Langoliers are Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Sometimes I think that I should just let my childhood nostalgia live on strong, in memory, rather than to seek to revive it. It is always disappointing. A lot of the time, especially with this day and age, you can easily track down virtually any movie, tv show, or book that you loved as a kid. It’s almost too easy. Part of me is thrilled at the thought, and the other part of me knows that the best part of nostalgic back-flashes is the flash, and nothing more. Then again, the moment when you get your hands on something again that you’ve lost, the moment when you are sure you’ll get the chance to find out all over again exactly what compelled you so much when you were younger, is really a pretty exciting moment. That must be why the end result is so disappointing.

Regardless, I certainly am the sort of person who is much more given to exploring childhood interests than most people. In fact, Brady, you’ll actually have to comment this time, because I want you to remind me of the name of that Mexican punch that you and Dave used to like so much. I remember that I kept tasting it, trying to decide whether or not I liked it, and I had a sort of epiphany that the drink was like Nostalgia. And I suppose, I could call the punch by that name instead, but I want to track it down is the angle. It tasted familiar, but long-away so…and I simply could not tell if I liked it for its taste, or for its familiarity. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was drugged!

Speaking of your brother though, I’ll never forget the time he indulged one of my nostalgic cravings. I told him that I loved The Chipmunk Adventure movie as a kid, and one day he pulls out an old VHS tape with it on there for me to borrow. I’m pretty sure I snatched it, and literally jumped up and down, with a smile from ear to ear. It was probably about two in the morning when I got home with it, but I started watching it the second I got there, and loudly enough that I woke some roommates up, as I recall. Actually, when they asked me to turn it down, I pretty much didn’t. You must be excited about something to justify listening to it as loudly as you want in the middle of the night, right? Indeed!

Some things I revisit are much better than others (My Little Pony: The Movie). But it really is interesting to see how much of my heart is in silly little things like that. The best way I can conceive to keep these memories at their best would be to treat them like the memory of my cousins’ secret room. This room could probably be accessed by a door (somewhere), but I never knew of one. I only went in there once, and it was through a secret passageway underneath the bathroom sink. It opened up into this huge room with steps that led up to a reading area with soft pillows, and a wall painted with a giant rainbow. That’s pretty much the brightest rainbow in my memory. However, another came close a month ago. I actually saw it on the day I was leaving Logan. It was the first full rainbow I think I have ever seen, and it was so incredibly bright, that I had to pull over on the side of the highway to get a better look. It was a nice way to leave the valley.

Though, what I was getting at is that my childhood ought to be considered like that secret room, with a passageway I must concede that I simply can’t fit through anymore. Sure there’s probably a door I could go through to get in, but it wouldn’t be the same experience. The ceilings wouldn’t look so high on the way in, for one thing. And the rainbow wouldn’t be as bright, like Dorothy stepping into Oz for the first time. That’s corny to say, put that’s really the best comparison I have for it.

Although, next to the memory of the secret room, I’m embarrassed to mention the object of my latest childhood memory revival. I recently rented the movie The Langoliers, based on the book by Stephen King, from the library. It was mostly horrible. However, I could recognize a bit of what struck me with the storyline as a kid (not too young a kid at this point). Anyway, this plane flies through some rip in the fabric of time into the past. Although, the past is really not some awesome adventure like Back to the Future. It is completely empty, without people, smells, tastes, and sounds, except for a mysterious and foreboding noise that keeps getting closer. This noise is the Langoliers, who are described by one of the characters as creatures consisting of only hair and teeth, which come after all the lazy and unproductive children in the world, and eat them. His father had told him about them when he was a boy, to torment him into being an overachiever. Now they were real. And they were devouring the world, and the past. I guess the past is as useless as those lazy boys and girls. But anyway, the passengers must escape the Langoliers, and get back into the present.





Although the movie is mostly pretty awful in parts, I really love the idea behind it. For me, it explores the feelings and fears of not having a purpose. Although, maybe when I was younger it was the idea of loneliness or being unimportant that got to me. Don't ask why I like to reflect on my creepier childhood memories as well, I'm not sure about that. Anyhow, this story paints a picture that is maddeningly empty, with creatures that embody “the vast beast-whistle of space,” high on your tail to clear you out too. With a world full of Langoliers, you are always on the run. "And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking, and racing around to come up behind you again." Sorry, I started quoting Pink Floyd.

Anyway, it is evident that the procrastinating reminiscent types wouldn't stand a chance against these Langoliers. Gee, with me not having a job right now and all, maybe I ought to watch my back. Though, I'm pretty sure that if a Langolier tried to gobble me up, it'd burst in a painful shower of nostalgia rainbows. But as of now, I think I'm safe anyway. I am not entirely unproductive. According to a recent email, I made a couple bucks in royalties with this t-shirt I made a long time ago. That’s right, I have officially sold two of them. I think I made more money at work while I was killing the time making that shirt than I've gotten from selling it. On the bright side, though, at least a couple bucks will buy me 10 lbs. of potatoes.

Pig-headed Cures for Pig-hideousness

I think that I am prematurely turning into one of those bitter old cranks that spouts off the saying, "they ain't as good as they used to be" about basically everything. In the case of movies, though, I generally do mean it. Maybe there are still a good number of interesting, novel, and unpredictable plotlines and characters emerging in at least the independent genre, but how often do we ever get to see that stuff? Surely not on a monthly movie night basis. That's how often I'd like to go out to the movies, if I felt it were worth it.

To tell you the truth, I'm not concerned about wasting time or money on movies that aren't very good. Sometimes the bad movies are so entertaining that they happen to be a welcomed use of my time and money. But, that's not what I mean by "worth it" regardless. The issue is, I don't want my standard of what makes a great movie to be compromised.

While I'm on the subject, is it a bad thing if someone pays for your movie ticket (date or otherwise) and you start laughing at how absurdly awful the movie was afterwards? Particularly when you know the other person doesn't agree? Cause, I do that. Sometimes. I'm specifically remembering the incident after the latest Hulk movie. I imagine it must have been better than the previous one...but I honestly can't picture how.

I know what you are thinking, "Why should we listen to someone that loves movies like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure?"

And I'd say, "Come on now, you know that is truly Keanu Reeves' best work."

There are a few different things I could decide to go off on regarding what I don't like about a lot of the movies I've seen lately. But today I am irritated by the movies that promote inner beauty and self-acceptance, and then create a physical manifestation of beauty and social acceptance as the reward for having done so. That is clearly ironic, and clearly unintentionally so. And the combination of "clearly ironic" and "clearly unintentional" spells out, "WTF were you thinking?" Then again, that's the current Hollywood scene for you, in regards to romantic comedies at least.


What got me thinking about the inner-beauty moral was a movie I saw recently called "Penelope." It's about a pig-nosed girl that is cursed with this deformity until she gets a blue-blood (old money, aristocratic type) guy to marry her. Interesting thing is (and by that I mean it is entirely uninteresting), the girl is very attractive besides having a snout. So, right away we can see where this is going. The curse will be broken and she'll be beautiful once the prosthetic is gone.

And cliche of cliches, what actually breaks the curse is her own self-acceptance of who she is and what she looks like. That's not a bad cliche, except since this self-acceptance magically caused the problem to completely go away, doesn't that completely defeat the purpose? That's right, your strength of character and confidence in yourself is only good for acting as a mystical potion that dispels your nasty pig-hideousness. After that, you can trade it in for some equally bogus cure for vanity.

Now, we are all familiar with the movies about the pretty girls with low self-esteem who just get a make-over and suddenly they are Miss Awesome. That seems to defeat the purpose of the message that is trying to be communicated, that we shouldn't dismiss the geeky kid, or even the smelly one, because deep inside they are wonderful people. For that "inner-beauty" stuff to ring true, wouldn't the smelly kid have to stay smelly? And we just love him despite the fact?

That's not the crime of the modern film makers alone by any means. How bout that tale of the ugly duckling? A swan?! Oh, please. Why can't the "special" person really be ugly? And stay that way? Is it because wonderful people don't deserve to be ugly? That too tragic for your comedy? Or is it because we can't swallow the self-acceptance tripe we are dishing out? Either way, this trend is the hallmark of a bad movie. It doesn't quite rank up there with the mistake of using monkeys for comic relief in my book, though.

I Heart Harold

Considering that it is Valentine's Day, I've decided to take some time out to watch one of my favorite romantic comedies ever, Harold and Maude. My sister introduced me to the movie, and thought at once that I would fall in love with the main character, Harold. She was right! I can't ever seem to watch it now without wanting to find my own Harold, and without wondering if I must therefore have some major psychological issues myself.

So, some quick background before I give you links to some great movie clips (I couldn't embed them for some reason). Harold has been obsessed with death ever since seeing his mother faint at the thought that he had died. Now he is performing numerous bogus suicides, somehow hoping to get that same kind of attention and emotional response. His mother evenutally gets worried about it, but what's even more distressing to her seems to be the fact that he is not dating. So, if you've ever been set up or constantly nagged by your mom about dating, you'll love this one.

Some of my favorite scenes in the movie depict Harold's morbid humor and boldness when it comes to defying convention. This first one shows what happens on all three dates that he was given through the dating service. The second one where he feigns a polite smile and than hacks off his hand with a cleaver is my favorite. The third date is pretty hilarious too, but mostly because his date doesn't turn out to be horrified that he just stabbed himself in the gut. She actually praises his acting abilities, and then she stabs herself after going off on how wonderful she was playing Juliet recently. And believe it or not, I think she comes off crazier than he does. This one also shows a bunch of Harold's suicides.

Not only is Harold serious about getting out of blind dates, but he also goes to great lengths to get out of serving in the army. With the help of Maude of course :)

This is a nice fan-made trailer to give you the entire feel for the movie I think. Harold and Maude really has a lot of variety, and it incorporates humor with a very brilliant and dramatic symbolic represention of independence and living a full life. Now I'm gonna go make myself a delicious caesar salad and watch it :)

No End In Sight

Recently I've become a member of Netflix, and I love the service. In fact, I've actually been renting documentaries lately, as I'm acknowledging a bit of a shift in my interests the last few years. Yes, I like non-fiction, and yeah, documentaries rock. But it's not a very popular genre at the video store or on Redbox.

Anyway, this weekend I got No End In Sight in my mailbox. If you haven't heard about it, it is a documentary featuring clips and interviews with those involved and opposing many courses of action in the war with Iraq. I wish I had seen it sooner, and I wish it had come out sooner, honestly. I knew that things with the war weren't going well, and a lot of suffering on both the part of Iraqies and our soldiers seemed very needless. But, I admit, I didn't know very many details. I admit also that I generally stay away from the news. I had a professor a while ago who kept up very well with what was going on in the world. Each day when I'd come into work, I'd ask how he was. And often he'd say, "Terrible! ___ people died in ____ today." It made me depressed. I didn't want to feel terrible about something I couldn't control.

Anyway, I feel no worse after watching this documentary. Once again, I knew things were bad, I just didn't know details. After watching, I was irrate to discover that so many bad decisions were made by people who did not consult with others, especially those with much more experience in the matters of their decisions. Here's a few things that particularly upset me:

1. The decision to disban the Iraqi military was very arbitrary, unsupported, and the results devastating. Thousands of soldiers no longer had money for their families. You can't really afford to live without money.
2. The Pentagon alone was responsible for post war reconstruction, and none of them really knew what they were doing. They ignored most of the proposed ideas, in several well-prepared volumes, by those who had experience.
3. President Bush did not even read the Executive summary of the report written on the state of the people in Iraq. It was one page long.
4. 18 billion dollars was proposed to help the reconstruction efforts to provide the people of Iraq with food, water, electricity, etc. A year after the proposal only one billion was spent, and very little after that as well.
5. One of the men they interviewed on the street said that things were bad under Saddam, but that things were worse now. Now, that's a comment that ought to put things into perspective!
6. The government knew where a large storage facility of weapons were being kept, but they "didn't have enough men to guard it." In consequence, the opposition in Iraq who were angry with us were able to get a hold of these unguarded weapons. And unfortunately, many US soldiers were killed as a result.
7. Donald Rumsfeld...wow, what an @** ****.

However, the efforts of the mass majority to do what is right in the matter of this war is also very apparent. There are many more people to praise than criticize for certain. However, when the control lies in the hands of those who made mistakes, and these mistakes affected the lives and well being of so many people...one can really only focus on the negative here.

It's a documentary I feel everyone should see. Check out the trailer.

And I will make an effort to keep up with the news now, for crying out loud! Also along these lines, I also apologize to my dad for having made fun of him for only watching C-Span. I'm pretty sure I was watching crap like Saved By the Bell in those days. Wonderfully patient fathers...I love my dad :)

Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was my 24th birthday! Originally, I was hoping to go to the concert for The Cure, but no one else really wanted to go, so we went and saw the new Indiana Jones. I suppose I'll give a little review without going into too much detail. So, since seeing it yesterday I've been wondering to myself whether this movie was a good one with some really stupid parts, or a bad one with some redeeming qualities. Right now, I'm leaning on the second choice.

First of all, the movie oddly starts out with the shot of a CGI prairie dog. At first I was wondering if this was actually a part of the movie, or if we were still watching Pixar previews. And if that wasn't enough, more of his CGI friends showed up later.

There were also a lot of very unplausable scenes. That, in itself, is not so bad. I mean, most action/adventure movies have those. But when the scene is something as ridiculous as Indiana surviving an atomic blast, and then rolling out of his lead-protectant fridge to look up at the mushroom cloud whose awesome force he has miraculously elluded...it's going too far. Now, if the scene were actually relevant to the plot, I might lighten up a little bit.

There are a couple other things that were bothersome. Corny lines, mostly. And scenes. Let's just hope that they don't really make Holes boy the new Indiana Jones.

There are, of course, some redeeming qualities (sadly, no Nazis). First of all, Marian's back. She's awesome! Also, the scenes in search of the skull were very true to the rest of the movies, and were very well done. I also thought that Cate Blanchett made a pretty cool villain. She somehow reminded me of the scene in Lord of the Rings where she was relating to Frodo what Galadriel would be like with the one ring. In this case, she covets the one skull to rule them all. But, she's not nearly as cool as these guys:


Don't you think?

Well, a thanks to all those who wished me a happy birthday and got me presents. After all these years, I still consider my birthday "my special day," and so I really appreciate it. I still haven't seen my parents yet, so I'll blog about my presents and other aspects of my Memorial Day weekend soon.

And I'm not really bummed about not going to The Cure because there are so many other concerts I want to go to this summer much more. Also, I've been too preoccupied listening to Rush to listen to The Cure like I was planning to before the concert anyway.

Truly, a Monday

I have no faith in the Jamba Juice Immunity Boost, because it seems as though I have a cold virus too now. I dislike the common cold more than root canal work. First of all, the virus comes in at least several hundred varieties, and thus, immunity is pretty impossible. Secondly, it is a virus, and so it has no cure. Thirdly, because it is "common," the world doesn't lend much sympathy. And yet as much as I hate the cold, it is only the annoying element to my ailments lately.

Well, the headache is basically gone by now, but will oddly resurface now and again with a brief and distinct pulse of pain in either Temporal Lobe (it's a mystery which until it happens). Wow, details of a headache... haha, what a blog. And sadly, this Tuesday is, in fact, Monday, and thus I should have had a 12 hr. day on campus. Well, I skipped school, but no one volunteered to work any of my classes tonight (but I sent out late notice, so, I don't blame anyone). So, I'm stuck at work now with a fever. Could be worse, my brother went to work yesterday with a bad flu. His job keeps him on his feet more, too. And I'm sure he doesn't screw around on the internet like I do. At least I'm proud of the fact that I've only had one sick day in my life.

In happy news, I don't have a Physics test tomorrow like I thought I might. But if that was the case, I'm sure I'd fail it. It's not for another week! And tomorrow is Wed., even though today is Monday. That's good too, I like Wed. Although, I guess I won't be able to keep up my semi-recent Wed. tradition of library movies and Tiny Spicy Chicken. I justify the expense of weekly Chinese food with the fact that library movies are free. The library really does have a lot of classics I haven't seen before. And they have a lot of Shakespeare, which is cool because there are a lot of versions to compare. I just started watching a version of Hamlet last night that has the actor who played Lockhart from Harry Potter...and he's really awesome. He's a much better Hamlet than Mel Gibson. Incidently, it also has the actor that played Peter Petegrin (sp?) in Harry Potter, as well. Maybe I'll finish it tonight.

By the by, did anyone catch Emo Phillips at Wise Guys this weekend?