basic outline of a human form.
"They was gonna kill me..." I blubbered. "They WERE going to kill you," it corrected me as it turned around and pointed a huge sword at my face. My eyes went from the tip of the blade, to the cybernetic arm, to the piercing eyes. I looked down and saw that it wore a name tag. Hello, my name is... "RENGRI" was scrawled in blood red.
"It's YOU..." I whispered in awe.
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