WISDOM OF THE SAGES
Episode V
MAY – SPRING 2012
Hello People of the World;
Here we are, in the fifth month of 2012: May, regularly
deemed the month for mothers as Mother’s Day is scheduled for this month.
Funny, I don’t remember my mom ever being a mom just one day a year. That’s
damn peculiar. Especially touching was that May was also my mom’s birthday
month. Happy Birthday Mom!
In other news I just returned from a trip to Minneapolis,
Minnesota, having been invited to a Native artists gathering (I know, right?) by
my niece, Missy, a filmmaker herself. It was very good to see Missy and Louis
and to meet Mike and Molly, a fun time was had by all. They talked weird up
there too, things like “inclusiveness” and “art isn’t about money” and “we”.
You know, things I never heard before from a Native Arts Community. Weird.
Anyways….
Let’s get started, shall we?
1:[ First item of the month: Okay, so, my DVD, which has been dying a slow death since
I last mentioned its troubles a year ago, has finally started to show wear and
tear. It barely plays new DVDs now, which it never had a problem with before,
while older and used DVDs took some effort and foreign or Asian DVDs just
stopped working. (Maybe my DVD player is racist??) Recently, I put in Steven
Soderberg’s “Haywire” in to play. Suddenly in the middle of the opening
sequence there was freeze-frame on the action, neat, a nice Soderberg touch,
then, BAM, jump cut back to the start, then another freeze-frame, the same
scene again. Wow, Soderberg is going all-out with the film tricks. More than
usual in the first 10 minutes.
Then it freeze-frames again and does not play any further.
Only then do I realize that it wasn’t a cadre of Soderberg tricks, but my old
DVD player was just conking out….
2:[ Here’s a cool thing I saw the
other day; a kid get on the bus this morning ahead of me. He is probably in
grade school yet. He takes his time getting his farecard out, while I have mine
at the ready. I pay with my card and follow him up the aisle the bus is already
moving and the inertia makes it hard to move forward due to the g-force of
acceleration. Then, suddenly the bus switches gears, the boy freezes then
actually allows his own inertia to carry him to the back of the bus and an open
seat. It was frickin’ cool to see him do that, to know how inertia works, to
have the presence of mind to actually come up with that. Me? I nearly toppled
over….
3:[ More MOVIE TIME ADVENTURES:
+ I went and saw THE CABIN IN THE WOODS with my buddy
Cuba. Pretty neat flick. It wasn’t anything too memorable or scary. But in the
end, I hereby declare it “Ghostbusters 3”. Hell, it even has Sigourney Weaver
in it!
+ The Avengers: or, “On why three-quels fail….”
Okay, here’s the problem I had with The Avengers. After shorting the likes of Iron Man 2, THOR and Captian
America with sped-up second halves to get here, I never really got the
sense that they were in any sort of danger. I guess they shouldn’t be, they’re
Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Loki never seemed like a viable threat and a sudden
death seemed empty and used as a device to make the threat “real”. I knew they
would win. They gave up character progress in their individual movies to get
here and the whole thing seemed…. Stock. You know?
Which is why most three-quels, or part three’s fail so
miserably. We’ve already seen the heroes save the day against the odds, twice
already. What are the chances we will see them fail on this third time? Which
confuses me about the Harry Potter series, he kept surviving, how could we not
expect him to survive once more come the last movie? (Oh, shut up about
spoilers, it’s a kids book series. Sheesh.)
That’s what I got from The
Avengers. Just a whole lot of Robert Downey Jr. acting like a smart-ass to
bland, maskless heroes. They were going to save the day anyway. I must admit, that
HULK gets a great boost from this film with a Bruce Banner played by an actor
that actually fits the role and HULK smashing it up. Too bad Cap and Thor were
played by b-team actors. Still, it was a fun ride, which is what fans want, I guess,
‘splosions, a smart-ass, ScarJo’s cleavage and Sam Jackson doing things. All in
all, an empty shell, a Faberge egg of a movie directed by the fanboy’s messiah….
I enjoyed it but am not really compelled to see it again. Which hasn’t stopped
it from becoming a huge blockbuster. Which only goes to show, the era of
serious film is over and in its place stands The Avengers, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…. Recommended.
+ DARK SHADOWS: I was never a viewer nor a fan of the old soap opera
which Time Burton and Johnny Depp base their most recent collaboration on. I
never scheduled my life around reruns or viewing of the series. I never knew
who Barnabus Collins was outside of seeing the show every now and then. I did
try to watch the 90’s remake series with Ben Cross but that was boring. So, I
approach this movie without the baggage of it being some fragile part of my
childhood and view it with an unbiased opinion that cannot be offended due to
nostalgia.
Let’s face facts, as big a fan as you claim to be, you’re
never going to shell out the cash to purchase the entire Dark Shadows series on DVD, or if you do, you’re never going to
watch with a fervor of enjoyment and discovery. It’ll just gather dust next to
your V: The Series boxset.
What we get is another fun Burton/Depp collaboration. It’s
funny, weird and goofy. Nothing new, unconventional, or original for this team
though. Depp, as you know, plays Barnabus Collins, cursed by a jilted witch
lover and buried for nearly 200 hundred years only to be dug up in the 1970’s.
Much of the movie is play for the laughs of a fish out of time scenario. But
the story kept my interest and the humor wasn’t over the top or corny. Michelle
Pfeiffer is beautiful and the rest of the cast is well used. I am starting to
get a creepy vibe every time Hit Girl gets cast…. Fanboys are weird in their
attractions.
Not a great movie, certainly not better than The Avenger,
(I guess…) but fun and expected film from Burton and Depp, one of these days
they will collaborate on something really different and special…. I’ll keep an
eye out. Recommended
+ Lately, my Bonnie and I have been
watching more grown-up fare with our Boo. She seems to have gotten an interest
in some really good movies of late. Interest sparked no doubt by her big
sister’s own interest in films. (Sam has so far absconded with my The Godfather, [Which Sam proclaim was
great] The Godfather Part Two, Citizen
Kane and Blade Runner DVD. Char,
has viewed with Bon and I, The Silence of
the Lambs, Eastwood’s J. Edgar,
Nolan’s Inception, and Wayne Wang’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Boo will
immediately dissect the films, talking about performance, even make-up effects
and story elements; a real critic in the making. It just gladdens my heart to
see these two really dig into movies beyond their years and really understand
and have the ability and intelligence to critique them….
+ So, I am catching a couple of
film events coming soon. It seems that Citizen
Kane is playing next month in Evanston. Considered the greatest American
film ever, it is always great to see it on the bog screen. Also, Rifftrax will
be broadcasting a new film in August. Both seem like a perfect chance to take
El Trio out to the flicks, since it seems that their tastes are maturing….
4:[ Cuba Talk: So, one more thing about C2E2, Cuba and I perused the
many, many, MANY vendors there at the con. I peek around for cool Batman
figures or a trade paperback or back issue I missed and might find on sale. One
of the funniest things is discovering all the really weird and outright disturbing
action figures that are put out for the public and then never get sold. Last
year, we found PLATOON, action figures, for real. Why PLATOON, one of the most
important film on the experience of US soldiers in Vietnam ever made and we
have to have action figure because there was boom-boom-‘spolsions, soldiers
saying cool soldier shit and shoot ‘em up action in it. Sheesh. We should grow
the f*ck up, you know?
So, this year, while looking for an “Incredibles” tee
shirt for my Char, Cuba asks me what the best action out there is. My response:
the Rocky IV Ivan Drago Action Figure. Think about it. There would only be one
mold, with Drago in red or yellow, no other variation. Plus, it’s rare too,
why? Who the fuck knew they made Rocky IV action figures. No, they made action
figures for ALL the Rocky movies with all kinds of variations, Rocky in street
clothes, training clothes, boxing robe, pre-beat-up Rocky, and beat-up Rocky,
and that’s just the first movie! Cuba wondered about the Clubber Lang to which
I assured him there are variants (as we say in the biz…) of Clubber Lang.
Still, I have not seen Pet Store Adrian or Ghost Mickey
figures yet, but I’m sure they’ll have them. My pick is Drago for sheer
rarity….
5:[ Ah yes, settle in Readers for
more of:
Adventures
at the Coffee Shop!
+ Why do stupid people still park
in the handicapped space or in the restricted space next to it? Just to get a
damn refill….
+ Recently, I was reminded of why I
stop coffee at 4:00pm. Over the past few months I have been pretty good about
getting to sleep early. Well, early for me. The other day I was late getting to
my usual coffee haunt and risked a cup of coffee since it was around 4:15pm.
The coffee was soo good that day as they were serving the light roast that day
that after that cup I stupidly ordered a refill. Geez. Maybe I’m just old but I
was up until 4:00AM that night. The crappy thing was that I had to be into work
early the next day, as I had to get to 60th for a presentation.
Sheesh….
+ I have met my first barista
friend, a young lady from a writing group I co-facilitate. For all my jawing
about the terrible help at the coffee shop, she represents the other side of
that. Which will be cool and interesting, I think….
6:[ Have you heard about this new
thing called “Urban Mushing”? Basically, folks who can, tie their malamutes to
harness and have them drag their worthless carcasses around the park on wheeled
sleds. The idea is that “sled dogs” still need to exercise in the presribed
servitude toward their masters, we humans demand, because in the end, it’s
really about our amusement. Sure, the dogs are well watered and they do not
sled on warm days to keep the dogs from overheating, but still, they’re dragging
your ass around on a cart…. Sheesh….
7:[ And now Wisdom of the Sages
presents:
“An Ever-growing List of Things That MUST
Stop!”
+ What really needs to stop is all
those dumb people running down the bus after it has pulled away and the driver
stops for them. Then, they don’t even have their farecards out. They flop
around looking for it. Sheesh, why don’t you just wait there at the bus stop,
another bus will always show up….
+ Another thing that must stop is
how drivers don’t stop at the STOP sign. They slow, tap the brakes and then
roll out into oncoming traffic. Man, this sense of self-entitlement has really
gotten out of hand….
+ I agree with my Bonnie when she
says that wearing those stupid winter caps in the summer needs to stop. Damn,
hipsters. You know they f*cking ruined the words “Cool” and “Ironic” for
everyone. Those stupid little scarves need to stop too. You’re not that cool,
nor that cold to wear one. Just, stop it with the stupid winter hats, all
right?
+ Look, I will defend bicyclists
riding in the street to my last breath, should it come to that, but you know
what needs to stop? Putting your f*cking bicycles on the front of the CTA
busses and carrying them onto trains. Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of
having a frickin’ bike to begin with? Oh, but it’s too far for you to bike?
Aww. Then just use the frickin’ bus or train in the first place.
Sorry, if you’re putting your bike on the rack on the
front of the bus, you’re not doing sh*t for the environment. You just want to
look like you are doing something….
8:[ I have never been a big fan of
the Beastie Boys, hell, I would venture to say that I was NEVER a fan of the
Beastie Boys. I offered the reasons why in this blog some time ago. To recap
simply, the overplaying of “Fight for your Right” turned me off. Still, that
does not mean I did not respect their output. They were critically lauded and
commercially successful, a meaningful balance in our society. I also respected,
very much so, their social activism. The recent passing of Adam Yauch (MCA) of
the Beastie Boys provided me another chance to regret not being a fan. It is
sad to hear of such a dedicated activist and artist passing on and I lament
never being able to hear them live. Rest in Peace, Adam.
Speaking of things I was never a fan of. Maurice Sendak’s
recent passing sent shockwaves throughout the nation. Singularly famous for
“Where the Wild Things Are”, Sendak acquired notoriety also for advocating that
we should not sugarcoat the world for children. In that, I think, we shared
common ideals.
However, I will admit now that I was never a fan of nor
inspired by that book. Sure, we had it in the house and it was read to me more
than once, but I can never remember ever going back to it as inspiration or as
a favorite. Still, he was a giant in the literary world. Few other books are
widely recognized as “Where the Wild Things Are” and that is quite an
accomplishment on its own.
Once more, of things I was never a big fan of, Donna
Summer just passed away from cancer. She was considered the Queen of Disco,
which is a pretty limiting title if you think about it. But, I respect her
contributions to the world of music. Another great artist leaving us too soon….
9:[ From the “This Just In” Department: Oh my God! TIME Magazine Cover image has
destroyed the world! Panic! Mass hysteria! BLAAB! Every one has an opinion;
especially, those who don’t even have kids! Sheesh. Here’s what that image
means to me: bupkiss. It is meant to divide us along the lines of opinion and
we all fucking fell for it. I don’t care how a parent raises a child as long as
they do it with love and patience.
But what really makes me laugh is the hypocrisy of “I hate
‘Extreme Parenting’ because it coddles the child. So, how am I supposed to
explain this image to my child?” Sheeeeit, you’re coddling your stupid kid right
there. Leave them alone and they’ll figure out. A mother cannot breastfeed her
child as she sees fit because you don’t want to talk to your sh*tty child for
five minutes? Give me a break….
10:[ Last Item of the Month: It turns out, that on the way over to
Minneapolis, by bus (yuck) I so happened to lose my little MP3 player to the
travel gods. It was a sweet gift from my Char filled with all my awesome music.
I was so sadden by it because it was a gift. It reminded me of all those
touchstones to my Wyoming past that I’ve had to let go of while traveling home
and points in-between and beyond. Well, it might be fun to get a new one and
restock it again. Really people, sometimes, you just need to let some sh*t go….
You know?
That will do it for this month.
Sorry for the pockets full of delay but I have been mighty
distracted of late. Many things are happening and many changes are in store
that I had to get going on all those things in lieu of writing WoS on a
consistent basis. Still, I hope this edition finds you well.
As always, you are invited to correct, contradict or
comment on anything I post here; a sort of freedom of retort, so to speak. I
usually do not respond to responses because I figure it is more important for
you to get your two-cents in rather than I massaging my ego with witty rejoinders.
Until Next Time, “I try to show the schemers how pathetic
their attempts to control everything really are.”
© 2012 Ernest M. Whiteman III
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