kpduty

So I think I mentioned in an entry a while back that I was going to be taking an Introduction to Popular Culture class this fall. This has been my dream--studying popular culture on an upper-academic level--since I was a wee youngin' at The Kollege On The Hill. But at the time I graduated, Graduate School seemed way far out of reach: I was seriously fucked in the head, I didn't have any money, and I was terrified of moving to a completely new city all by myself with no money or job or apartment. And I didn't want to have to teach anybody anything in order to earn money, which is usually how those pesky Graduate School programs seem to work. Plus I'd have to take the GRE, and I test VERY POORLY.

You know that Urban Legend where you supposedly automatically get 200 points on your SAT if you get your name right? That was for me.

So anyway, Life happened. I got a job that's not particularly challenging, but I enjoy the people and my work and during lunch it lets me blog about my troubles. I got married, bought a house, became the slave of some cats. Ironically, I got a Masters in a tangentially related field that didn't require an entrance exam from me, or any teaching, or any big financial commitment.

But burning in my heart was always this dully glowing ember of hope that one day, The Gigantic University of Soul-Sucking Sports Craziness would offer something that would, in a round-about way, appear to sort of resemble in a not-too-obvious way some classes that kind of were obtusely about popular culture. And maybe it'd grow into a graduate program, like a Diet Pepsi Clear version of my dream program: not-at-all resembling the soda that I love, but I'm damn fucking thirsty so hand the can over, it's good enough for right now.

Lo and behold, The University suddenly decided, after much soul searching, to offer some classes in popular culture studies. And as soon as the ink was dry on the outline of the proposal, I had signed my fat ass up.

I can't even begin to tell you how psyched I am. All I can think about is buying my books. Every time I'm on campus I drive by the various bookstores dotting the streets and I WANNA GO GET MY BOOKS SO BAD. But I don't even know what my books are yet.

So with that in mind, I went trekking online for some pop culture craziness. This led to my Imaginary Pop Culture Cool Uncle Robert Thompson, which led to the Popular Culture Association, which led to their publications, which led me to where I am I right now, which is thinking I'm probably not cut out for the Important Work my heart has led me to.

Here's the problem, in a nutshell: I, in my quest for knowledge of all things "Popular Culture," have completely forgotten all things "Everything Else Out There To Know." For example, let me provide you with a synopsis of an article that appeared in the Spring '96 issue of the Journal Of Popular Culture: "Singing and Dancing in the Baser Manner: A Plea for the Democratization of Taste," by G. Albert Ruesga (like how that's in APA style? THANKS, MASTERS DEGREE!)

This essay tackles the aesthetic presumptions against popular taste for the art of popular culture. For moral theorists, the principles which govern moral valuation are often turn to the intuitions of the man on the street. To proceed in this way is to assume that an adequate moral theory should underwrite or account for common moral judgments. When aestheticians attempt to determine the principles which govern aesthetic valuation, the common man's aesthetic judgments are devaluated. The structure of his preferences, the principles which govern common taste, appear to be of relatively little significance to aesthetic theory. Plato, for example, discusses a very peculiar kind of Homo aestheticus in the book 2 of Laws. He speaks of the person who professes the value the noblest and best in art, but who nevertheless takes a peculiar delight in the lower forms of artistic expression. In the book An Aesthetics of Junk Fiction, written by Thomas Robert, the mystery of how sophisticated readers can enjoy and value literary works of dubious artistic merit are tackled. The response of a person to a good artwork is necessarily complex, rich and sophisticated. It is the structure of popular culture that may ultimately provide the most promising field of aesthetic inquiry. The dichotomy lies between good art and bad art in the context of popular culture.

First of all, what the fuck? Is that even English? Second, I don't think I've ever even read any Plato. Did he invent plates?

I'm kidding, of course; I've heard of Plato. He's the dude with the cave.

Seriously, though...reading this made me realize that I have no idea what the hell is going on. I feel like my life has been spent faking at being smart. That I can correctly answer all the questions on Jeopardy, but if pressed I couldn't for the life of me explain with any clarity of thought the grander implications or contexts of any of the historical persons or events. I know the date of the Normandy invasion but nothing of what lead up to it. I know what the Platonic Ideal is, but I couldn't give you an example of it, or connect it to anything.

My brain is like a Guinness Book of World Records, but without the pretty foil cover and the twelve-inch fingernails.

The whole point of going in on the ground level with this was because I've been out of school for so long. My Masters was really just a vocational degree. I've forgotten how to think and talk and write like a pretentious academic fuck. I've forgotten how to bullshit and make up words that have no meaning and present them in such a way that together they sound important and cutting-edge.

I've forgotten how to fake sounding like I know more than I do.

Do you know, I've read Boswell's Life of Johnson cover to cover. I think I actually enjoyed it. But I don't remember any of it. I can probably recite for you most of the dialogue from The Simpsons Movie, though. I know the names of all the characters in Moby Dick, but I've never read it. However, I can tell you exactly what's happening on Lost even though I never watch it.

Have I completely screwed up? Is the damage irreversible? Has it been so long--too long--that I've lost what little ability I had to understand and translate the "academiese?"

And in the end, does it really matter, if there's no graduate program to get into? And technically, it's The Husband's turn to go to school.

ARGH!!!! Fuck it, I'm going to watch some So You Think You Can Dance on YouTube. Fuck thinking. Thinking is hard and overrated.

BTW, there needs to be a book called, "SO YOU'RE THINKING YOU WANT TO BE SMART," and it's a list of every book you need to read to be smart. Something concise. All in one place.

Just to prove a point, I close this rant with a quote from The Simpsons, but not from the movie, because Spider-Pig, no matter how awesome, is not relevant.

"I am so smart. S-M-R-T."

“They stuff you with so much useless information, you feel full.” -- Ray Bradbury

L.A.’s august Pulitzer honoree says it was never about censorship

There's an episode of the old Twilight Zone called "Midnight Sun." In it, a painter and her landlord await Death together as the Earth hurtles toward the Sun. The painter watches as her landlord dies, as the oils of her paintings melt and drip and pool in the heat.

The twist at the end is that the painter is in the grips of a fever dream, that the Earth is actually hurtling away from the Sun, and everyone will soon freeze to death.

That episode popped into my head as I exited the library just now, on my way back here to work.

It's wicked fucking hot out.

Definitely not as hot as it gets in other places, but I have a delicate constitution.

So the letter came from the doctor's office. Almost two months I've been waiting.

240

My cholesterol is 240. That's WAY HIGHER than the people in the commercials. Not as high as The Mother's 300-something, but still.

This sort of sucks, because I've NEVER had a problem with my cholesterol. NEVER. I could eat fries with impunity and every test would come back low.

So now what? Face-first into a gigantic cardboard box of White Castle onion chips, screaming, "COME GET ME, CORONARY HEART DISEASE?"

The Husband's going to probably want me to start working out in earnest now.

*pout*

So many moons ago, I wrote a review of HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE, which is still, in my mind, one of the greatest movies ever made. At the time, I wrote that Harold and Kumar could be one of the great comedy pairings, making a series of films in a similar vein as those great Hope/Crosby "Road" movies of ages past.

Well, the teaser for the new Harold and Kumar movie has made an appearance on the web. What little there is looks awesome. NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, YAY!!!

Enjoy!!

SPOILERS!!!

So if you will recall, a little while ago I posted the trailer to the new Jet Li/Jason Statham movie WAR, which looked like it would totally kick my ass three ways to Sunday and then pee all over my head with its awesomeness.

The Husband and I saw it last night, and there was not much ass-kicking to be had. It was very sad. *frown*

It was one of those days...the work day was ssssssssooooooooo fucking llllllllllllllloooooooonnnnnnnnngggggggg, I swear I thought I'd never get out of there, and then the damn computer kept crashing, and because it crashed, the program I needed was locked and I couldn't get a hold of support, and I got a headache, and it sucked ass. So The Husband suggested a movie, and I suggested a drink (which I never do), but boy did that piña colada hit the spot.

And yes, I like piña coladas, AND getting caught in the rain, especially if it's a thunder storm. But I've not yet ever had the opportunity to make love at midnight in the dunes of a cape, so I will have to get back to you on that.

I had a thought walking to the theater: I've been thinking about booze a lot, lately. Namely, that I want to drink more. I don't drink at all, really. That piña colada was the first alcoholic beverage I'd had in ages. But I think I need to be drunk more. Drinking to excess is sad and pathetic when you're in your twenties, because it's like you're stuck in a college, frat-party-obsessed rut. You drink to excess because it recaptures the glory days of college, when you were drunk all the time and having sex you won't remember in the morning with people you normally wouldn't give the time of day to. Being drunk in your thirties is all about despair and hopelessness. That seems like a much better reason to me.

Also, The Friend Naladahc has always wanted to be a heroin addict. We could totally be the "Midwest's Fat, Ugly Paris and Nicole." It'd be AWESOME.

Anyway, usually, we procure our tickets BEFORE dinner, so we can take our time and not have to worry about the lines and whatnot, but this time we didn't bother, and unfortunately it wasn't like we needed to fret about it. There was barely anyone there, even at seven on a Friday night. It wasn't like they missed much.

See, WAR is about this guy, Crawford (Jason Statham), who's on Asian gang watch for the FBI. At the beginning of the movie, he's nearly killed by this shadowy contract killer, Rogue, but his partner "kills" Rogue, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except Tom really didn't kill Rogue--he just gave him a flesh wound, apparently--and Rogue comes back and slaughters Tom and his family.

The movie picks up three years later, and Crawford's not doing so well. He's lost his family to his obsessive need to avenge Tom. Luckily for him, Rogue's back, and he's kicking ass and taking names. Actually, Rogue (Jet Li) is working for the Yakuza, killing off Triads. Except when he's working for the Triads, killing off Yakuza. Most of the movie is about Rogue's delicate juggling act involving the flaming bowling pins of Japanese and Chinese gangs, all the while hula-hooping Crawford around his outstretched ankle.

And here's the FAIL: all this double-crossing makes NO SENSE, none, until the very end of the movie. Literally ten minutes before the credits roll, Rogue reveals that he is, in fact, Tom, who miraculously survived the real Rogue's attack, killing him and taking his shadowy identity. The whole film has been about Tom exacting revenge against the mob boss who ordered his death. The mob boss then reveals that his information as to Tom's whereabouts came from Crawford, who was working for him the whole time.

And THEN, with five minutes to go, we FINALLY get the Jet Li/Jason Statham ass-kicking, which lasts two minutes, and you can't really see any of it because it's dark and the camera's flailing around like the guy holding it's having a seizure, and then Tom kills Crawford and he drives off into the sunset and THE END.

Holy crap. What a piece of shit. What a total letdown.

First of all, it's never established that a mob boss ordered Tom to be killed. Ever. I assumed (and I believe the total lack of evidence otherwise supports this contention) that Rogue killed Tom and his family because Tom shot him in the face and that pissed him the hell off.

So now Crawford's three years of anger is because Crawford wasn't there to stop Tom's death, and the guilt that he wasn't there and didn't check harder to make sure Rogue was really dead. And the whole film, Gangland's going to total hell and Crawford doesn't give a rat's ass, because he's far more concerned with getting Rogue and killing the son-of-a-bitch. But, of course, he doesn't REALLY not care, because he's good enough at his job to actually DO his job while also engaging in a vendetta. So he's out for revenge, but only sort of.

And Tom (as Rogue) isn't REALLY a cold-blooded killer, even though he's spent the whole movie chopping people's heads off, because he spares the lives of the wife and child of the big mob boss (SEE, UNLIKE HOW HIS FAMILY'S KILLED, GET IT, HUH, HUH?), although since at that point you don't know he's really Tom, you totally think (as I did) that he spared their lives because there was going to be this big reveal at the end about how Rogue has cancer and is dying and is killing all the people who wronged him but he can't kill people who haven't done anything to him because it's all a last-ditch effort to redeem himself before he goes out in a blazing gun battle with the Feds.

That would have been awesome, but I didn't write this movie.

If this blog was actually read by more people than just my mother, I would probably get a lot of comments about how YOU JUST DIDN'T GET THE MOVIE AT ALL AND NOW YR ANGRY BECAUSE YR SO STOOPID THAT U DIDN'T GET IT JET LI YAY. But seriously, it's not about that at all. I enjoy movies with twists, and I don't mind it if I NEVER SAW IT COMING. Sometimes I don't mind if I saw it coming a mile away.

HOWEVER, the problem with this movie isn't the twist itself. The problem is that this movie COULD HAVE BEEN THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE

HAD THE TWIST COME AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE.

Let me explain.

The Husband and I discussed this after the movie. The problem with movies today (one of myriad problems) is that filmmakers seem to think that it's impossible to tell a story to the audience without the characters finding out about it. But see, Filmmakers, characters AREN'T REAL. They are IMAGINARY. The actors playing them are REAL PEOPLE, but the characters ARE NOT. So for example, if you show Jet Li getting a face transplant in Mexico to the people in the audience, Jason Statham will only know about it because he's read the script. His character's not going to know unless you want him to. He's not in a theater watching the movie, and then he's going to jump into the screen with his newfound magical knowledge and screw up the plot for you. And Jet Li's not actually getting a face transplant. Although in real life I guess he could if he really wanted to.

The point is, you can SHOW ME Tom fighting Rogue at the beginning of the film. You can SHOW ME Crawford telling his mob boss where Tom lives. And guess what? NEITHER OF THE CHARACTERS ARE GOING TO BE THE WISER. They can still go through the entire movie ignorant of the other's true identity. But now what I know this information, it adds another layer of depth to the characters and their motivations and interactions that wasn't there before. And it makes for a more interesting and engaging movie. And I don't have to sit in a theater with the ushers cleaning up popcorn, wondering what the hell just happened in the last two seconds of your movie, because all I know was that when there should have been two guys getting the shit beaten out of them, they instead talk and share feelings and then all of a sudden one of them's shot to death, THE END.

Or how about this: you can also show me Crawford being eaten up by the fact that he thinks his best friend's going to get the shit kicked out him by the mob boss's henchment, which then segues into his horrified realization that he's responsible for his friend's death. NOW we understand his obsession with killing Rogue, and the true reason for the disintegration of his marriage (Hell, what if his wife knew about all this? THAT'D be something to see!). Instead, it's all a couple of throwaway lines at the end of the movie!

Imagine what this movie COULD have been! Early in the film, Crawford discovers Tom's alive. Not only that, but that Tom is the man he's been actively hunting down for THREE YEARS! The internal conflict! I should be thrilled Tom's alive! But now he's a cold-blooded killer! And he's probably now after ME! But I'm not the same man I was three years ago! I've been wracked with guilt! How do I tell him?!

And Tom discovers that Crawford's the one who was the mole who ruined their cases and sent a man to kill his family. But he was my best friend! How could he do that?! What if he was coerced?! How could the bastard do it?! Now look at the man I've become! Because of him!

And then much ass-kicking can STILL COMMENCE!! You don't have to sacrifice any violence. In fact, you're guaranteed to TRIPLE the Li/Statham ass-kicking quota!! And at the same time, BOTH CHARACTERS spend the ENTIRE MOVIE undergoing CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, CONFLICT, and perhaps even REDEMPTION over the course of the movie, again--ALL WITHOUT SACRIFICING THE ASS-KICKING.

The WORST part of all this, in the end, is that in the last five minutes of the movie, Jet Li actually got to act. And believe it or not, the man actually CAN act. His movie UNLEASHED is a perfect example of serious acting with character development and growth, with tons of bloodshed and shit getting kicked. And Jet Li was WONDERFUL in it: innocent and child-like and alive with wonder, and ferocious when necessary. And Statham's really good in what he does, but here all he got to do was scream at people (because he's angry, see?).

I know, I expected too much. The trailer was SO GOOD. So much stuff blowing up. So many heads caved in. And swords. And cars.

The cars were awesome.

As were the swords.

It makes me think of porn. Yeah, it's just a movie with people fucking, but if it had a plot and good dialogue, think of how much BETTER it'd be!!!

I wish for too much.

I'll settle for a Frappuccino with booze in it right about now.

So the textbooks for my class are now (supposedly, according to the bookstore website) in and available for purchase!!

Weird, I don't have any of them already. You'd think I'd have been able to READ THE PROFESSOR'S MIND about what books he'd be using for the course. LAME.

But still, in a few hours I will be thismuchcloser to my class!!!

Also, after blowing $75 bucks on books and an extra $2 on a Frappaccino, I will be seeing a sneak preview of Rob Zombie's "re-imagining" of HALLOWEEN. I will most definitely blog about it.

PS BORED!!!