Movies with the Morones

My buddy Mike Morone -- my best friend from high school days who took my ass and my dog's ass in from the cold last Jan. 16, and who i hadn't laid eyes on since Jan. 22, the day he dropped us off at our new address (the unfortunate result of my not having wheels, and Mike's living in the sticks) -- called up the other day to say "bitch, come to the movies with me and the family" and so i did. Even though he keeps calling me "bitch." Gonna have to talk to him about that, this USED to be an all-American red-blooded Christian conservative God-fearing family-oriented blog, until recently. Not really sure when it all started to go south.

Anyway, we went to see Million Dollar Baby followed by Hide and Seek. I was shocked, shocked to find out just now that MDB has been nominated for not one but 7 Oscars: best actor and actress, best supporting actor, best director, best film editing, best PICTURE?! and most surprisingly of all: best writing (adapted screenplay).

Maybe i shouldn't be surprised though, since Hollywood is turning out more and more predictable, formulaic garbage, and it is after all what people continue to pay to see. And every time i say or write something like that, i have the uncomfortable feeling that opinions like these are what comes with getting older. Was it always thus?

The generally low quality of the average Hollywood film -- and here i'm mostly talking about the plot and the script -- is i think at least in part the consequence of focus-group movie-making, in which several versions of a film, or of a film's ending, are shown to audiences who vote on which one they like best.

i won't really bother to list all of the things i didn't like about MDB (unless someone posts a comment and asks me to), but Dougie T's advice is: take the sixteen dollars/euros you would've spent on 2 move tickets, invite 2 or 3 of your friends to some little cafe you've been meaning to check out for a while, buy yourself and them a couple of carafes of the house red wine, and chat pleasantly for a couple of hours about whatever comes up. Or if you don't feel like chatting, invite just one friend and bring along a backgammon board. (See, there ARE alternatives!)

Hide and See with Robert DeNiro was ok, although i am not such a big fan of horror and scary films to begin with. Since our reality is what we create for ourselves (have you already heard my spiel on huna?), why would anyone want such disturbing images downloaded into their brains? That's my question. Send me your thoughts, please.

While we were waiting for the DeNiro flick to begin, a trailer for the sequel to (actually i'm not only NOT linking to it, i'm not even going to NAME it, i'll just call it:) movie X came on, and Mike's son Charlie, age 13, sitting next to me says at the end, "Oh, that's not as scary as the first one." I turned to him and said, You SAW the first one?!

Man, when i first saw the commercials on tv for movie X, i thought, "now that's something i am staying far away from," that, and Blair Witch Project, for example. Evil nasty stuff, like .. no, i don't even want to give examples of the kind of twisted shit that directors with movies like these are pouring into the collective unconscious. It's bad enough that adults sit in front of the big screen and take in this stuff .. but it really pains me to think of the effect that this kind of material is undoubedtly having on the minds of kids, and not only when they go to sleep.

If you're American, allow me to ask: is there not already enough fear in your life? Why would you want to add to that?

I hate to admit it, but one of my biases against my fellow Americans is that they -- more than people elsewhere in the world, who nonetheless are not immune -- are trapped in a giant media-cocoon that spoon-feeds them mostly what the Washington/New York/Hollywood power barons want them to see and hear and read. And it's a culture that is set up to feed and fan people's fears about all kinds of things, not just life in the post-9/11 world.

So while the movie-making experience itself wasn't all that i'd hoped for, it was at least a chance to spend some time with a guy who's got to be met to be believed: my buddy Mike.

Maybe next time we can tie up his kids and force them to sit through a re-watch of Whale Rider!

Been meaning to ask ...
What are the 5 books that 1) have influenced you the most, or 2) you would most like to have the rest of the world read, or 3) you just plain love, for whatever reason?

Give me a list of one or more either by clicking on the Comments link, or by emailing me at PastisPast59@hotmail.com.

BTW,
if you haven't already done so, may i suggest that you download the new internet browser Mozilla, and protect your computer from all of the viruses that are made to target the 95% of people still accessing the internet via Explorer?

Not only will you be taking a step toward greater protection of your computer, but you will also be able to avail yourself of a few really neat features that Mozilla has to offer which Explorer does not, among them something called "tabbed browsing" (the ability to open new websites in a tab of the current window) and the ability to (via the keyboard shortcuts ctrl+/-) to increase/decrease text-size. Read all about why you should here. Or here.

Gotta get home to the pooch, so it's ciao for now my little cabbages!