I Am Raising Awareness On Raising Awareness

I am sure everyone who reads this has seen something about raising awareness in the past. Be it a hashtag or a breast cancer awareness pink ribbon, they are everywhere. This is good right? I mean the first step to making a situation better is by knowing that the situation exists in the first place! While that last statement is correct there is a major misconception about what exactly raising awareness does.

I love that people want to help people who are worse off than them. This is a good mind set to be in. But raising awareness is only the first step, and it is a shame that for 90% of the public that raise awareness only do that and nothing else. After a while raising awareness only costs money. Before people know about a problem raising awareness will do two things in theory. 1: spread word about a problem. And 2: get the attention of people with money who might want to donate to help the cause/pay less on taxes. This is a good start sure, but after everyone knows about an issue all the advertising costs start to drain money away from other aspects of the cause.

That link also points out a study that shows people who just raise awareness assume that what they have done fills some kind of "goodness quotient" and use it as an excuse to behave poorly in other areas of life. Its this kind of shit that's the reason we can't have nice things. But if you want to actually help, there is plenty that you can do. After awareness is spread stop spreading it, and funnel the marketing costs into solutions to the problem. Everyone knows cigarettes are bad for you, that's why there is warning labels on the packages. All raising awareness about lung cancer does now is make shitty marketing execs richer.

Maybe create a scholarship for people who want to become doctors who try to cure cancer instead of making "awareness raising" breast cancer vodka. Adding #awareness or whatever to your tweets does almost nothing (if not absolutely nothing) to help the core of whatever problem you are trying to help. Maybe instead volunteer at/donate money to an inner city charity. Do something other than just talk about a problem.

I feel like I need to be clear about this. I am not trying to say that all awareness raising is useless, just the bulk of it for campaigns that are older than a couple of years. Just talking about the problem doesn't solve it. Action needs to be taken for something to happen. I will leave the last word to Doug Stanhope.

There and Back... Again!

So apparently fans have gotten together and reduced Peter Jackson's epic, cinematic disappointment; the Hobbit fucking trilogy, into a single four hour piece. I am delighted by this for a number of reasons.

First, now I get to watch the hobbit. I love Jackson's directorial style. I love what he did with the environments and how he treated the world at large. However, I am always dragged out of immersion by two things: the various omissions and additions, and the fact that the films were blatantly padded out into as many films as they thought they could get away with (a topic Brian has poked before). I don't know the fans that did the recut, but I'm far more willing to sit through almost anything they did rather than two hours of fucking Legolas and Kili trying to decide whether or not to double team Sawyer's girlfriend from Lost.

Second, I am always excited by fans insinuating themselves into the process. It might be after the fact but these are people who took them time to break down a meh series of movies and try to fit them back together (theoretically) into the beloved story that spawned them. And now they have an opportunity to expose that to the public and make a statement. That's awesome.

 The final reason I will freely admit is geek-spite at Peter Jackson. The Lord of the Rings films redacted Tom Bombadil. I fucking loved Tom Bombadil. Motherfucker is straight up immune to the One Ring, he deserves at least a passing reference.

Weekly Cinimeh

So, after a very long hiatus we are back with a weekly cinimeh post~. Sorry about the delay. We will try to make these a more regular thing, originally I wanted to do one a week with 5 movies but it might end up being fewer than that. So lets Jump right in!

The Whole Nine Yards: Not high art but a good dark comedy that doesn't forget to be funny when it starts with the whole spousal murder scenario. The balancing act in a dark comedy is hard to pull off well, and while this movie does tip a bit more towards comedy it does better than most. Whenever I watch Matthew Perry I'm sad that he doesn't get more work. Kevin Pollak was fantastic and seeing Michael Clarke Duncan just made me sad. Not because he is a bad actor, he isn't (he is great in everything I have seen him in), but because it reminded me that he died. I could listen to the man talk all day long, his voice was amazing. Bruce Willis and Amanda Peet were also good, but I thought that Natasha Henstridge was a little stiff/wooden. All in all a fun movie and worth a watch.

Eshi: Matthew Perry doesn't get enough credit and this movie demonstrates that pretty clearly. I've got weird feelings about Bruce Willis but his slightly effeminate mob assassin adds some nice tang to the film. As Brian said, not high art or anything but definitely a good way to spend an evening. 

2001: A Space Odyssey: One of my favorite sc-fi movies of all time, and in general, 2001 is a classic. It is a little slow, and the last scene lingers for a little too long with the staring into waves of color, but all in all its a great film. You can see where other sci-fi movies borrow from it, and how it influenced popular culture as a whole. One of the major points in the film is that the main AI is effectively alive, and that the crew trying to turn him off (read: kill him) are actually kind of bad guys, though he does try to, and succeed in, killing them. HAL is a great character who forces us to examine how we should treat AI that develop personalities (something I have talked about on here before). The movie series is about the turbulence that accompanies evolution and is great at making the viewer ask questions. Its great, watch it.

Eshi: I see it as a spectacular personal failure that I, a man who is almost thirty, have not bothered seeing this film before this last week. Stanley Kubrik is fucking legendary as always. This is impressionism as sci-fi and deserves its place in the Cinema Pantheon... Even if Kubrik is just ever so slightly too fond of terrible noises as expression. 

2010: The second film in the series (and last) was not directed by Kubrick, but still had Arthur C Clarke's work as a basis for it. Its far less subtle then the first film, but is still good. It expands upon the ideas expressed in the first movie while trying to resolve some of the problems that remained. If you watch 2001 you should watch 2010.

Eshi: 2010 is required watching if you want 2001 to really make any sense. That said, even with the second movie Kubrik had to come out and spoon feed the audience after it was released. Now don't get me wrong, this is easily the weaker movie, this story needed a master's touch and they only delivered on half. The recasting is pretty jarring and the overall tone falls painfully short of what the first film established.

Honorable Mention: Doug Stanhope's Beer Hall Pusch:
Not really a movie, but a comedy special, I still thought it was worth the watch. Doug Stanhope is one of my favorite comedians. He is passionate, funny, and irreverent. He combines all of these qualities in his comedy to show just how fucked up everything in the world is. After he makes you think about the problems in our world, he always offers solutions which make you think "That would actually probably work". He is a great comedian, and his specials are well worth the watch.

Eshi: I can't say enough good things about Doug Stanhope. Watch all his things. 

Foreign Engagement

It should be no surprise by now that Eshi and I love movies. We talk about them all the time, and even have a running series about it (coming Friday, seriously, we promise~). We're especially fond of foreign movies.

Unfortunately, foreign movies don't seem to get much love in American markets, this is due to various reasons such as lack of exposure or a hate of subtitles. Now the first one is hard to avoid since foreign films are rarely advertised in the U.S. so you would have to go out of your way to find them. This also ads a layer of mystique to them that might scare a few more people away from them. The second is ridiculous in my mind and is usually accompanied by the phrase "I go to movies because I don't want to read". This strikes me of being proud of ignorance and is all around disappointing.

Foreign movies are something that anyone who is a fan of movies should see. I have written about how Hollywood always makes the same stuff over and over again. Foreign movies offer a different take on old formulas, straight up new ideas (at least new to our culture), and they also offer a different view on traditional issues. This also helps the viewer get great insight into other cultures, which is never a bad thing.

Admittedly, some foreign film is weird as shit. La Jetee is a prime example of weird shit done well, if you find yourself looking for a sample. It was the inspiration for 12 Monkeys for all the Terry Gilliam fans out there and it is very worth the watch.

Here is a list that I found that offers some good suggestions on what to watch, but don't limit yourself to it. There are plenty of good movies from around the world that deserve a viewing, and if you like cinema this will expand your view on it as an art form. Just in case it doesn't go without saying watch the original foreign versions of things. Just do, seriously. Good places to start are; Let the Right One In, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and OldBoy, the last of which you may remember for Eshi's exultation of its amazing hammer-violence.

The Downward Spiral is My Favorite Carnival Ride

I've written about my anger issues before, and I've written about depression both in personal and general senses. Recently, its become important to me to note how these things interact and what its like when they do.

First let me say, if you have rage+depression issues, I'm sorry. You're probably fucked. I'm sure there are extensive medication and therapy cocktails that might pull some people out but I've no faith in them. I've yet to see any theory of anger management that seems even vaguely effective and, while I'm sure that many people are helped by modern depression treatments, I find that depression has too many sharp edges that don't take to softening.

The trouble with being a rage addicted depressive is that the cycle never really ends. You get depressed, so you get sensitive, then something happens (usually something meaningless) and you flip the fuck out. When all the face-kicking and abyssal glossolalia has passed you're left feeling (rightly) like a colossal, diseased dick; so your depression gets worse because now you have a reason to hate yourself. As the depression gets worse you get more sensitive and less able to completely describe how you feel or what you are thinking, making you more likely to get mad again and continue the cycle.

Now for the bad news. Nothing you are capable of doing about it yourself will make it any better. Once again, therapy/medication have the potential to save a few of us, but I've yet to see any good works be done. If you try to mitigate your rage the people around you will likely be unable to fully let go of the fact that you are prone to spectacular bouts of aggression. Most people have difficulty distinguishing between you trying to let go of your anger so it doesn't poison you and you being a fucking psychotic. Worse, other people trying to tell you that everything is okay or that they don't blame you will only reinforce the underlying depressive force behind the anger.

I think about killing myself the same way most people think about ordering dinner. I think about assaulting others as at worst an interesting way to spend a day. I've spent my whole life trying to find a way to handle this. I've tried giving in and letting my imbalance run me, I've tried fighting it, I've tried distance and detachment. I've even tried seeking help. The most I can offer is this, surround yourself with forgiving people who love you and want to see you get better and keep fighting. I have to hope that this gets better, I'm sure I've seen it happen somewhere. Probably.

Old Scratch

In lieu of a list of movies we have watched for weekly cinemeh this week (It will return next week, I swear) I wanted to talk about one of the most interesting characters in christian mythology and my 5 favorite depictions of him in cinema. You can probably guess who I am talking about. The Devil, old hob, Iblis, the father of lies, Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Satan, or what have you. The Devil has appeared in many forms over movie history. Too many times the character is a terrible, one dimensional mess, but sometimes actors give a performance that really brings out the depth that is required when playing the antithesis of good in the world. These are not in any particular order, all are worth the watch.

#5: Viggo Mortensen in The Prophecy

The Prophecy trilogy is not high art. Its not a terrible movie, but the good side of bad, like fast food or Keanu Reeves. Christopher Walken as Gabriel is fantastic in this film, which should come as no big surprise, but Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer was also amazing, which was a nice surprise. I am not a big fan of Mortensen personally, but this was a good casting choice. He plays Lucifer as a sort of psycho jilted ex-lover and he comes at the role with just the right levels of unsettling and a sense that he could go crazy and kill every motherfucker in the room if the mood took him.

#4 Peter Stormare in Constantine

I like Peter Stormare a lot. He was great in the Big Lebowski as the Nihilist and as one of the kidnappers (Gaear Grimsrud) in Fargo. As Lucifer in Constantine he gives a great performance. Every line oozes from his lips in the creepiest fashion possible. The giddyness that Lucifer has at getting to torture one of his worst enemies is also well portrayed. All around he does an excellent job. On that note though, Constantine is a bad movie, much like Prophesy its fun but over all poorly done. The only connection between the movie and the Hellblazer comics is a general similarity in character names, and that is disappointing, but is still fun to watch.

#3 Al Pacino in Devil's Advocate

This is where the list will slightly change course. This is actually a good movie. I enjoyed it a lot, mostly because Al Pacino plays an amazing Devil. He is passionate, driven to succeed at his goal of world domination, and more than willing to make a deal. A fantastic portrayal of the charismatic "man will condemn himself" type of devil. He merely shows you an option, it is up to you to decide to take it. I really enjoy this movie.

 #2 Ray Wise in Reaper

This isn't a movie, but as this is a list about the lord of lies, I don't feel too bad about cheating on the eligibility standards. Also, Ray Wise is great in this show. He plays a very humanizing version of the devil. He starts out with the Charisma that you would expect from Satan, as deal maker, but as the story continues you see him as a three dimensional character instead of just a symbol of evil. Its a fun, mostly episodic, comedy show that is well worth the watch. Also, I love Tyler Labine.

#1 Peter Cook in the original Bedazzled

Not the remake with George of Jungle, but the original British comedy. Its a great movie, and Peter Cook is fantastic in it. He plays a sadistic, sarcastic, and (once again) charismatic Satan. I don't want to go into to much spoiler territory but its a good comedy that also has a humanized Devil, who is just trying to get back into gods graces by helping a human man find love. Its a good portrayal and unfortunately I can't put a youtube clip here because they are all of the decidedly meh 2000 version. Find the original and watch it, its a great movie.

"To Protect and Serve" Seems Pretty Clear Cut

Eshi talked about the police recently on this blog and I wanted to add something to his post's idea. There are two reasons that police brutality is so overwhelmingly common in the US and I would like to address them both.

The first one is that it is way harder for a police officer to exercise impulse control when access to a firearm is readily available. We see this with the police when they get military hardware as well. In countries where police have very limited access to firearms, for example Japan and England, police shooting of civilians is practically zero. Limiting police access to firearms by itself wouldn't do much, you would need to ban firearms in general. In the US this is a tricky position that will probably never be popularly accepted.

In response to the banning of guns most people will say, "If you ban guns only criminals will have guns." This is one of the stronger positions and one that is hard to argue against. That being said, banning access to military style equipment for police departments seems like an option most people can get behind. Do the police really NEED a tank? They are not fighting enemy combatants. For the most part they are stopping domestic disputes and pulling over drunk drivers. You don't need fully automatic weapons to do that. If there is ever an instance in which the police would need a tank, it is no longer a police problem. That's what the national guard is for, its literally their job.

This segues nicely into my second point. Both sides of this debate, police and civilians, need to stop treating each other like the fucking enemy. Our police force isn't a military organization that is fighting a war, it's a group of civilians tasked with protecting people. Our civilians aren't all gun toting ne'er do wells that need to be put down, most people are just people trying to live their lives. I do think that we could benefit from not training officers in the use of militarized tactics. When a training manual encourages officers to "steel your battlemind" it encourages them to view civilians as the enemy. We aren't. And the more violence that the police use the less likely people are to trust them, which only widens the gap between the two sides.

I don't know how else to say it. Empathy motherfuckers.

Children in Africa are the Primary Determinants of the Price of Beans

So, here's the thing, I'm going to try not to flip out about this so bear with me. People who bitch about how their life isn't blowjobs and free booze are fucking idiots. It sucks that your phone can't take on an SUV and then load up what ever bullshit app draws your fancy. It is not a tragedy, it is not a miscarriage of justice. People who complain about social injustice and first world oppression are not those people.

This particular rant has been building for a while so I will try to stay focused. I will admit that there are things worthy of the ignominy of the title of "first world problems". Nearly anything relating, with the noted exception of matters of cyber security, to whatever gadget happens to be shining up pop culture, be it 'phone, 'pad, or 'tooth, is a bullshit problem. I think on some level we all comprehend this. Really, any time the person complaining could intelligibly insert the phrase, "don't you know who I am" and not break the flow of the complaint we're talking about a bullshit problem. Ditto with any situation where the person bitching feels comfortable tapping social/political/monetary status as leverage, and any time someone mistakes a luxury for a right. Those who fall into this pit of indulgence and entitlement are barely even people, at best they're children bitching about their birthday presents.

That said, discussing actual, meaningful concerns and abuses is always pertinent. Someone fearing rape or abuse for discussing rape or abuse is never okay, no matter what else is going on in the world. Note, I linked that whole sentence but I could quite easily have linked every fucking word to a different story, no single one more than five years old. The problems of racism, sexism, oppression and corruption in the first world are in no fucking way mitigated by atrocities and injustice in other parts of the world. This seems to be a problem of flawed comparison, but its important to keep in mind that the fact that there are places in this world where representatives of the local government can go a-full on-viking in civilian communities doesn't make the insidious othering and knee-jerk, reactionary defensiveness of American police better. Its like the terrible high school girl who surrounds herself with less attractive people to make herself look better. She isn't making herself less of a horrible person, isn't actually improving her appearance, just lowering the local average to make herself seem more worthwhile. Knowledge of the fact that there are children fighting and starving in Africa doesn't reduce the tragedy of children who work themselves to ruin in American tobacco farms.

I'm starting to run the risk of spitting bile on this so I will just finish up by paraphrasing my least favorite mythology, maybe take care of your own shit before you start trying to solve problems halfway around the fucking world.

Remake 6: Seriously, Do I NEED To Make More Of These?

I have complained about Hollywood doing oodles of remakes before but I just saw some shit that makes remaking Spider-man seem somewhat sane. So the last of the Sam Raimi Spider-man flicks came out in 2007 and the newer Spider-man movie reboot came out 5 years later. I remember thinking "this is a short turn around time" when I initially heard about the remake, but Disney has just announced that a movie that got no love in the theaters in 2012. John Carter, a movie that I have not seen because it looked... just awful, is being remade. Its been two and a half fucking years! Also, we got two movies about Hercules in the same year. That's two reboots within seven months. I am legend, The Grudge, and Cabin Fever are also getting remakes. I found a list, and there is some disturbing stuff on there.

The worst part about Cabin Fever in particular is that the remake will be using Eli Roth's script from the first film. In one of my first posts on this blog I quoted Marc Maron's bit about consumerism in which we will constantly buy into the latest rehashed shit, even if it looks like shit, because its "new". This is that, but they are selling the exact same shit we already bought back to us in a new box.

On that note I would like to add some new amendments to my rules for film. The first was that Spoilers only count if the movie is less than 10 years old. The second, remakes should only be made if the original movie was terrible, or if the original wasn't what the writer and/or director wanted to produce. The remake of Fright Night is a good example. It uses the original premise and improves upon it greatly. None of this "use the same script" bullshit. The third rule will be that reboots, that is telling the same story in the same way such as Spider-man, should be avoided if at all possible. But, if you absolutely have to make it you need to wait until the movie you are remaking is old enough to drink. That way it targets a new generation instead of bogging down one generation with 3 different spider-men.

There is another option if Hollywood doesn't feel like listening to an internet blogger (because I have TONS of pull with those people, you know) is that we, as consumers could stop going to see the remakes/reboots. Just stop. Resist the urge. Go see independent films, show the movie industry that we won't stand for their shit. Fuck, just stay home and jack it, at least then your two hours will amount to something, and if nothing else it wont cost 12 bucks plus concessions.

YKWFA: The Passage of Time

So apparently today is the first day of 2015. I will admit, 2014 kinda got away from me, what with all the rage and depression and all the goddamn bees. Just... so many bees.

Anyway, there are a few things (other than listening to unpopular music and slowly turning into the horrible old man that is my birthright) that pleased me about this last year. First, after much rigamarole and absurd bullshit, my home state decided to make marijuana at least theoretically available for recreational use. Now don't get me wrong, the way they went about it was childish and insulting and ineffectual to a spectacular degree, but it happened. So now a lot of people who want to utilize their minds for something more pleasurable than trying to contribute to the inevitable heat death of the universe with their hate (like me) have a non-lobotomy option.

Also, both Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Zero Theorem were things. Since Andy Serkis is some kind of hero sent from the future to make the present not suck so bad and Terry Gilliam is a Companion of the One True God Returned, these are both things that deserve positive consideration. Christoph Waltz, Nick Offerman, and Alan Tudyk also exist and this is a wonderful thing. Actually, cinema wasn't particularly hopeless in general this year. For the most part. Some stuff was pretty fucking good.

The last thing that really made this last year was the fact that I have a wife. Now I've had a wife for a while now, but having her around goes leagues towards to making life bearable. I'm sure that sounds cheesy and pandering, but if you have an SO and you don't feel that way about them you probably shouldn't be doing that. Having a significant other I mean.

There was a great deal of fuck-that last year, lets all try and get past that this year and actually be people with each other. Good luck out there.