Fool's Path

A broadly scoped and poorly thought out movie critique...

2010-03-08T15:53:00.002-06:00

Ha! A post! Breathing life into the blogosphere one snarky comment at a time. And yet, that would make me like so many other bloggers out there. How to stand out? How to be independent? Why not just get bent? Because I feel like sharing my opinions with the world at large, and I don't care if they get read.

I've been thinking lately about conventions (not the nerdy kind), and assumptions. Like the convention of the romantic-comedy, wherein the protagonists have a low-point, the argue, they misunderstand each other and they break up somewhere in the second act, only for the male lead to throw himself dramatically at the plot with the most hare-brained and romantic scheme possible in the third act, wooing the paramour and making all the girls in the audience sigh. I find that lame, and I've yet to see a romantic comedy (aside from No Reservations) where I actually believed the third act triumph.

There are others too that bother me. I mean, I'll always root for the underdog, I'll always prefer the anti-hero. But I feel like they've gotten over-exposed, that there is a serious lack in originality. Pick a genre even, and we get the same stories. And I know that there are only a dozen plots in existence, getting retold and reformed. But come on? Lets make an interesting movie. And by interesting movie, I don't mean something so bloody esoteric that only you and a few thousand physics geeks get it. (Primer, I'm looking at you).

And yet for all my pretentious facade, I still find myself enjoying movies like The Ugly Truth for the pieces of shallow, Hollywood fluff that they actually are. I think that's one of the reasons that The Boondock Saints became such a cult phenomenon. It has no illusions of what it is, despite director Troy Duffy's immense capability for douchebaggery. Whether or not it needed that sequel, that's a different argument. I'll save the sequel/prequel/threequel rant for later.

Alistair's Hiatus from Sensible Behavior

2008-03-22T05:17:00.005-05:00

I'm tired, but I can't sleep. Sara and Alistair are arguing in the back of my head about something inconsequential. They aren't loud enough that I can get any specifics, not soft enough that I can fully ignore, and neither of them are paying attention to me. My cowboy Hunter is off drinking whiskey in some saloon, ignoring his orders, and all the other sub-characters are off doing their own thing out my zone of attention. So what's a writer to do when his characters won't cooperate. Well, write about something else I guess.

In rereading this, I sound like a person suffering from Disassociate Personality Disorder, or whatever the new name for multiple personalities actually is. Except its just the characters in my head, living in their world, their lives unfolding. Except there's no continuity in what they tell me or show me, its all just disjointed.

And then Payne just shows up, out of the blue, smiling and holding a bloody knife, and refuses to tell me who he is or where he belongs. Fucking bastard.

A new beginning

2008-03-22T00:19:00.003-05:00

I find myself in a state of flux, in which this once there is no crucible, only decisions. And its odd not to have a crucible, to have that period of rapid, rabid and painful change that's typically associated with major change in my life.

I woke up this morning in the confines of my bed, my beautiful girlfriend doing her daily ministrations for the bed and breakfast that she works/resides at. The warmth and bliss wrapped up in her bed, her smell everywhere, it was how I'd like to wake up for the rest of my life.

The one thing that amazes me about about Zoe is her perpetually cheerful nature, something which in someone else would completely turn me off. But with her, its counter-balanced by a sense of calm, and that's what makes it appealing. She is the weight to balance the scale on some cosmic level. Optimist to my realist, but with a healthy dose of cynicism and a balanced perspective. And she has her weaknesses, but she doesn't overcompensate for them. Its very refreshing, given the terrible track record I have with relationships, to find someone that compliments me and invigorates me. And all I'll even mention about the sex life is that you should probably be jealous. But maybe I'm biased.

I'll spare the egotism for the moment and go play some video games now.