The Medicine Times

2008-07-30T23:32:00.005-04:00

"25 mg"

Since my previous entry I've:

A.) Moved one town over.
B.) Moved in with my girlfriend.
C.) Edited an independent feature film.
D.) Gone on tour.
E.) Been appointed lead editor on 3 or 4 different projects.

and yet I wouldn't call myself accomplished or happy. I lay awake almost every night thinking I should be doing more and worrying about everything that I'm not doing.

Some common complaints of my brain are:

A.) You're 26 and you haven't finished a feature script yet.
B.) You haven't won any awards for anything film related since 2004.
C.) You drive a Hyundai.
D.) You are completely dependent on depressants just to feel level.
E.) You are fat and annoying.
F.) You're getting old and your youth experiences are fading fast.
G.) You find fault with the film industry, the political left, and the independent music scene because you are a fucking hack.
H.) You're parents think you're a drunk.
I.) You don't deserve a beautiful, patient, and intimidatingly intelligent girlfriend.
J.) You don't own a dog, and you probably shouldn't own a plant.
K.) People your age know more about useless elitest bullshit like mid-century furniture, and modern art than you could ever hope to.
L.) Total dick crippling agoraphobia is just around the corner.

What does it all mean? Suicide?

You may remember me talking about something called Sertraline a while back. Well for those of you who forgot; Sertraline is the generic term for a happy little drug known as Zolofft. You may also remember I attempted to switch from Zolofft to Wellbutrin a few months back and went through a series of hilariously tragic nervous breakdowns.

Well on those few days on tour I frequently forgot to take my Sertraline and as a result was pretty strange by the time I got home. I also realized after a mad dash of pill gobbling that Sertraline not only completely kills my sex drive, but also makes me one cranky and temperamental bastard.

Now cranky tempermental bastardism runs in my family, I mean, we're Irish for fucks sake, but Sertraline gives me the super strength to dedicate to unnecessary punching, screaming, swearing, obsessing, and other things people from the Celtic tradition are prone to.

After pondering whether or not this level of annoyance was based on genetics or driven by my hair is turning grey and my industry being a sea of self congratulatory nepotists who won't give a newcomer a shot, I decided that it was time for a change regardless.

The extreme crankiness mixed with the all but extinct sex drive was reason enough to quit SSRIs until my next horrendous existential crisis. Unfortunately I lost my doctor's phone number and finding it via Google is beyond the first page of results, so I'm doing this on my own.

I started by splitting each 50mg pill in half and taking one dose of "25mg" a day. So far things seem fine. After a regimen of this for two weeks I hope to purchase a pill cutter and cut each pill into fifths. At which point I will limit myself to "10 mg" a day for two weeks. Then I will be cutting pills into tenths and taking a mere "5 mg" a day. Finally I will be taking no pills and will thus be clean and hopefully having lots of sex, and relaxing in traffic.

Now I know you must be asking "How the hell are you going to cope with withdrawal? I've heard that SSRI withdrawal is worse than opiate withdrawal." Well listen up you lucky Seratonin saturated dick head, here's my plan.

I quit Lexapro cold turkey a few years back and it was FUCKING CRAZY. I mean, really, really weird, physically painful, and mentally terrifying. If possible I'd like to avoid that this time around.

I'm hoping that with a staggered phasing out of Sertraline, a heavy reliance on good old country cure alls like alcohol and marijuana, an abundance of Simpsons DVDs, a patient girlfriend, a gym membership, and a supreme abundance of graphic novels that this transition will be relatively pain free.

Now I could have gotten a prescription for something like Xanax if my doctor's phone number was more readily available, but to be honest, fuck that, he doubted me when I cited side effects for Zolofft and withdrawal symptoms from other SSRIs. He has no idea. Drug company stooge.

2008-03-25T16:31:00.007-04:00

"My Stomach is a Pharmacy"

After a few horrifying weeks of withdrawal and paranoia I'm happy to say that things are still a gigantic fucking mess in my skull.
These new drugs either don't work or they specialize in making the user so anxiety-ridden that they are forced to confront the false conspiracies that aren't really occurring around them (or are they?).
So here are some of my favorite thoughts from the past few weeks:

SITUATION: A car slowly passes me twice in an empty supermarket parking lot across the street from my friend's apartment. When I return to my car to get something the car is sitting still and shining its headlights onto my friend's doorstep.
CONCLUSION: Undercover cops and/or government agents and/or angry enemies of my friends have arrived to do horrible things to us all.

SITUATION: On a three lane road, two black SUVs pull up on either side of me and we all run parallel for about 1/10th of a mile. We are heading for a bridge.

CONCLUSION: I am about to be the random car on the bridge during a heavy firepower high octane prison break/drug deal with helicopters/government sponsored assassination, and thus will be killed.

SITUATION: At the supermarket today, as I use the self scanner, a surly man passes by and we lock eyes.
CONCLUSION: Great. Now I have to kill someone tonight.

SITUATION: Eating a slice of pizza in a nearby grease joint. The cheese on said pizza is especially sloppy.
CONCLUSION: Here comes the nuclear firestorm.

These wonder drugs also make constant sounds, like a train passing or an air conditioner humming, fluctuate. This might not seem like a big deal, but such an agressive fluctuation causes a significant ammount of disorientation and may result in serial pet murder and/or runing to the arms of the sweet salvia plant for relief.

I count my first world blessings that At I have a prescription the world's craziest legal drug, Ambien, to make the screaming stop long enough for me to get cooked and sleep well.

2008-03-22T11:02:00.008-04:00

Bad Movies

Is it just me or are movies getting worse?

I know a lot of film nerds like myself went around saying 2007 was a great year for movies. We're right too... Kind of. In some ways it was, but I've seen a few disasters lately that are making me reconsider.

Sure, '07 brought us instant classics like "No Country For Old Men", "There Will Be Blood", and a few other films that were rife with memorable characters, quotable dialogue, and enough existential terror to make Errol Morris blush.But on the other hand 2007 also blessed us with a whole bunch of effects heavy shit-messes like "Hitman" and "I Am Legend", which brings us to our reviews for the week.
OK. I was going to review "Hitman" the movie based on a videogame based on a movie, but honestly what is the fucking point. In short, "Hitman" is a mess, and even if you watch it drunk it's not very good. The script is garbage, the acting is terrible, and the plot is so ridiculous that it makes "I Am Legend" look rational.
I did a bunch of drugs last night and watched "I Am Legend" and it still was a piece of garbage. Yes folks it's true, the voice talents of Mr. Mike Patton (Fantomas, Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom... He does the voices of all the monsters) couldn't save this piece of fuck.

If you didn't know, "I Am Legend" is based on the book of the same name which was famously made into "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston.
"The Omega Man" went on to be parodied by both The Simpsons and The Family Guy (no way!)and has what very well may be the worst musical score in film history. Seriously. You need to hear this piece of shit. It's awesome.

Back on track. Let me start by saying "I Am Legend" has some of the absolute WORST special effects I have seen since I watched Mortal Kombat: Annihilation once when I was home sick from school.
The monsters, the abandoned streets of NYC, the fucking deer (and at one point the dog) all look so fake you'd think you were playing "Ground Zero Texas". There's one scene in the movie that is obviously a total render, and looks worse or as bad as most of the effects in a Sega CD game.

This is unacceptable. If Hollywood is going to keep focusing on effects extravaganzas and ignoring good storytelling then at least the effects should be good. Go back and watch "John Carpenter's: The Thing" or "Ghostbusters".

Is it just me or were these effects a whole lot more convincing than the shit H-wood is churning out 20 years later?

On top of the that, the filmmakers took a very interesting concept; the cure for cancer mutates into a super disease and kills (almost) everyone on earth, deforming the rest, and leaving a small handful of survivors to fend for themselves, and did EVERYTHING THEY POSSIBLY COULD TO FUCK IT UP.

Don't get me wrong, "I Am Legend" has its moments. Really. There was one that I loved... LOVED. But overall the movie is just one big self important mess that seemingly has NO IDEA what themes it is attempting to explore.

My biggest complaint (and boy oh boy is this nitpicky) is that at one point Will Smith mentions Bob Marley to a fellow survivor and she has no clue who Bob Marley is. REALLY? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? Not only does she not know who Bob Marley is, but to compound this completely unbelievable moment she actually KNOWS who Damien Marley is!!!!!! COME ON!!!!! Who wrote this? A fucking mental patient? Everyone who has ever heard of anything that has to do with Jamaica, Reggae, or Rastafarianism KNOWS who the fuck Bob Marley is. OK, I'd even venture to say that anyone who has ever heard music knows who the fuck Bob Marley is ESPECIALLY if they know who Damien is.

At this point this movie totally lost me. I was hanging on, ignoring the terrible effects, and some of the increasingly cheesed out dialog, but no mas. I simply couldn't take it seriously after such lazy fucking writing.

Keep in mind, "I Am Legend" was in production hell for at least ten years. In fact, Governor Schwarzenegger was originally supposed to play the role that went to Will Smith. This is never a good sign, which is why I'm kind of terrified of the new Indiana Jones.

Throw in one of the worst endings I have seen in a long time, and you have a recipe for one terrible movie going experience that no amount of prescription narcotics can save you from.

UPDATE: Here is the original ending that the studio took a shit over because lame red-staters can't deal with a downer or any sort of interesting commentary. It doesn't save this piece of shit, but its certainly better than the one I saw. You may recognize one of the shots FROM THE TRAILER. Meaning this was probably a real 11th hour replacement.

2008-03-14T16:21:00.006-04:00

Medicine.

This is Zoloft.
More accurately its Sertraline which is the generic version of Zoloft for cheap shit-bags like me.

Sertraline helps me to not obsess over the eventual heat death of universe, and how it will more than likely kill me and my adorable dog...
It also makes me more asexual than Morrissey, much to the disappointment of my beautiful girlfriend.

So I decided to make the ol' switch to a fancy new drug called Welbutrin.
More accurately, I made the switch to Buproprin. Once again this is the Wal-Mart version of the aforementioned. It's bright blue and thus very tempting to curious children. As a bonus it causes seizures like mad, so your kids are in for some fun if they accidentally sneak into your medicine cabinet.
A few years back I was on this little fucker; Lexapro. Back then I shelled out the dough for the non-generic because I had a stable job that made me want to rip my dick off. I also had health insurance. Imagine that.

One day I decided to quit Lexapro cold turkey because I stopped showering, wore a bandanna around my neck, and my His Hero Is Gone records told me too. What I went through during the two or three weeks that the drug was leaving my system was something like complete and total psychosis mixed with hyper accelerated paranoia. Very fun.

Fast forward to yesterday; two days off Sertraline, two days on Buproprin, and no weed in sight.

Perhaps I should explain what is happening in my brain right now. My seratonin levels have bottomed out as the Sertraline gets the fuck out of my system, BUT the Buproprin hasn't had the chance to build itself up yet. Thus, I'm in a very similar state to what I went through two years ago.

To add bullshit to chaos this cluster-fuck of short term insanity hit me when I was at my local Trader Joes loading up on vegetarian eats with the rest of the guilt ridden liberals.
Luckily, the Joe's near my apartment is one that sells really cheap booze. So I loaded up my basket with Newcastle and Soy Nuggets and got the fuck out of there without looking anyone in the eye.
I know from experience that I find alcohol delicious and effective in dealing with temporary chemical withdrawal. So I guzzled nine or ten drinks, calmed my ass down, and watched Mission Impossible III, though I was yelling about Scientology through most of it.

Needless to say I woke up this morning hung over as hell and spent most of the day locked in my apartment listening to podcasts.

The things we humans will do for sex. So very interesting.

If you want a more coherrent story, you'll have to wait until the suicidal madness subsides. Dick.

2008-03-12T11:36:00.006-04:00

Trailers, 3/12

It's raining out and my piece of shit car is in the shop. That means today I'm going to sit around, drink burnt coffee, and watch movie trailers.

1. GET SMART, directed by Peter Segal
Usually I hate when some near bankrupt studio decides to farm old TV shows for modern gold, and I'm sure Pete Segal's "Get Smart" will be no exception.

In fact, lets take a look at the industries' track record thus far on similar projects; The Coneheads, McHale's Navy, Dennis The Menace, SWAT, The Mod Squad, Sargent Bilko.... Thats all I can think of at the moment and all of those flicks sucked two dog dicks. Moving on.

Here we have Alan Arkin, The Rock, Anne Hathaway, and Steve Carell running around in hilarious spy fashion while getting into all sorts of spy-like-hilarity.

"Get Smart" looks like a typical action/comedy, but I've got to give points to the casting of Carell and Arkin. They may save this one from being just another forgettable ATM machine for the midsummer down season.

Also, points to whoever did the casting for putting the fat guy from Borat in the movie. Whenever he is on screen I feel special because I've seen his entire nut sack AND because said nut sack put a nation full of frat boys in a wonderfully awkward position where they had to reassure their friends, loved ones, and children that "just because I saw that guy's balls doesn't mean I'm gay, dude."

watch it here.

2. THE HAMMER, directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfield
Adam Carolla seems like a really cool guy. In fact, he's made a hell of a career selling that down-to-earth-fun-to-drink-a-beer-with-dude-sort-of-dude thing to Americans. Sure, he was responsible for that piece of shit The Man Show, but we can't hold that against him forever.

Wait a minute? Remember the man show? Man did that thing suck. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be ironic or what, but I couldn't stand that fucking piece of garbage. Maxim Magazine, Spike TV , The Man Show... This is why women around the world think American men are meat heads who don't care about anything that isn't shiny and doesn't have big big titties. Oh wait... Thats pretty dead on. Shit. Man did I hate high school.

Anyway, "The Hammer" looks like something you'd see at a film festival. A small "nice" character driven indie film that doesn't really break any ground or challenge anything, but has its moments. Adam Carolla, like Norm McDonald, seems to have a problem playing anyone but himself, but maybe that's all we need him to be.

watch it here.

3. INDIANA JONES and the KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL,
directed by Steven Spielberg
Incredibly long titles are back in vogue, and now so is Indiana Jones. Apparently Harrison Ford decided to take a break from acting in some of this century's worst pieces of shit (Firewall, Hollywood Homicide, K-19) and from being completely insane in order to once again work alongside Spielberg and Lucas.

Let me be very frank, I love Indiana Jones movies and I really hope this one doesn't suck. The Last Crusade came out when I was in third grade, and I've probably seen it more times than any other movie. If this thing ends up being lame I'm going to be pissed.

Here's what the movie has going for it; SPIELBERG, this guy is still cooking. Munich was a fucking masterpiece. If you don't think so you are completely insane. He still prefers lo-fi effects ESPECIALLY for IJ movies in order to maintain a visual style. This is incredibly important because a fully rendered scene a la' Yoda Vs. Christopher Lee in Attack of The Clones would completely ruin the film, no exceptions. Sure, Spielberg has made some bad films, but for the most part I'll see any movie he makes, and find something worth liking within. He makes his editor cut the old fashioned way for fucks' sake. You've got to respect that.

watch it here.

4. IRON MAN, directed by Jon Favreau
I hate nu-metal. What a worthless genre of music. Also, thank fuck Audioslave broke up. What an awful band. This brings me to my only fear for this movie. I don't want it to turn out to be a nu-metal-comic-book-guy-fest like the horrendous mess that was "Ghost Rider". Holy shit, now that was a bad movie. If they taught classes on how to make a miserable fuckmess of a film "Ghost Rider" would be at the heart of all study and review.

Now I'm a comic book guy, so I'm predisposed to enjoy these things. Hell, I even kind of liked X3. Yes, I recognize that giving any support to anything Brett Ratner touches is blasphemy and for that I apologize. I even enjoyed the Ghost Rider trailer, because I'm an idiot, and I enjoy this one too, because marketing works on me.

There are a lot of things working against this trailer; nu-metal, fully artificial actors (think Spider-Man and the previously mentioned Star Wars prequels), some dialog thats a bit too clever/cute, and the WAY TOO OBVIOUS inclusion of the Black Sabbath classic jam "Iron Man".

But there's a lot of positives too; the competent direction of Jon Favreau, an awesome cast including Robert Downey Jr., and (one of my personal favorites) Terrance Howard, and of course the fact that the movie has anything to do with comic books.

The PC guy in me sincerely hopes they didn't make the bad guy an Islamic terrorist in an effort to modernize the story. This country doesn't need any more propaganda than it already gets on a daily basis through every other medium. Stay away from my comic books you pigs.

watch it here.

5. WALL-E, directed by Andrew Stanton
WALL-E is here to remind us that Disney is "so over" hand drawn 2-D animation.

Thats my snob moment, I promise.

WALL-E looks pretty great honestly. Yes, Pixar is a money machine, yes Disney is evil, hates our troops, and supports the Republican party, but when they want to they can make some pretty great family films.

This one in particular interests the hell out of me because there is almost NO dialog in the trailer and its still entertaining as hell. Also, the story seems to be sort of Lorax in nature, and I'm always into children's films with strong social messages. It's important to spoon feed your children the correct propaganda nice and early so they grow up to start crust bands. Crust bands that you will love and profit from by hocking their limited colored vinyl releases.

Remember. Your children are an investment and a tool. Use them wisely and you will come out on top.

watch it here.

2008-03-11T19:27:00.001-04:00

"Good God Y'all"

2008-03-10T22:47:00.006-04:00

NOTICE: While making this entry the writer ingested a significant amount of the prescription sleep aid "Ambien". It kicks in about midway through the piece and thus, compromises most of the content. Ah well.

"The Only Dope Worth Shooting is Richard Nixon"

Earlier this week I drank too much coffee and went to see the new Brett Morgan film "Chicago 10".

The movie hearkens back to a time when people gave a shit that their fellow Americans and innocent foreigners were being butchered by the thousands. Yes it was a time when the masses actually did something about the pieces of shit in office who finger fuck themselves to the illusion of their own suit and tie courage during wartime. Imagine that.

Watching Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and others stand up to shitbags like Mayor Daly and LBJ made me nostalgic. Yes, I was nostalgic even though I wasn't alive at the time.

The year; 1968, the place, Chicago, the time, a point in American history when people weren't afraid to take a baton to the face or come together by the thousands outside the white house to yell "fuck you" at the commander in chief. An environment that, despite its unbridled chaos, seems to make a lot more sense than our generation's placid reactions to the disgusting murder parades of 2008.

"Chicago 10" uses rotoscope style animation along with celebrity voice overs, and archival footage to tell the story of the Chicago 10 (commonly reffered to as the Chicago 7 by racists and the ill informed) and their conspiracy trial in the wake of the shit show that was the DNC in 1968. It's hard to tell what was more of an embrassing clusterfuck... the police beatings in Lincoln Park, or the disaster that was the conspiracy trial. Let's chock em both up to the fact that our justice system is a living breathing fuck monster that must be destroyed and defecated upon.

After leaving the theater I felt like I should be kicking an overzealous cop in teeth or doing something else that stereotypical crust punks claim to do, but in the end, nothing. I mean what do you want me to do? Go hang out with grannies against the war next Sunday? That would be nice, getting honked at by dickheads from the suburbs who show us off to their intollerant marrow sucking children like freaks in a carnival. Or perhaps we could gather in some bookstore and recite Bushisms and figure the best way possible to isolate the rest of the world from our cause. Then we could laugh about how we've already got it covered and sip organic teas that make us feel the urge to support Pepsi Co. owned Whole Foods more than we already do.

Which is why I'm so damn frustrated. The idiots I've always lived around can turn a city upside down and have half the police force swarming in with riot gear ready to shoot unarmed teenage students. They can tear shit up and make the whole country pay attention to how fucking pissed we are... but only when their favorite baseball team wins a fucking game.

And when some war mongering pig gets in office, wages unjust wars, and steals your civil liberties what then? Beer? TV? A nice quiet night in? At least get fucking drunk and cry a little. Show me something.

Or do what we all know you will; "take your $2000 uptown and drink it down your dumb ass." and don't come crying to me when your phone is tapped, your dad is being water boarded, and your best friend got blown to shit by an IED.

Cause thats life for everyone else too, fucker.

Good movie. Go see it. Yeah.

2008-03-10T20:57:00.004-04:00

Dead People, Dead Presidents

While wasting time at work by perusing websites that infuriate me I stumbled across a news article about the Converse shoe company (who are now owned by Nike) and their hip new advertising campaign.

Maybe some of you remember the controversy last year when Doc Marten's (purveyors of footwear for fencewalking skinheads and nu-metal dudes) launched an ad campaign that featured dead rock stars sporting their weirs.

If I remember correctly the ads in question showed Joey Ramone, Kurt Cobain, and Joe Strummer (amongst others) lounging in heaven decked out in white robes and black docs. Well, the geniuses at Doc Marten's Inc, or whatever conglomerate bought them out in the 90s in the wake of the psychobilly craze, forgot to get permission from the estate of the dead rockers in question. Oopsie!

Now, Converse, the footwear of choice for Screeching Weasel fans and dudes who "don't fuck guys, but would totally fuck Billie Joe Armstrong if he offered", have rolled out their new ad campaign. And, surprise, it once again features a whole bunch of cool dead people who couldn't say no, along with some modern pop stars that love sweatshops.

One of these corpses is supposedly Joy Division's Ian Curtis, another is The Sex Pistols non-bass playing "bad boy" Sid Vicious, and my personal favorite is drug addled yet brilliant author/Gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson. These folks are linked with current "agitators" like Karen O from The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, MIA, and (get your boner ready Lookout Records fanboys) Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong.

In case it got muddled under all my ranting and raving, my problem with this bullshit is using dead people in advertising. Do you honestly think Hunter Thompson (who seemingly had a problem with everything, even the sad shell of a life he'd unfortunately grown into) and fucking Ian Curtis would choose to hock some sneaker that has long since lost its significance in the "punk scene"... almost as much as the punk scene has lost significance itself?

Sure, Hunter might have hocked for Smith and Wesson, or some distillery, but I highly doubt his crazy ass would sign off on this corporate trying to be contemporary bullshit. As for Ian Curtis, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I just don't want to believe that the guy responsible for songs like Transmission wouldn't appear in a lame ad like this.

Maybe I'm being an unrealistic asshole, maybe... Maybe if Vans backed up a dump truck of money up to my door to use my likeness or my dad's I might cave. But fuck that! It's my column and I can be as self righteous and judgmental as I want! Fuck converse and all of these people and their money grubbing children. "Fuck them in their stupid asses".

I'll tell you this much...If my shit-eating children do this to me after I'm dead then zombie-me is going to kick down their door, eat their fucking dog, take a shit on the living room floor and then wipe my undead-ass with their Slayer wall tapestry... and I have no doubt that through their tears they will express their love and respect for my hilariously disturbing reaction.

2007-11-26T14:23:00.001-05:00

Faithless and Fucked

I spent most of my teenage years trapped in a Catholic hell known as a boys preparatory school.

Back in those days I spent almost every morning standing motionless in the shower and wondering why my parents had, with such unflinching certainty, decided to send me to such a place. They aren't sadists, my parents, but they do seem to have an annoying tendency to follow what I refer to as "packaged truths".

A "packaged truth", or "PT" for short, is a piece of information handed down from on high by a venerable institution such as the church, media, or law enforcement or a playful amalgam of the three. "An all male high school will prevent teenage boys from being preoccupied with sex" is one such statement, "suit coats and ties keep young men in check" is another.

And would you be surprised that I know of at least one former classmate who was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong and a whole shit ton of others who have kids born out of wedlock? Perhaps my cliche' mid twenties alcoholism or trendy drug habit would sell you? Well, either way, most of us ended up this way. Some dead, but most of us just normal, working away at some lame addiction in order to to keep ourselves sane. Not failures really, but nothing special either.

All in all, I'm bitter about high school and Catholicism, sure, but at least I didn't get caught up in some steamy priest's love den, though I can't say the same for everyone from my class.

In fact, I can tell you that one of the excessively touchy priests, who had a particular fondness for calling a certain boy from my Geometry class into the hallway at odd times, mysteriously disappeared one day. This was just before the Catholic church exploded with pedophilia driven sex scandal after sex scandal, and before "no fags allowed" became a life or death issue.

I remember telling my mother that attending Catholic school was to blame for my loss of faith, she shook it off as playful rebellion at the time but five or six years later when they started yelling "fags aren't people" she took a seat at my table.

We had a cup of coffee that Christmas morning and pretty much agreed to leave it at "oh well".

2006-10-03T22:09:00.001-04:00

Lucky Number Slevin

Sometimes I throw around the phrase "MTV Movie" to describe a movie that sucks more ass than your general shitty mid-summer romp at the multiplex.

I'm not referring exclusively to films that are churned out by that soul-destroying network's film division, MTV Films, but rather a very specific style in filmmaking. And this style has unfortunately become the standard for modern mainstream flicks coming out of Hollywood.

MTV Movies tend to be flashy, loud, quick and feature a "kick ass" soundtrack, some big big titties, lots of beautiful people, and any of the following; profound messages about life that don't mean anything, sassy off the cuff pop culture references, saw that shit coming in 1992 twists, and dialogue that is more self aware than most of the film's viewers.

Remember that piece of shit "Varsity Blues"? That turd fits the bill pretty well and is ironically produced by MTV films, but once again that is not the qualifier (think of how all jocks don't necessarily have to play or even care about organized sports).

Well "Lucky Number Slevin" is without question one such film.

"Lucky Number Slevin" tells the story of Slevin (Josh Hartnett), a down on his luck slacker who blows into New York City on a whim and gets caught up in the seedy world of gangsters, guns, and gay sons. This all happens on account of an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. So he's forced to contend with a curious neighbor (Lucy Liu), two local crime lords looking to collect a steep debt (Ben Kingsley and Morgan Freeman), one of the world's top assassins (Bruce Willis) and a nosey cop (Stanley Tucci). From there the story twists and turns all over the place, but don't worry, every little detail is painstakingly accounted for in the conclusion. But despite some entertaining moments Slevin fails to ever really grab your attention.

Don't get me wrong; Slevin is no "Art of War" or "Tomb Raider". You won't be castrating yourself come the inciting incident, but you might be in search of a sharp instrument.

So what went wrong? Good question. The film sports a stellar cast, most of whom fire on all cylinders; Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Stanley Tucci, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, the bald bomb tech guy from Die Hard 3, um, Josh Hartnet... Yeah... But to be fair Hartnet isn't pulling his usual mopey hunk routine this time around. He actually gives some dimension to the oddly named protagonist. Frankly, the actors weren't the problem.

My main issue is with writer Jason Smilovic. His script is too hip, too witty, it's a dizzying world of "check out how wacky we are" characters who all spit incredibly well timed quips and absurd musings on life at each other. Usually this sort of thing works in a good piece of noir or neo-noir (see: Pulp Fiction, Chinatown, Sin City, LA Confidential, etc), but in Slevin's case the whole thing falls flat and comes off more contrived than creative. Not to mention the fact that many of the films lines provoke an often-unintentional laugh.

McGuigan's direction is decent but if you've seen some of his previous work, especially Gangster No. 1, then you're more than likely familiar with his bag of tricks (dying guy's perspective cam, hyper stylized graphic violence, vibrant colors, awkward jump cuts) that have a tendency to feel a lot like Guy Ritchie's bag of tricks after two or three lines of aderol.

I have a simple request, can directors please stop using CGI renders to do impossible camera moves? It makes me feel like I'm playing a Sega CD game. Yeah, I know, it was really cool the first few times the camera shot through the building in Fight Club and what not, but in 2006 it's really lost its bite.

Lucky Number Slevin certainly isn't the worst thing you'll see this year, but you'll probably forget the entire thing once the credits start to roll. Yeah, it's that kind of movie.

2006-09-27T22:57:00.001-04:00

Traffic, Death.

It's no secret that traffic deaths are quite common in the United States. Whether it be brutal head on collisions with assorted creatures/other vehicles, or your average 10-car pileup. Americans sure do love meeting their grisly end out on the open road. And thanks to recent technological developments, it seems as though folks across this country's clogged highways will be dropping dead in record numbers.

Now I know what you're thinking. "I saw a special on the news, um about exhaust, and they uh said that, like our, uh lungs-." Stop. Yes. I saw it too. It was informative and alarming. I am without question 93% more terrified of exhaust than I ever have been in my life. But it won't be the exhaust. Not right now anyway. You must be thinking "road rage!” or maybe "that dickhead in the Audi doing 78 in the breakdown lane!” and your thinking would be wrong again and again. For there is another hidden demon out there that none of you have considered and It's waiting to kill you, your significant other, and your daughter/son/pet, perhaps all at once or one by one. Depending on its mood of course.

That killer is a killer amongst killers. It is a murderous marauder of mayhem. That killer is the plague we so playfully refer to as; mass ritual suicide.

What? No. I haven't seen the music video for Everybody Hurts in at least five years. I promise. Just give me a minute to explain.

A few years back Apple Computers blessed the world with a device known as the I Pod. It's promise, to store hours and hours of digital music in the palm of your hand. It's effect? Single handedly ruining the art of the DJ and rendering many things in the physical world useless, insulting, and offensive.

What the hell does this have to do with traffic? Fair question.

Not long after the I Pod became a societal staple another invention started to gain momentum; Satellite radio. At this point Satan, the lord of darkness, enemy of mankind, and all around bringer of not so rad times, decided there was money to be made. Hence he and a few wily developers pushed to the forefront an older piece of technology that was once reserved for three pirate radio nerds locked in a Delaware basement. I am referring to the FM transmitter.

Now FM transmitters have been around forever, but their quality in times past generally ran the gambit from "useless piece of shit" to "I think I can hear the bass". However, with the rise of the I Pod and Satellite radio came a massive demand from scores of tech savvy suburbanites for a new way to get an external audio source to play through their car stereo (that didn't involve wires, which generally are considered to be very 1998). So hundreds of developers in turn flooded the market with these new, ultra portable, sleek transmitters that actually worked... most of them anyway.

Which brings us to mass suicide.

Picture the next time you're locked in an endless stretch of congestion. Rising heat, choking exhaust, demonic children screaming from mini-van to mini-van. For most people that would be enough, I'm convinced of this as I've almost come close to seppuku several times while wasting away in traffic, and I'm pretty sane.

And if I had to bet, I'd say on an average day you'd porbably more than likely than me to waltz on down to Jonestown guzzling Berryblast and Strychnine all the while.

Picture the heat, the exhaust, and the demon children but now ALSO throw in some asshole blasting Toby Keith from his H2. Imagine him yelling "yeehaw" and "fuck the middle east" every fourteen seconds while slapping the side of his truck with childlike glee. That sounds pretty bad doesn't it? I'll bet you're just itching for that industrial sized bottle of Tylenol PM in your glove compartment, but it's not over. Oh no. Because to top it all off that low number FM station that you love (you know, the one with a weak but still audible signal, maybe NPR?) has now been violently overthrown by the red state ramblings of your friend in the Hummer's custom I Pod play list and his shit-eating FM transmitter.

And at that point, you and maybe three or four hundred other motorists across the country will undoubtedly say "I had a good run, but to hell with this."

2006-02-02T00:55:00.001-05:00

Steps

The brass handles gleam with a sheet of January frost; cold, unforgiving. The pallbearers, all older men, struggle with the weight of the coffin. The solid pine is setting their arms to work; their weathered expressions capture the confusing mixture of sorrow and physical discomfort.

The stairs halts their procession. They advance slowly, cautiously, taking every step with great care. Their faces red, and blank, their arms taught, and tired. The coffin tips awkwardly from left to right throughout it’s decent. A mother and her child sway gently within.

As the casket moves further from the crowd and toward the waiting hearse a woman sobs. She watches the casket gradually escape her reach, and is suddenly overwhelmed. Her husband feels her move away, as she moves to the center of the aisle, closer to the entrance. She begins to walk but stops herself.

The crowd looks on, dead eyed. Her hands raise, her fists clench. The priest’s massive visage catches her eye. She lunges. Her shrill cry fills every corner of the church before it is silenced in his swirling robes. A mess of white and green engulfs her tiny frame. Her sobbing grows in intensity but is quietly tucked away. She spasms uncontrollably.

The husband reaches out but does not know why. He searches for her but finds only the priest. He latches on to the robes and pulls himself inward.

2006-01-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

Testing the waters.