Why Are We Such Big Fans of Children Having to Kill Each Other?

Yes, I know all the Christmas lights are supposed to be down by now, but for some reason, I feel like this giant mansion done up for the holidays as a reindeer nursery/prison is appropriate for this topic.

 I finally started reading Hunger Games. For those of you who aren't 30 yr old librarians or friends with said librarians, Hunger Games is a very popular YA book which takes place in a dystopian future. The United States has been replaced with 12 Quarantined Districts and a Capitol City. Every year, the Capitol exacts a tribute from each District of one girl and one boy, who are shipped off to participate in a survivalist game where they must hunt each other in the wilderness, last one standing wins. It's a trilogy, and I've only read the first one so far, but there's lots of starvation, sickness, arrows, pus, ect. It's bloody and sad, and it's exactly the sort of book I would have loved in middle school.

 As soon as the trailer for the upcoming HG movie came out, which every single one of my librarian friends posted and reposted enthusiastically, it begged comparison to another (sort of) well known movie about kids killing each other - Battle Royale. This movie is also based off a book, but I haven't read it yet. As soon as I'm done with HG, I will. It's long overdue in fact, because I am a huge fan of Battle Royale the movie. Huge. I keep a copy of the DVD in my car so if I'm ever over a friend's house and we want to watch a movie, I can volunteer it. It is one of my favorite movies ever, if not THE favorite. The plot of BR is that in an effort to quell school uprisings, the Japanese government randomly picks a class by lottery every year, and the entire class is shipped to an evacuated abandoned island, where they are fitted with explosive collars and also told to slaughter each other mercilessly until only one is left, or they all die. They are extremely similar plots, if not precisely the same. Even the way the Games are run, with broadcast announcements of daily death counts and random backpacks full of unknown supplies, is the same (except in Hunger Games the kids don't know most of the other kids, but in Battle Royale they are all fellow students, which in my mind makes it superior). In both worlds, the rest of the populations watches gleefully and celebrates the Games. It turns out I don't care about any copying, I'm thrilled in fact by details I run across that are identical.

 I'm just going to throw in this fun fact: Two of my other favorite books are Lord of the Flies and Enders Game.

 So question that I face is this - Why am I so entertained by kids hunting each other down like prey?

There are two possibilities:

  1) I Love Kids

 There are lots of other movies that explore the Reality Death Match idea - Mad Max and Running Man for instance. But not with children. I don't connect to those movies the same way, turns out I care very little about adults having to kill each other ( they do it all the time anyway). One of the main differences is that it's harder to forgive adults. In both Games, the villains, the really bad kids who are bullies and actually good at killing, are older children. They are the larger ones physically, sure, but they are also the ones closest to being real grown ups. They have lost their innocence and are well on their way to being the enemy. Adults are always the enemy. An adult who is not the enemy is an exception to the rule. So they have to die horrible deaths because they must be punished for being old.

 In YA books, the runt is always the best one. Think Boxcar Children and 5 Little Peppers, Little Women. Smallest means sweetest, nicest, kindest, bravest. Unfortunately, it also means you are probably going to get sick or die, depends when the book was written, but whatever. When we read over and over again as kids that we the children, we the littlest, were better people than all those nasty warmongering perverted greedy uncaring adults? That was absolutely true. That doesn't change. Children are always much more flexible, curious, resourceful, and unthinkingly loving....

  2) I Hate Kids

....because they haven't had to do anything their whole lives but absorb. The minute they get any real power ,like a weapon or a conch shell, they reveal themselves to be just a petty, vicious and selfish as any adult. Worse even, because they haven't got any concept of the world besides Self , they are incapable of empathy. Children as villains and murderers just helps confirm what we suspect about all the adults around us too, that they would totally eat us before the rescue dogs got there, assholes. Children are the most simplified purest version of the human spirit, and that very essence of humanity it turns out is blood and psychopathy. Yes, all of you fuckers kill each other off please. Interestingly enough, in both of these death matches, neither of the heroines really has to kill that many of the other kids, because the rest of them are all so busy immediately massacring each other from the get go. While that's a good narrative device to keep the list of supporting characters low, it's also a very direct illustration of survival of the fittest. And the message in both Hunger Games and Battle Royale is Fittest = Most Compassionate (Because Everyone Else is a Monster).

 And then maybe also here is the real answer. Most of the literature I read as a child was full of blood, hunting and survival. Kids getting smallpox on the prairie, kids running away from evil wizards and witches, kids being locked in attics and bedrooms by old ladies, kids dying from horrible diseases, kids being trapped on other planets with giant alien brains, kids having to live in a fucking boxcar where they beg for scraps from strangers. Everything was trying to kill you, and if it wasn't actively trying to put an enchanted spear through you, it was manipulating you and starving you. I feel like that kind of visceral life or death desperation is really absent in a lot of adult fiction. Probably cause we all started having sex, and then immediately love mattered more. Also, you know, we're supposed to be smarter as adults, more thoughtful, more tolerant, and therefore "understand" the villains. When you grow up, it's not supposed to be all primal fear, it's supposed to be intellectual and civilized. Which as adults we learn pretty quickly is the ultimate farce. A shell which hides real evil and obscures real truth.

 So it's good we still write books for kids that teach them how to defend themselves when Civilized Intellectualism tries to round them all up and kill them.

Edit: So German Shepherd puppies have two "fear" stages, one when they are a couple weeks old, and one later at a couple months old. During these times, they are naturally more skittish, sensitive to sounds, cowardly basically. It's supposed to imprint them with bravery, make them chemically face up to exaggerated fear so they will be used to it when they are older. THAT's what childrens books do.

This is Disjointed, because I'm slowly taking all the screws out

I was going to write a post about how great my dad is. Because, of course he is. But then I spent the weekend taking pictures of Jamison bottles, and turning down strange men in bathrooms, and watching a bridal party dance to the Pixies in Akron, and seeing great movies, and talking about writing. So let's just take that all as proof that my father was/is a fantastic father, because my life was pretty fantastic this weekend.

It didn't start off as fantastic. It started off with me working my ass off, and then vowing to get wasted that night because of work, stress drinking, and having a messy night where I got "maudlin" and vented out all the relationship/marriage/getting old poison that's been batting around in my head all week. It was like lancing a boil, and watching all the thick yellow pus well out. In the end, I passed out in the backseat while my sister and Jere argued about ridiculous things like the Magna Carta and shit, and when I woke up we were still driving and it was light out, because they had argued themselves almost to Pennsylvania before realizing the mistake and turning back around in the right direction. And after waking up like that, the infection had passed and I was once again content and happy and appreciative. So I slept for three hours in a real bed, and then went back to the beach.

Are you sick yet of beach pictures? I'm not, so deal. Also, who sleeps in the summer? Vampires, that's who. Are you a vampire? I mean, maybe you are. And if so, let me tell you, eternal life isn't worth the price of never getting to be in the sun again. Also, vampires are assholes. So you are an asshole.

On Friday, we saw Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and it was wonderful and slow and magical and kind of terrifying if you let yourself stare straight into the jungle and you are the sort of person who knows how real and horrible fairy tales can be.

On Saturday, getting drunk in Akron proved again to be the cure all for being Too Cleveland. Which was apt, because it happened after hanging out with Erin, and pretty much talking a lot about Cleveland. But being Too Cleveland is a thing, because the largest part of life is not where you are exactly, but how well you're doing it, and you can't do it well enough if you expect the place you live to do it for you. I'm not an expert at living, but I think I do know that.

On Sunday, the beach was overcast and dark but warm and breezy, and when I stood in the water I wanted to bottle Ohio Blue and sell it. Is it a paint color already? It should be. Maybe it can't be. When I was a little girl in the backseat of my parents car, I would look at sunsets and try to decide what color out of the sky would I want a dress of the most. I decided I am going to be friends with the lifeguard. Then, later in the afternoon while it was pouring sheets of corrugated metal, we took our atmosphere soaked bodies for coffee, and talked with the girl at the cafe about neighborhoods and gardening. Later still I went to see Midnight in Paris, the trailer of which does absolutely nothing to show you what the movie is actually about, but it's ridiculous and delightful and I laughed a lot and when I laughed, I could feel my leg muscles were just a little sore from the dancing and the waves, but sore in a hot water bottle of my soul kind of way. It was all very relaxed and easy.

The dog next door barks at everything. Since it's been nice out, his owners, who are very elderly for having such a young lab, just let him out in the backyard all day, and he stands on the picnic table and barks for eight hours at squirrels and people walking by and cars. Then the dog who lives below me will go outside and they will bark at each other (the dog downstairs has a weird half bark he does as well that sounds a little like a monkey, so it's very similiar to how I think a monkey/dog fight would sound). Then people will come home from work and let their dogs out in their yards, and all the dogs will bark at each other. Since I work from home, this has been incredibly annoying. But writing it down makes it sound charming.

When we were finally packing up to leave the beach on Sunday, because the thunder told us to, we ran into the lifeguard Mike walking back to the car. He had run to grab a raincoat and I asked if he had to stay on the beach when it stormed? He answered that he didn't really know, because no one had told him, and he didn't really know who to ask. So maybe he sat out there by himself in the storm. I don't know, we left.

So now today it's back to the beach. My Monday adventure partner got a job while schools out, and I'm back to asking around for companions for exploring since little girls aren't supposed to wander around by themselves, but really I'm just giving up because you all work on Mondays and finding someone who is down for the sort of rambling I like to do the most is hard, there are requirements conversational and motivational. The thing that happens is this: everyone wants to go exploring, everyone wants to go to movies, everyone wants to go to the beach. They see me out at places, and they tell me how much they want to do these things too, how great it is that I do them, how much fun it looks like, and then I invite them, but it always falls through. I don't think you guys understand that there is a decision you have to make to have these kind of days. And I just really believe, deep far down in my chest, that everyone I know would be happier if they came along. But I can't keep giving you opportunities. You have to make the call.

There is an idea that you are supposed to be aloof to be cool, that you are supposed to just let people come to you. I'm the worst at that. If I meet someone I want to hang out with, I'm filled with enthusiasm and motivation. I'm the puppy who jumps on you and wags her tail furiously, and then if you don't take me up on it, I quickly forget when the next new person comes in the door.


And so I wonder if I'm fickle, or flighty, or just really smart, or just really irresponsible. I mean, the most important thing is to rage against the rising of bitterness or disappointment, right? To fight it. To really really enjoy what you are doing, to put your head entirely in the moment and focus on the hour and be conscious of how long that hour is and what is happening in each minute, to feel with toes and the little hairs on your arms the little whoosh of that minute degrading and crumbling and passing. Also to get out in the fucking sun, which is also degrading and crumbling and passing. I'm only 31 for another 20 days, and then I will never be 31 again.

My thoughts on Julie and Julia

Now that Julie and Julia is out on DVD, lately I've been seeing a lot of posts by food bloggers about giving in and finally seeing this puff. This is exactly the kind of movie that we all sorta secretly wanted to see a little, but not nearly enough to pay a ticket for. So it makes sense that it will be haunting cold snowed in Saturday nights for months to come. After all, Amy Adams is the cutest little dickens ever. And we all like multitudes of cast iron pans and French full skirt dresses with pockets.

I'm not likely to say much about the movie you haven't already read. The whole Julie storyline sucked, and I wish the movie had just been about Julia Childs and her husband, and nothing more.

But here are what I consider some fairly unique takeaways, worth mentioning:

Aspic shots. Yes. Jello shots made with meat jelly. We need to make these. Buddy is insisting we have to make aspic, and I'm insisting it involve copious amounts of alcohol, and this seems like the best solution for all parties. We're thinking Beefeaters, for character development.

This is the last movie I will allow to have a scene where one character shows another how to use the internet. It is time to make some fairly reasonable assumptions. You know how hard it is to make a blog? About as hard as wiping your ass. Wait, stay here for thirty seconds. Okay, I'm back and I just made a blog. About your mom being a communist whore. It will be more popular in 3 hours than Salon.com. What kind of 30 yr old needs her husband to set up a blog for her?

The idea of not being able to look up stuff on Google scares the holey moses living crap out of me. Mail? You're going to collaborate on a book by writing letters? On paper? And mailing them? WTF.

I will never be able to kill a lobster. Not only do I think I would be too much of a pussy, I also think I would develop an immediate fear that it's fellow lobsters were going to come after me, like I know spiders do. In my sleep.

I hate when girls commiserate over being bitches. "I'm a bitch." "Yes, I know, we're both bitches." Well why don't you just stop being bitchy then? It's not really a virtue. It is in fact a known character flaw. It's not endearing when you're fifteen, thirty, or fifty.

Apparently my life goal now should be to get an article in the New York Times, because it will make me an instant success at something. I'm not entirely sure what, but that's the movie lesson and I'm sticking to it.

Also, it is, according to Julie, immensely deridable to write a blog only about yourself, with no other higher purpose or goal. So I will never get that NYT article, because I have already cast myself as a failure. My new life plan? To write a blog all about myself, but with a theme. And the theme cannot be having sex in airplanes. Which is a shame.

Oh movies...no seriously, you, movies.

So this past week has been one wonderful jaunt through the marvels of modern socio-economically created super viruses. I've been dehydrated, delirious, congested, barely in control, and bored as shit. I know. I've been pretty vocal about it. What the hell else am I supposed to talk about? All these deep uninterrupted thoughts I've been having? I think the deepest my thought processes went this week was planning out where I would move to when my neighbors convinced the local authorities I was a noise nuisance, because of my awesome Typhoid Mary impression.

But, so, you know, I had time. I played with the cats a lot. They liked that. I read some old 60s pulp novels I had lying around. One is about the secret shame a rich wife wreaks on her developer husband, when he discovers she's been sleeping with the same woman he's been cheating on her with! And conspiring with his evil land manager against him! But it's okay, cause after he saves his misguided and possessed wife from the fire, and she gets carted away as criminally insane, he goes home with the Joan Holloway character, a nice "uncomplicated" girl with heaving bosoms and red hair and a good heart despite her taste for Scotch. The two women illustrated on the cover, I discovered through a good hour of staring at it on the bathroom tile while in the bathtub, have the exact same face. Very symmetrical and doll-like. They actually kind of have the same hair style too, only he changed the colors. Which is the weird part, because why wouldn't you draw the brunette as pert and cute, and the blond as dramatic and sculptural? Isn't that how it's normally done? The artist who created this book cover, which was printed, not drawn by fucking hand like a album poster in Xanadu, couldn't be bothered to take the time to draw individual faces on these Sapphic witches. It makes me feel bad for him, since he probably wanted to be a real artist. But it also makes me kinda hate him.

I actually think that book is Nate's, I should give that back to him. I wonder if he even remembers that he had that.

So I read some stuff. But as I started to get better, I got antsy. The first few days, when you're really feverish and out of it, its awesome to lay in bed, read, pass out, read some more. You don't even notice time, just judge its passage by the liters of juice and gingerale you force down your throat and how tall the mountain of tissues by your bed grows. But then you wake up some, and the coughing and congestion and sinuses really hit you, and you need something way more in your face, to distract you from the nastiness that is your entire aura and physical being on this world. You watch some cable, but the same problem you had in middle school still exists, mid day television sucks. They don't even always show Bonanza anymore. Which is when it's movie time.

First surprisingly good movie I watched was The Brothers Bloom. This was actually before I got sick, but it was really good, and it had a trailer that totally did not do it justice, so I have to mention it. The trailer made me think it was going to be like In Bruges, which was also a good film. Very slick and con. And Brothers was slick as well, but it was also very very sweet and charming and well drawn. It's the story of two brothers who run grand epic cons, written like Russian novels by the older brother Stephen(Mark Ruffalo!), and all starring his young brother Bloom (Adrian Brody!)as the dark, melancholy hero. Stephen says a good con is one in which everyone gets what they want, and loves to have his criminal endings tie up perfectly, with flare and finesse. When Bloom starts to get heartsick, Stephen tries to write the perfect con for him, involving a weird adorable highly intelligent orphan heiress (Rachel Weisz!) and a Belgian, and a heist, and Russian mobsters. It was seriously wonderful. It was like, Pushing Daisies wonderful. There was this great running idea of how to tell stories through the movie, and all these quirks that sometimes you think maybe Wes Anderson has ruined for everybody else, but are awfully redeemed here. It made you feel stoned when you weren't, or drunk on good wine. It reminded me of the first time I watched Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.



Second, I finally watched Hannah Takes the Stairs. I remember when this first came out at SXSW and everyone was like "oh you stupid hipsters with your stupid mumblecore crap, what is that crap, make real movies." Well, at least that was the general vibe from the NYTimes. I mean, the mere description was enough to drive me away. Low budget film made with a video camera, with no scripts, and people just make stuff up and nothing really happens. Sounds fucking perfect, sign me up. But since I was already half-conked, and there weren't any Amy Adams films on On Demand that I hadn't watched, I decided it couldn't be so bad as to not deserve a mere hour and twenty minutes of my time.

I liked it. At first I wasn't sure, because it starts off with a naked Hannah (there's a lot of Hannah skin in the movie), and I was like, shit, some guy just made this so he could get this girl naked. But by the middle of it, you realize that this is kind of like hanging out with some people you know, and then you kinda think maybe this reminds you of your younger sister now, or yourself that one time, and that chair is pretty fucking cute but you could totally afford it, and maybe those hipster snobs who made fun of this crap outta be nicer to the hipster snobs that made this crap cause actually its pretty cute. So there you go. That last sentence is my review of this movie.



Finally, today, I watched Away We Go, which was that baby film that came out with Jim from the Office and Maya Rudolph. I remember I did want to see this when it was in theaters, but there's not a lot of reason to go watch a baby film at the actual theater is there? I mean, you don't go there with a date. You don't say "Hey, random friend, lets go watch a sentimental movie about parenthood, that's a good way to spend Saturday afternoon." I didn't know about this film's pedigree until the credits, which is good cause I went in expecting something trite and cute, but not super indie trite and cute. So when Good Ol' Mr. Eggers was weaving his magically disarming dialogue, I was caught without my McSweeneys armour on. Plus who doesn't like Sam Mendes? Doesn't he always get a free pass, like always? I never liked Maya Rudolph on SNL, in fact I hated her on SNL, but she's a good straight foil to Krasinki's goofiness. And by the way, she could still be on SNL, I have no idea, that show sucks so bad now. John's basically playing Jim from the Office, which is totally fine, that's Cusack worthy crack to me. Melanie Lynskey and Maggie Gyllenhaal are both great, and I usually won't say that about somebody who spells their name unnecessarily tricky like. The story is less about having the baby, and more about a couple building themselves an identity separate from the rest of the world. You're watching them achieve solidarity with every new dysfunctional situation they meet. It makes you happy they fell in love, which is something that happened way before the movie started, and is never in question the whole film. So the fact that it makes you a cheerleader for them is impressive, because there's no dramatic arc to root for.




Having said all this nice stuff though, I would like to now point out that it is the STUPIDEST MARKETING MOVE EVER to disable your movie's trailer from embedding on YouTube. Here, watch this trailer, but don't you dare go SHARING IT or SHOWING OTHER PEOPLE ON YOUR BLOG. What the hell? Look at all the nice things I'm writing about you, why would you make me search for a fucking viable link?

Other movies I watched this week: Dirty Dancing, I Love You Beth Cooper, Fargo, Anna Karenina, The Girl Next Door, Another Cinderella Story, a bunch of old westerns. I really need to go back to work.

Beer Wars

Last night a few friends and I caught the screening of Beer Wars at Valleyview, a documentary that chronicles the barriers facing micro-brewers trying to compete against the corporate brands. Really though, the ultimate message was “Anheuser Busch has taken over the world and you are all screwed.”

The audience itself was worth the trip. This was, unfortunately, a one time showing, and the people who paid 15 bucks for it were excited and loud. One guy kept trying to make the film interactive by starting shout outs of beer names, Arrogant Bastard being the favorite. And as we left, the clinking of empty bottles was very clear. It was a good thing for us they added to the experience, since we found out after buying our tickets that the damn thing was showing on On Demand that night too, so we could have been watching it at home for a quarter of the price, while drinking ourselves.

It was a great film. The characters ranged from scrappy to pretentious, pathetic to ambitious. The danger with films like this, that are celebrations of artisan niches and creative ideas, is that they become flat and uninteresting as actual movies. But the director, Anat Baron, does a great job of showing the highlights and lowlights of the industry. Sam from Dogfish Head comes across as the hero, affable, intelligent, ambitious, but determined to never be cut-throat. Greg from Stone IPA is off-putting, overly philosophical and just a bit too serious about it, but with a slight aftertaste of friendliness. And we got to meet Rhonda, the marketing brain behind the success of Sam Adams, who quit the company to try and market Moonshot, a light beer with caffeine that no one wants to invest in, and who desperately tries to sell the idea to anyone she can including Big Evil Anheuser Busch. Anat Baron handles the complexity of these people and their dreams with a light handed objectivity. She’s neither too understanding nor too harsh. The narrative moves smoothly between their lives and the effect on them of the current regulatory systems, delving at the end into the political steaminess with a trip through the beer lobby experience,

But the real revelation for at least my segment of the viewing audience was the complete and total domination of the beer industry by Anheuser Busch. I mean, we’re not entirely ignorant. We knew, coming into the movie, that they were the biggest. I don’t think any of us understand the exact extent though, and this is the movie’s best most memorable point. Anheuser Busch holds approx 50% of the domestic market share in this country. There’s a visual the film uses again and again of a supermarket aisle of beer, which is meant to illustrate how companies battle for placement. They employ it throughout to demonstrate brands that AB is buying up. And there was an audible gasp from the audience when, towards the end, we saw the current total. Here, let me show you.

Anheuser Busch brews, imports, or distributes:

- all Budweiser (11 products)
- all Michelob (15 products)
- all Busch (3)
- all Rolling Rock (3)
- Natural Ice and Light
- 12 specialty brews of their own (the only one I recognize on our shelves is Landshark, which SUCKS.)
- 4 seasonal brews, including their rip-off pumpkin ale
- O’Douls
- Bacardi Silver
- Tequiza
- Hurricane
- King Cobra
- Red Hook Brewing
- Goose Island Brewing
- Kona Brewing
- Ray Hill American Pilsner
- Starr Hill Brewing
- Fordham Brewing
- Dominion Brewing
- Harbin Lager
- Tiger Beer
- Kirin Brewery
- Bass Ale
- Boddingtons
- Beck's
- Hoegaarden Brewery
- Leffe
- Stella Artois
- Löwenbräu
- Tennent's Ale
- Budvar Czechvar
- AND Monster Energy drinks.

So yeah, that’s practically a whole store by itself.

It was an enlightening movie, and the live panel discussion afterwards was entertaining. My favorite panelist was the beer historian, Maureen Ogle. Her basic take was “Yeah well, they’re going keep growing, buying brands, and stealing your ideas, that’s what corporations do”, and to laugh when the guys from Stone and Dogfish were all like “we don’t want to be the big guys.” Oh Sam, I think the 9 million dollar loan you mentioned again and again means you probably do want to keep growing.

The thing you should come away from this movie with is that not allowing small breweries to self-distribute is a bad thing, the three tier system is a bad thing, and AB is a monopoly. My one complaint is that they focused so much on “it’s the taste, it’s the individuality, it’s the love” instead of “these are unfair laws that should be changed.” Just because it’s a microbrew doesn’t mean it’s worth spending 12.99 a six pack on. However they should all have an equal chance to get into the market. Baron tried to make a point during the panel discussion that we should vote with our wallets, and show the distribution companies what we want. She's wrong, that won't fix the real problem. I mean, I know several pretty frequent beer drinkers. When they're at a bar or going to a party, they buy microbrews. But when they're buying beer to drink at home, they're buying based off price. You don't buy a 24 pack of Arrogant Bastard (can you imagine!), because at some point you have to pay rent. The only real solution here is to fight the legislation that's forcing these breweries to sell out for distribution.

And if you’re wondering what I’m talking about, go watch the movie. I believe it's On Demand.

The best part was where the kangaroo got shot

So my nose is stuffed full of yellow runny cotton again, for the third week in a row. And today it was finally cold, bitingly cold and icy. Plus I was supposed to go out tonight, but opted instead to spend the (very spare) drinking money on a spicy Kafta roll from Aladdins for lunch, thinking it was perhaps the only thing I might actually be able to taste. So no open mike for me, but its for the best, since I'm sick and also have to wake up super early tomorrow to have my innards prodded with specula before work. What a fun couple of days, right?

I saw a good movie last night, Boy A. I saw a good movie on Saturday, the Yokai Wars. I highly recommend both these movies, and also they are both On Demand right now, so you don't even need to put on non-fuzzy clothes or makeup or shower or clean off the car. Which is precisely the effort I made on Sunday, when I went to see Australia.



What exactly do I say about this movie? I was very excited about it. Nicole Kidman is my Barbie, and Baz Luhrmann is my Ken (I like to rub them together and pretend they're making babies), and Australia is one of those few places that hasn't been made lame in modern media and therefore is where the cool kids live. And yet here I sit, unable to formulate anything besides indignant exclamation points and snarky question marks. What happened in those 2 1/2! hours! to kill my love of cinema and also my will to live?

1. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman should be ashamed of themselves. Both of them are horrible in this. Nicole has the acting ability of a plastic donkey, and Hugh seems to think his next best career choice will be replacing Fabio on book covers. Also, there's this annoying little kid, who starts off the whole movie with this revolting voice over that makes you want to tear your ears off. He's got some horrible half Australian, half cockney accent and walks around in dusty dirty clothes with a tragic expression the whole movie... except when he's making jazz hands to summon people to him. He's Crazy Aboriginal Pippin. Not Cool.

See that smug look on Nicole's face? That is the movie.

2. I guess this is a book, because it has the pace of a book. A bad epic book. The kind where nothing happens in the first half except the characters all "get to know" each other, and the bad guys do something to make it obvious they are bad. Then all of a sudden in the 2nd half the world enters and fucks some shit up. And everything happens really fast and with very little explanation, because you don't need more character development, do ya? Do ya? I don't really like books like that. I think they're crap.

3. I have never seen Aboriginal magic look so uncool.

4. Spoilers: I sincerely doubt the British government ever made decisions on military cattle contracts by seeing who could race 250 head of cattle down a wharf faster. And while I don't necessarily believe Japanese soldiers can see in the dark (necessarily), I do think it's a little far fetched that they can be standing on the beach with search lights and they don't see the boat a few yards away, and the fifteen small children swimming towards it.



5. Nicole and Hugh are the worst kissers ever. Like, the close ups of them making out are disgusting and uncomfortable. With noise. I know, I know, it doesn't make any sense. But it's unfortunately true. I have never been so turned off by a romance movie. I actually wanted to not be touched.




In conclusion: terrible script, terrible cinematography, terrible acting, a bad score of all things, and bad catch phrases that make no sense ("pride isn't power" what the fuck?). I should have spent that money on alcohol. Or tampons. Or garbage bags. Also, I suspect this movie is the reason I'm sick. I can't prove anything, but if you see it? Maybe wear a mask?

Tonight!

Free screening of the Flaming Lips new film Christmas on Mars at the Beachland tonight, 8pm. I'll be there, drinking alone at the bar. Feel free to come and insult me, I'm in the mood for some righteous anger. And while I suspect a Martian Santa Claus will deflate some of that, well, you never know.

If you did not see the new Indiana Jones yet? Well, maybe you should skip this. Or maybe not.

Alright, I'm over Jay's, we bought the fish sauce, we got the #1 Pho, I'm drinking Magic Hat #9, and okay then: let's watch Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.

*start movie*
Germans? I bet the kids in the trucks are germans.

Yup.

They're sneak attacking the base! Will the Germans steal a nuclear bomb?

Oh wait, they're Russians. The commies are after the ark? Mummified remains? I think Cate Blanchett looks like that famous asian spy lady I can't think of right now, Mata Hari. Only her accent is horrible. Magnetic gunpowder cloud? Really? oh....Roswell. I thought the aliens came at the end.

Why can't Spielberg stay away from aliens? And why would you open the mummy in the warehouse? Jay likes the sound of guns going down. I fail to see how you could drive the car with some case in it that's so magnetized, gunpowder drifted to it from across the warehouse.

Alright, I think I've found the problem with this movie. Indy survives a nuclear blast in a fridge? And doesn't immediately get crushed in the impact. And climbs out among burning debris with no thought to his testicles, as he stands casually and surveys the mushroom cloud about a mile away. Did I mention he got thrown a mile in a fridge, with no broken bones? And the CGI prairie dogs survived and don't have tumours all over their furry little bellies?

Now we get nice little civic lesson in bad government. The FBI thinks he's rogue. Indy gets fired? Maybe he'll start a petition, maybe an internet petition. That would be swell.

Now liberal extremist McCarthy targeted fired intellectual teams up with funny looking Jewish boy to fight the Russians, appropriate.

Indy just said "typhus".

Also, how does Indy not believe in "stories" at this point? ALSO what the hell is with that library scene? They slide a bike on its side underneath multiple tables and no one breaks a leg? Then he tells the kids to stay out of the library? Try staying out of the FALLOUT CLOUD, asshole. I'm sure Indy learned an obscure Incan language by staying out of the library. And he phoned in his doctorate.

I bet five dollars the conquistadors are alive at the end of this movie. Kept alive by the aliens.

I guess smaller scorpions are more poisonous, we googled it, its true. Also we bought some tamarind at Asian Plaza and eating it from the pod is like sucking the flesh of a penis made of sweet potato.

Shia Le Bouf is doing a GOOD job of making old Indy still look tough. I wonder if that was in his contract. "Hey I'll do this movie, but my sidekick can't be cuter than me and also has to be an obvious weakling."

Wait there are the conquistadors, they've been mummified with alien magic! I don't think in general just opening up mummies randomly with no planning is a good idea...wasn't there another movie about that?

We also got these tamarind candies that are coated in sugar and chili, I can't stop eating them. I'm going to get an Asian tummy ache.

The crystal skull: doesn't speak to everyone huh? Only crazy archaelogists from England? "Stare into the the skull" she says. "We will turn you into us" she says. The Russian plot is to turn America into Russian, subliminally. With a bunch of crystallized alien heads. This is like a political club over the head. Psychic warfare, a misguided FBI, alien conspiracy. I think Spielberg is an Air America fan.

"Autowriting. I should have seen this"
Well, we all should have honey.

The dinosaurs are crawling through the forest! Wait no, the commies brought a tree chipper to the Amazon. Now we're going to the magic alien city, and annoying jewish boy is Indy's son. So of course we have to hear fugly Marian and old Indy argue. I always hated Marian. I guess it's good Indy has a kid now, because he will NEVER HAVE CHILDREN AGAIN NOW THAT HE IS THOROUGHLY IRRADIATED and also will die of leukemia in a month.

Apparently Shia is the Monkey King. And the skull keeps away acres of demon possessed ants away but in close proximity, so Indy can have a fight in the circle of ant death with a Russian who will lose his face. And Ox is Willie Nelson in a poncho. And indian ninjas are stalking them. And Spielberg believes he invents aliens with every single movie , so he has to beat us over the head with the info that "hey these are aliens" even though they are the most cliche aliens ever and we all know what alien skulls look like thank you.

This entire movie was designed to be turned into an amusement park ride. I'm all like, well, there's gonna be a waterfall coming up, because in the car chase, the good guys have the car/boat. And then there's three waterfalls.

The booby traps in the temple SUCK.

Now Mata Hari has returned the head to the crystal skeleton alien, and all the aliens are meshing together, and they're one alien! And the place disentagrates. I think it's safe to assume that every temple left intact is booby trap free, because obviously they all get destroyed anytime anything exciting happens in them. I will feel much safer in temples having realized this.

Mata Hari's head explodes, or maybe she just goes to another dimension. I thought the aliens were giving her the gift of knowledge, but then she explodes. So these are either evil aliens, which means the theory of the movie is that civilization was founded by a bunch of wankers. Or really she goes off with them, becomes enlightened, and spreads the good word of Communism to the universe. She did return the head after all. Which was what they wanted, right? So I think Mata Hari wins.

Meaning Spielberg is a Communist. The entire movie points to it. I mean, she didn't want to keep the skull, she was going to give it back, so Indy and friends were just these obnoxious capitalists who got in the way of her quest for enlightenment. And then when it happened, they got scared and ran. But the strong Ruskie stayed and was rewarded. Americans are weak. Communists are seeking real truth. And humanity is not ready for the return of the superior race.

Finally, Indy marries some ugly broad he dumped years ago cause now he has a kid with her. And everyone leaves happily ever after, except Shia, who has now tarnished his Holes image forever.

Or this whole movie was a dream Indy had as he was dying, locked in the fridge. He imagined all the things he wish he had, a family, a lost love, a meaning behind his work, actual touch with the universal. Maybe this movie was in fact Indy's metaphysical awakening to the gaps in his life, the "looking into the light" moment that sums up his entire career delves deep into the subconscious desires of Henry Jones Jr. But in the end it was too late, and he drifts off into death as he and Marian walk out the church door, the audience lamenting its lost hero and the director poignantly pointing out with some hat trick that there will never again be another Indiana Jones. That modern society, with its obsessions of CGI, Aliens, Over the Top stunts and lack of real mortal enemies, could never support the daring do of
a man with a whip.

And where exactly was his whip?