“I once knew a writer who tried that route (psychoanalysis). Cured him of writing all right. But did not cure him of the need to write. The last I saw of him he was crouching in a comer, trembling. That was his good phase. But the mere sight of a wordprocessor would throw him into a fit.” – Heinlein, ‘The Cat Who Walks Through Walls’
A dear friend of mine described the need to write as “a concrete block on [her] chest”. It took time away from chores and duties to write, but every day she didn’t write, another block was added until finally, under threat of her metaphorical rib cage collapsing, she threw the blocks off and wrote. I can’t think of a better metaphor for this.
We (that is, writers) ideally should write every day. A little or a lot, some writing should happen. And I’m not just talking about stuff like this blog post either. My wife has pointed out on multiple occasions, in the same tone of voice she uses to remind me to deal with the utilities, that writing a blog post actually takes time away from writing things that might actually end up paying me money. Not that the blog doesn’t make money, it just doesn’t make very much.
Speaking of which, have you clicked a blog’s ad today? It makes you and the blog feel good.
…That metaphor is going somewhere dirty.
Anyway, the point that I’m trying to make is that writers need to write. Just like programmers need to program, drivers need to drive and plumbers need to plumb. It isn’t just what we do, it’s who we are. It’d be easy to succumb to letting ourselves be defined by day jobs or pending bill payments or anything else the mundane world likes to throw at us. I’m not trying to say that writing is anything supernatural, though. Writing itself is pretty mundane. Writing anything more than a few hundred words can get just as tedious as any other task if you can’t quite get into your groove.
Getting into one’s groove, however, is something that bears discussing. Probably in another post.
“Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, he eats you.”
It’s true in many walks of life that we spend a lot of time chasing or being chased. We chase our dreams, we get chased by doubt. We chase new shiny objects, we get chased by creditors. We chase deer, we get chased by bears.
Bears take many shapes. They could be an oncoming deadline, a mismanaged creditor or just the sheer bulk of a projects. We get done running from one, and just as we sit down to catch our breath, another explodes out of the woods, very cross at us for making off with its picnic basket.
I may seem like I’m rambling a little bit here, but suffice it to say that things are going on in my life that are both exciting and terrifying, both stimulating and crushing, both good and bad. And I’m not entirely sure I’ll be able to outrun the bears that are after me as I chase down my dragons.
When it comes to this sort of thing, however, it counts to have family and friends willing to hear you out. Being alone when dealing with major sources of stress compared to having people you can rely on to at least lend an ear is the difference between running from the bear in your bare feet and running from the bear in a well-laced pair of shoes. My first patron put it this way: “You’re only as alone as you choose to be.”
Not much to say beyond that good gold nugget of advice, I suppose. Though I do find myself thirsty for sasparilla all of a sudden.
In Filamena‘s Maschine Zeit game, I’ve put together a completely manic and caustic combination of Hunter S. Thompson and Spider Jerusalem. One of the groups in the game, the Independent Media, operates under the collective moniker of “S.L. Clemins” as a measure of protection. This guy, though? Don’t go in for that.
(Warning: adult language incoming.)
Spoiler
You want to know about the stations? Let me tell you about the stations. They’re the gift that keeps on giving. Earth has an overpopulation problem? Build stations & fill them with warm human bodies. Gamma-ray burst blow across the planet without making anybody Hulk out? Say the stations protected people and thus justified the investment of money and blood required to put them up. Still having energy problems? Stations have magic metal that’ll fix it. Ghost hunters running out of prisons and castles? Hey, the stations have ghosts too!
As far as I’m concerned, the stations are, have been and always will be so many tons of next-generation bullshit at the end of really, really long tethers. It’s the only reason they haven’t stinking up the planet.
I mean, yeah, we had to get some people off of the surface. We had way too many people and way too little usable space & consumable resources. Of course none of the old methods would go over that well with most governments. You ever try pitching the idea of putting a bunch of people from a given nationality or ethnicity into a little room and filling it with gas, for example? They’d tell you to go fuck yourself, and rightly so. For one thing, gunning people down’s a lot more fun.
What it boils down to is that everything about the stations is a lie. “This will solve the overpopulation problem.” They didn’t. “They’re completely safe.” Well, obviously they fucking aren’t. And now we’re to believe there’s magic metal up there and that it’s protected by ghosts? I’m as inclined to believe that as I am that the reason the stations came to be in the first place was a natural occurrence.
Basic premise of the world, folks: Everybody’s full of shit. I’m full of shit, you’re full of shit, and the corporate goons who sent all those good people to die up there are definitely full of shit. Maybe there really are ghosts on the stations. Maybe it’s one hell of a mass hallucination. Either way, it’s something I won’t buy stock in unless I get to see it myself. Not that I’ve got any chance of that. My last four steady jobs all ended because people who once considered themselves sponsors of mine, if not employers, did something embarrassing, tried to cover it up and got fucked over a cactus because they insisted on hiding it from one of the most annoying and thorough investigative journalists who ever stuck a cigarette in his shit-spewer and asked the hard fucking questions: Me.
I’m willing to entertain any theory about what’s happening up there, how things got up there and what the future holds. Just don’t throw a fucking hissy fit when I point out how illogical, unsubstantiated or thoroughly retarded your theory might be. Throw ’em at me, Internet, and I’ll knock ’em out of the park and when they break your mom’s window I’ll do more than go in there after it. If you get my meaning. And I’m sure you do.
By the way, guys, it’s “Clemens.” Samuel Langhorne fucking Clemens. Sure, all of you can be friends with this ‘Clemins’ guy, but me? I’m Samuel Langhorne fucking Clemens’ secret gay lover. And he really hates people misspelling his name. I really respect the work he’s done. The work you all have been doing? Eh, it’s hit or miss.
You’ll be hearing more from me, especially if you folks have the balls to throw ideas my way. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of, unless you’re afraid of me fucking you in the ass. I mean, if you’re all S.L. Clemins, you’re close enough for my tastes, and let me assure you, I’m very, very gay for Twain.
Fair warning: this is a post that deals with my opinions, reflections and influences from growing up in the 80s. You may consider these the ramblings of a crazy old man if you like.
It’s also going to be picture-heavy, since I’m a bit strapped for time.
I grew up in the 80s. I was in my formative years during the Regean administration, the height of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, the tail end of the arcade’s heyday and the final years of the Cold War. I think it’s safe to say that, even from a young age, my tastes in entertainment verged towards escapism, especially speculative fiction in the form of movies. I watched a lot of movies.
Some of the movies I grew up loving and watching repeatedly to catch nuances and relive key moments have not, as they say, aged well. Some still hold up as entire moviegoing experiences while others look or feel a bit dated. I think there’s fertile ground for discussion in these films, especially if younger generations fail to understand why I consider them so influential. I don’t expect everybody to fall in love with these films the way I did. In fact, if I were to watch a couple of these films again I’m not sure my feelings about them would be as strong now as they were then. However, I think it’s safe to say that, for most of them, they can be considered classics in one regard or another.
I’d like to go in-depth on a few of these “nerd classics” another time, but for now, here’s some of the films that helped shape me as a movie geek and storyteller which some of you young whipper-snappers don’t respect, appreciate or even know about.
Spoiler
Feel free to discuss a bit here and now, and expect more from me on these in the future.
Jumper is an existential treatise on the nature of the conjectural power of teleportation. The schizophrenic, random nature of the story is paired with a tendency towards awkward shot composition, layered with somewhat passable CGI to create an experience not unlike the one an individual would have if they did, in fact, discover they had the aforementioned power. It’s a breathtaking overarching statement on the nature of human existence that…
Wait a second, no. No, that wasn’t intentional. This flick is just a mess.
Get used to shots like this – they try to justify the whole film’s existence.
Jumper introduces us to young David Rice, a 15-year-old kid with a crush on a girl and problems with a bully. His halting attempt to chat up his would-be paramour has the bully acting the way bullies do, and David ends up under an iced-up lake staring down an early grave. He jumps – that is to say, teleports – into the local library, soaking wet and very confused. He learns to control his power and does what I think any 15-year-old would do: robs a couple of banks to pick up awesome toys and eventually settles into a swank pad. Apparently his jumping ability also gives him the power to grow up looking like Hayden Christensen. Eventually, however, the fun comes to an end when a group of quasi-religious para-governmental hunters called Paladins, lead by a white-haired Samuel L. Jackson as ‘Roland’, come looking for David. Are they mad that he’s robbing banks? Do they want to harness his power for their own ends? No – they just want him dead because “only God should have this power.”
Don’t worry, any potential religious fanaticism on the part of the Paladins or cool young adult rebellion courtesy of the Jumpers is completely undermined and utterly without teeth, since Jumper is way too busy trying to look cool. The supernatural nature of the protagonist’s ability is simply a vehicle to take the camera from one exotic location to another. Now, as a method for promoting travel, Jumper works. I wouldn’t mind seeing Rome or Egypt or Tokyo myself someday. But I wouldn’t want to go with the guy we’re supposed to be rooting for in this film.
‘Rachel, I know you might be talented, but people are here to see us make out.’
There are two problems with him. Blame for the first falls on Hayden Christensen. It could have been assumed, in the wake of the atrocious Star Wars prequels, that the portrayal of Anakin Skywalker, supposedly one of the greatest and most virtuous Jedi before his tragic fall from grace, as a selfish emotionless wooden childish dunce was less the fault of Hayden and more that of writer/director/creator/deity/nutjob George Lucas. Seeing Jumper, however, it seems that David & Anakin are completely interchangeable. Both of these characters are uninvested in the lives of others, completely without strong emotion or drive and do nothing to connect with the audience. This problem is underscored heavily within the first fucking minute of the movie with David actually narrating for us, describing his experiences rather than showing us and letting us figure it out on our own. And he calls the audience ‘chumps’. This kind of thing worked in ‘Wanted,’ but it doesn’t work here. Of course if I’d paid for a cinema ticket, I’d feel very chumpish indeed, sitting there in the dark picking metaphorical splinters out of my ear.
If I could digress for a moment: Mark Meer, voice actor for the male Shepard player character in Mass Effect has been called somewhat unemotive in comparison to his female counterpart, Jennifer Hale. The opening narration of Jumper by Christensen is so bland, wooden and lacking in life that Mark Meer’s voice acting seems downright bombastic in comparison. Interchangeable as the characters of David and Anakin might seem, though, David is clearly more of a deliberate delinquent rather than pretending to be a guardian of truth and justice, which leads us to our second problem, a problem I shall illustrate by quoting fellow critic Confused Matthew.
“Our supposed hero and protagonist is an asshole. I mean he doesn’t listen to anybody, he’s not very nice, he treats everyone around him like shit and he only ever thinks about himself!”
This is the exact same thing Matthew says about Anakin Skywalker in the second two Star Wars prequel films. He also says it about young Simba in The Lion King, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Hayden’s portrayal of David raises one of Jumper‘s many questions: Other than taking a little delight in agreeing that robbing a bank without chance of normal authorities catching you sounds like fun, how are we supposed to empathize with, cheer for or even like this smug, arrogant, womanizing, selfish jerkass?
Jumper‘s questions are not the kind posed by films intended to raise them during the narrative (“Who is Keyser Söze?” for example) or as a result of the narrative’s themes (“Is the HAL 9000 a computer or a living being?”). They’re problematic questions, areas of weakness in the movie’s premise, plot and pacing. Why does the Jumpers’ ability sometimes cause massive structural damage and sometimes not? Even when just jumping himself, David sometimes breaks walls or causes ceilings to collapse, and other times he just bamfs from one side of the couch to the other without so much as jostling a cushion. Also, why do Jumpers engage in short-range combat? You’d think that with the ability to teleport any distance to any location at any time, any Jumper worth their salt wouldn’t stick around long enough to get involved in a punch-up. If you had this ability – okay, if I had this ability, and a Paladin was en route to tase me into submission before gutting me like a fish, my plan would be to jump right behind him, grab him by the shoulders, jump 30000 feet straight up, let go of the Paladin and jump back to the ground. Unless parachutes are standard issue equipment for them, that Paladin’s going to have a very bad day, and even if he does have a parachute, by the time he touches down I’d be halfway around the world. The character of Griffin does get a little creative with his ability here and there, including a scene with a sports car that’s one of the few spots in the movie where I found I was enjoying myself, but for the most part the Jumpers seem incapable of directly fleeing the Paladins or dealing with them in guerrilla-style warfare. Maybe they’re just in awe at the sight of Roland’s ridiculously white hair.
Also, why the fuck was Big Ben chiming the hour when it was clearly showing only half-past?
He’s just as upset about that hairdo as I am. Seriously, guys, what the fuck?
I didn’t think Jumper could get any worse. And then, at the very end, Kristen Stewart appears. Now, it’s not her fault that the Twilight “saga” is the way it is. I didn’t get mad when I saw her, I honestly felt sorry for her. Jamie Bell & Rachel Bilson may be the standouts in this exercise in random trendy blandness, but theirs isn’t the only potential going to waste. You can almost feel Kristen’s inevitable backslide into paper-thin contrived super-stardom, and there’s something tragic about that, because when she was getting started as an actress there was potential there that I fear Stephenie Meyer might have strangled in the crib. Maybe I’m wrong and The Runaways will kick all kinds of ass. But I’m wandering off my point. Or maybe I’m jumping!
Remember Push? That film did everything Jumper does – angsty male lead, cool superpowers, exotic locales – but does it better and in a less random and confusing way. If you’re looking for something somewhat new and different in this genre, go watch Push. It’s intelligently written, directed without contrivance and the actors actually seem somewhat interested in what’s going on. Don’t watch Jumper. It’s an ill-conceived, poorly-executed mess. It adds nothing to the superpower action genre other than more evidence that Hayden Christensen is half Ent. The writing is poor, the acting is sub-par, the special effects induce yawns instead of excitement and the whole thing feels like a very cynical dollop of bland, generic action to placate the masses. At least when I play Halo, my hands occasionally tense up from holding down the fire button as I march Master Chief invincibly into incoming fire, which reminds me that I’m involved in something that’s supposed to be entertaining. Jumper requires nothing from the viewer, promises nothing and delivers nothing. It’s pretty much a waste of time, and if you were to jump anywhere, it should be far, far away from this movie.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
