At a party/lunch/work function/bar/medical convention, a conversation is going well, but dangerous territory is broached.
The Enemy: ‘What’s your Favorite [insert media example here] of all time?’
The Victim: ‘Oh gosh, there are so many, I don’t know, I can’t think of anything, I…I guess [you blurt out the title of some widely-acknowledged lesser exponent of an artist’s creative oeuvre, ie Prince’s ‘Under the Cherry Moon’ instead of ‘Purple Rain’ or Clint Eastwood’s ‘Paint Your Wagon’ instead of ‘Unforgiven’].
YOU HAVE DIED.
My hypothesis will prove that within a certain set of predetermined enviromental factors, game will not be present.'
Socially, anyhow.
How to avoid such a fate? Where is the reset button of life?
There isn’t one, but those who aren’t willing to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!
If you had known the maneuver known (in my head) as the Reverse Highlander, this wouldn’t have happened.
Are you ready to learn it?
‘So what’s your favorite [blahblahbla] of all time?’
Step One: ‘Well, there can’t be only one.’
See what I did there?
Step One allows you time to gather your thoughts, organize, and target them instead of just shotgunning them all over the face of whoever you’re speaking with. I fully realize that the average person does not live in fear of conversational faux pas like long pauses, losing one’s train of thought or stuttering, but there’s no harm in being prepared and practicing good conversational skills.
Step Two: You’ve gathered your thoughts, and can now progress with the conversation like a stone cold orator, which if I know kids these days is every kid’s dream.
‘Of course I enjoy [Neil Gaiman’s film adaptation of Coraline/most of his books/his accent] but there can’t be only one favorite. And even though it landed heavily on the side of suck, there was something fun about his Beowulf adaptation.’
I’ve seen some amazing suggestions over the years; one idea was teaching crows to pick up trash and paying them with food, through the use of these crow-targeted ‘vending machines.’ The crow puts in a bit of trash, metal, or paper, and the machine spits out a peanut. HOW AMAZING IS THAT IDEA? People used to use animals for heavy lifting, hauling and protection; what if we used technology to put them to work cleaning up garbage or picking walnuts or something?
Man cannot live on bread alone; we need wine, cheese, tacos, pesto, ketchup, Chinese food, or sometimes just a can of Pringles.
Your brainmeats are the most important organ you have–feeding it the same old boring crap over and over leads to blandness and eventually, decreased brain function. You have to give your brains a little flavor once in a while to liven things up and get them energized. Your brain grows the same way muscles grow and get stronger–with exercise.
And one great way to flavor your delicious brainmeats is with something like the TED talks, such as this totally amazing TED video about one man’s crusade to make condoms available throughout Thailand.
How amazing was that? 13 and a half minutes of awesome. And family growth down from 7 children per household to 1.3 in twenty years! A 90% DROP in NEW HIV/AIDS CASES!
90%!!!
If you aren’t familiar with the TED talks, they are always worth checking out. They’re basically these global conferences where people go to showcase some mindblowingingly interesting idea that they need funding for. And of course, you don’t just show up with some bullshit scribbled on the back of a napkin and then pass around a bucket for pocket change. TED stands for Technology Entertainment and Design, and the people who showcase their ideas are usually people whose ideas have already borne fruit, like Mr. Viravaidya.
I’ve seen some amazing suggestions over the years; one idea was teaching crows to pick up trash and paying them with food, through the use of these crow-targeted ‘vending machines.’ The crow puts in a bit of trash, metal, or paper, and the machine spits out a peanut. HOW AMAZING IS THAT IDEA? People domesticated animals for heavy lifting, hauling and protection; what if we used technology to put them to work cleaning up garbage or picking walnuts or something? And their involvment is voluntary, and they teach their offspring and other individuals within the species the behavior; it becomes sharing culture instead of domestication.
Anyhow, the TED talks are a great way to renew your faith in humanity and give your brainmeats a little flavoring.
Mr. Viravaidya is a goddamn genius on many, many levels. Only one of them is the condom thing–
–he mentioned something about ‘labor as collateral’ for people who have bad or no credit history. This BLEW MY MIND.
Think of all the homes sitting around right now that have been foreclosed on, which are now owned by banks. Many of them are falling into disrepair, making them LESS likely to sell to a buyer who ins’t already interested in either a fixer-upper or bulldozing the whole thing in order to build a McMansion. Maybe that’s why the bank isn’t interested anyway–they’d rather get someone in who’ll bulldoze a 250k house so they can build a 4 million dollar shitbox.
But think of how many people are out of work right now, in debt to those same institutions or others. The banks could easily swap labor as collateral for loans!
You apply for a loan, you voluntarily perform some task in order to qualify for it–be it manual labor or some kind of service, and you get your money and the bank receives your services in exchange. Sure it wouldn’t be a perfect option–not everyone has services or training to swap or is able to perform physical labor, and the opportunity for exploitation is huge–but it’s at least SOME kind of option for people with no or poor credit history, so long as you’re serious. Public Works projects, like fixing up crappy schools, parks, roads, or government buildings could be an option.
Anyhoodle, I saw that video and wanted to share.
If Mr. Condom bringing birth control to Thailand isn’t your cup of tea, then just go to the TED talks search function and type in something mildly interesting to you. There’s probably a great video on it right now.
I’ve come to understand that I, as a straight woman, really dig curvy platinum blondes with great attitudes. Parton has bubbled in everything I’ve ever seen her in; maybe she doesn’t have the widest range and I’m not going to make that joke god it would be so easy but watching her in most anything is a treat. Maybe not 9 to 5, but there are other movies out there that make better use of her ASSETS! comedic timing and sparkling personality.
So much art/poetry/music has been created over lesser things than Dolly Parton. Where is her opera, her pieta, her great red dragon and the woman clothed with the sun?
It was another of those nights.
Spoiled for choice and paralyzed by indecision, I scrolled to the box for 9 to 5 and thought, ‘I remember liking this when I was 6, I’ll give it a try.’
I really, really wanted to like it, but alas.
There’s nothing overtly wrong with the movie, it’s just that the comedy is dated, Jane Fonda couldn’t make me laugh if she fed me Nitrous Oxide, and the movie’s feminist message depressed me by reminding me how little progress women have made since 1983.
Don’t believe me?
Here’s something that will blow your mind:
Many young women think that the PussyCat Dolls are about empowerment.
Taking off your clothes, writhing in your underwear, obsessing over weight and appearance and competing with each other for the attentions of men are just not what I think of when I think of female empowerment.
Photo from the historic 1918 Women's Right to Vote rally.
To be fair, I differentiate between bullshit teases like the VaginaCat Dolls (IT’S THEIR NAME!!) and sex workers. Sex workers and strippers perform an actual honest service, and they know it; their feminism is very 3rd wave, where sex is not a shameful thing, and a naked woman can be empowering. It’s complex though, you can’t just say ‘if you are a stripper you are a feminist’ because that’s faulty logic.
If the VaginaCat dolls were real whores they wouldn’t have shows on network television or sell tshirts to 12 year old girls. They’re about selling the image of sex instead of selling actual sex.
I hate that.
I hate Maxim magazine’s candy ass, giggling and sweating PG-13 version of sex. I hate that when a protagonist has sex in a movie they put on a Serious Face and look like they’re doing anything but having fun. Other people have fun during sex, laughing during quickies or falling out of closets with their drawers around their ankles, but the hero/heroine looks like they’re having their taxes done because sex is a Serious Business and if you smile then you might look stupid and SURPRISE! Sometimes people make stupid faces during sex. IT HAPPENS. Any virgins reading this will either be relieved or horrified to know that.
But back to objectifying Dolly Parton.
I’ve come to understand that I, as a straight woman, really dig curvy platinum blondes with great attitudes. Parton has bubbled in everything I’ve ever seen her in; maybe she doesn’t have the widest range and I’m not going to make that joke god it would be so easy but watching her in most anything is a treat. Maybe not 9 to 5, but there are other movies out there that make better use of her ASSETS! comedic timing and sparkling personality.
I liked the message of 9 to 5, but the comedy too often relied on ‘zany!’ setpieces and people having ‘wacky!’ reactions to things that just weren’t that worth getting excited about.
I kind of wouldn’t mind a remake with competent comedic actresses in the leads; Parker Posey, Amy Poehler, Mo’Nique, Tina Fey, Amy Sedaris, Christina Hendricks… couldn’t you see Ricky Gervais playing the Dabney Coleman role? Maybe too close to his old David Brent character, but maybe he could be a snide underling or something.
Note to self: Enjoying something in your childhood is not a guarantee you will enjoy it as an adult. You also used to eat flavored Chapsticks.
There are a handful of things that make Quigley Down Under stand out as a worthy watch: one is Tom Selleck’s somewhat rakish perfomance. Although a total good guy through and through, there are little hints that he wasn’t maybe the guy in the white hat his whole life. He has a moment where he almost leaves Cora behind, and threatens a dying man with torture.
Pretty much Magnum PI in the 1880s, but still fun.
Ignore the tag to my immediate left–Quigley Down Under is so much better than that terrible copy.
One of the more interesting premises for Westerns in the last thirty years has got to be the premise behind Quigley Down Under:
A Wyoming sharpshooter responds to an ad in the newspaper and winds up in Australia–which was undergoing its own frontier experience very similiar to the US’s Old West, complete with mass murder of the natives.
This last point is very important later on.
Basically, Quigley can shoot with pinpoint accuracy from a distance of just over 1200 yards–which is pretty goddamn impressive NOW. Back in the 19th century that was the equivalent of being pyrokinetic.
Along the way, Quigley picks up the deranged Cora, played with an effusive energy by Laura San Giacomo in an early role. She insists on calling him Roy and seems to think they have some kind of relationship.
Quigley has been on a boat from America for three months, and catches a wagon for several days’ ride into the interior to the ranch of Elliot Marsdon, played by consummate bad guy Alan Rickman–it’s kind of amazing how Rickman’s career in the 80’s was comprised of getting beaten up by American action stars, but it worked for him and he’s still cruising along now, so more power to him. I freaking LOVED him as the snide Sheriff of Nottingham in the Costner version of Robin Hood. Pure camp.
The acting may be camp, but the mustache is all business.
Here lies the gruesomeness behind what seemed to be an otherwise light-hearted film: Marsdon’s plan is to have use Quigley’s sharpshooter skills to kill the Aborigines that have been attacking his ranch–you know, the indigenous people who have been put off their native land and were slaughtered just for being there in the first place.
Let it sink it. I’ll wait.
Quigley is understandably horrified by the plan.
Marsdon’s fawning fascination in Quigley’s personal experience with the American West grosses him out further. He puts Marsdon through a window, and Marsdon has his thugs beat Quigley and drive him to the middle of nowhere and leave him for dead. Some fool has brought along Quigley’s super badass experimental rifle, an 1874 Sharp’s Buffalo Rifle, which Quigley quickly retrieves and uses to make the guy very dead.
There are a handful of things that make Quigley Down Under stand out as a worthy watch: one is Tom Selleck’s somewhat rakish perfomance. Although a total good guy through and through, there are little hints that he wasn’t maybe the guy in the white hat his whole life. He has a moment where he almost leaves Cora behind, and threatens a dying man with torture. Despite being sold as a leading man, I never really found Selleck attractive, but he has a definite charm and a disarming smile that made the character really come to life. He was just a cool guy, and made for a well-conceived, realistic hero.
The other thing that makes QDU stand out is the movie’s main conflict, and the dark subject matter explored as European expansion meant relocation or death for native peoples.
There’s a particularly gruesome moment when a small group of Aborigines, including women and children, are straight up driven over a cliff to die on the rocks below.
This isn’t fiction, or some filmmaker’s conceit.
That kind of monstrous shit really happened–the history of every nation is written in red ink, any student of history knows that, but seeing it in action, even dramatized, is enough to make one sit back and reflect on the human condition as a whole. You don’t need to stand on a street corner and scream about it, but instead let that consideration inform your decisions going forward in life. The world would be a better place, I like to think.
But we were discussing a movie.
The other gem of the film is Lara SanGiacomo’s performance as Crazy Cora, who was shipped to Australia by her husband as a punishment for a simple accident. The event left her mad, prone to erratic behavior, and insistent on calling Quigley ‘Roy.’ Her depiction of someone mentally unbalanced is refreshingly real; someone with real mental problems doesn’t hold up a little sign or provide some other shorthand to let you know when they’re crazy, so you don’t know to dismiss what they’re saying until the sign goes back down. You just have to put up with them and hope for the best.
The movie suffers, to be sure. A slightly corny ending, old school one-dimensional villains, and it isn’t sure if it wants to wander into comedy territory at times, despite dealing with some pretty heavy shit.The costumes and acting hold up well, and don’t seem dated despite the movie being 20 years old.
It’s still one worth catching though, if you find yourself on a Saturday night with a bowlful of popcorn and two hours to kill.
According to director George Kosmatos, every single mustache here and elsewhere in the cast was real. No fake mustaches were used in this movie. Believe it.
WESTERNS!
I love me some westerns.
I enjoy the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns (think 60’s, or Clint Eastwood) more than the more classic 50’s and before ones. I think it’s because I can’t see the west as just ‘Americans triumphant over the empty frontier’ because the frontier wasn’t empty, it was full of indigenous people wondering who the hell all these new, violent people were. Nevertheless, I love a Western where the hero throws down and then has a belt of whiskey after.
Since Clint Eastwood’s Ultimate in Postmodern Westernness, Unforgiven, Westerns have been few and far between, and they’ve largely been dour affairs about unforgiving landscapes, Native American genocide, and miserable people. The only exceptions to this would be the last ten minutes of 3:10 to Yuma (seriously, that last segment getting whatsisname to the train should have been the whole frigging movie), and Deadwood, which barely counts because it’s about the end of the cowboy era.
1993’s Tombstone, directed largely by Kurt Russell but credited to some other guy, is a sort of last hurrah for those classic Westerns. Although Russell’s Wyatt Earp is certainly conflicted about killing people and violence and whatnot, he and his brothers still seem like fun guys to hang with.
The Earp brothers–being Wyatt, Virgil (Elliot) and Morgan (Paxton) head for Tombstone in an attempt to give up their careers as lawmen and make an honest living working in casinos. Their attempts are complicated by the presence of a huge gang– headed by Mustache King Powers Boothe– who have moved into the town and use it like their personal playground.
Also complicating matters is Doc Holliday, played by Kilmer so awesomely that if the movie was a little better he probably would have won an Oscar.
Why yes, you ARE my huckleberry!
If you’ve already seen Tombstone, than Kilmer’s ingenious performance has probably stuck with you. Effeminate, drawling, moist with flopsweat, Kilmer presents Holliday as a man cheerfully shambling down the road to his own destruction; the real Holliday was a practicing dentist who moved out west in an attempt to lessen the affects of his tuberculosis, and there found a penchant for gunfighting and gambling, despite his very frail frame. The real man is described as being possessed of a blend of cheerful despair, probably hoping that a gunfight would kill him before the tb did. It’s a a great character: a man who goes around picking fights with strangers in an attempt to get himself killed, but who doesn’t quite have the nerve to let himself lose, either. He’s also an easy target–incredibly fey, a snappy dresser, and prone to calling people ‘hucklberries’ or ‘daisies,’ he couldn’t have drawn more attention to himself by dressing like a chicken and pinning a giant paper bullseye to his back. Like iron filings to a magnet, crazy, gun-waving scumbags are drawn to him, unable to help themselves.
It’s a testament to Kilmer’s performance that he is still attractive even while gaunt, pale, sweaty and with red circles around his eyes. He’s also the most fun thing about the movie; when he’s not onscreen, the movie is still excellent, but his presence just makes things more interesting.
With Holliday’s presence and the already belligerent troublemaking cowboys hanging about, Wyatt Earp struggles to be the man he thinks he should be, an honest faro dealer, and the man he is, a dude who’ll beat the shit out of a bad guy and can’t seem to avoid trouble. As the cowboys step up their efforts, his brothers take up the silver stars of lawmen, and he finds himself drawn in. Also complicating matters is his laudanum-addicted wife and his attraction to an actress.
Gratuitous Billy Zaneage.
Tombstone is a virtual parade of who’s who–besides the four principles, there’s also Powers Boothe, Billy Zane, Dana Delany, Thomas Haden Church, Michael Rooker, Paula Malcolmson (Trixie from Deadwood!) and even a young, pudgy Billy Bob Thornton.
Tombstone is also a weird movie. As I said, it’s one of the last remnants of the spaghetti Western, before things got all post-modern and angsty. It’s a movie where the good guys are still allowed to have fun–it seems today like the only people having fun in Westerns are the bad guys, and this might seem like an odd thing to say, but that’s just not American. We fucking well CREATED the Western, and our behatted, gunslinging heroes now are miserable, conflicted, and hate violence. No wonder Clint Eastwood hung up his spurs.
It’s not impossible to write a character who is engaging and still conflicted about his use of violence–Wolverine in the first Xmen movie comes to mind.
I hope to God that the upcoming Preacher movie understands that and gets it right. If I see Jesse Custer whining about how he has to use violence to uphold the law, I just might give up on Hollywood completely.
