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I Want to Believe

no@spam.com (Kumail Ali) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT

I don’t even know where to start. First of all, this is not the review of the movie. That will come tomorrow, after I watch the movie at midnight tonight. Yup, my first midnight opening viewing ever. I am not a nerd. I swear.

It’s going to be me, and the seven other people that know/give a shit that an X Files movie is coming out. And my Fox Mulder action figure. Yes, I have a Fox Mulder action figure.

I’m not helping my cause am I?

Before I begin, let me say that this has been, by far, my most anticipated movie of the summer. And the most dreaded. I knew Hellboy was gonna rock, I knew Batman was gonna rock, I knew WallE was gonna rock, but there is a chance that the X Files will not rock. In fact, there is a chance that it may sink like a rock. Oh lord how I hope it doesn’t. I don’t think I have the emotional maturity to deal with such an event. More than any other show, the X Files has let me down. I think anyone who has ever been an X Files fan can understand that.

The X Files was like the girlfriend you thought was gonna be the one. Things just kept getting better and better. She revealed herself to you in new and exciting ways and just when you thought things could never get any better, they did. Every week. And then you came home one day and found her injecting herself with heroin. And your world shattered. Is this really the same person you’ve known all these years? All those times you shared ice cream and drank from the same straw, was she injecting herself with heroin in the bathroom? Was she always an addict, or was this a recent development? You asked her. She never answered you. You moved out. You kind of kept in touch. And the one day, she dropped off the face of the earth. And you tried to forget her.

That was my first runaround with the X Files. I got so invested in the story, the long running arc. It built up perfectly, raised the stakes, kept giving you just enough reveals, and then… it just became undeniably awful. Like, unbearably awful. And the story never ended satisfactorily. And I just sort of… stopped watching the show. Unthinkable.

I think this experience is what soured me to long running arcy serieses. It perhaps explains my pseudoish hatred of Lost. I just don’t want to be hurt again. Its easier to not give a shit.

When I thought of X Files, I thought of the awesome individual episodes. Home. Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose. The arc sucked. I hated it. It was too convoluted and it made no sense. Then, 2 years ago, a friend of mine lent me season 1. And I started watching it again. And it reminded me of the awesome chemistry between Mulder and Scully. And how subtle the arc was when it started. A glimpse of a spaceship. Reports of an extraterrestrial life form running around in the jungle. Mulder always a step too late.

I bought season 2. And then I bought season 3. And then seasons 4 through 6. And I remember how good that fucking arc was. Mulder’s proof always just beyond his reach. Him needing some closure on finding his sister, or even just finding out what happened to her. Is she alive? Is she dead? He just wants to kno, either way. The first time I watched the show, I was Fox Mulder. I wanted him to get the proof that he so desperately needed. The second time through, I was Scully. I related with her crisis of faith, with her cyncism in the face of Mulder’s almost fanatical belief in the weird. And then her abduction by aliens raises the stakes on her internal conflict. Duane Barry has to be one of the best two parters in tv history. And the structure of that episode perfectly mirrors the structure of the arc and the way it developed and became bigger. It starts with a bank robbery, and ends with a fucking ufo. And I realized, she wasn’t always on heroin. She was perfect. She just let got hooked on heroin 6 years in.

I watched all the way through season 6, and I realized where they could have ended the arc satisfactorily. And that, if I squinted, if I ignored certain things, I could convince myself that the show ended with season 6. The alien conspiracy is broken up, and the world is safe. And the X Files ends on a high note, instead of running itself into the ground with T 1000 and psychic FBI agents and… oh lord.

But there was still this nagging feeling inside of me. I never really had the closure I wanted. My quest for X Files closure mirrors Mulder’s quest for proof, for finding out what happened to his sister. And then I heard they were making a movie, and I felt exactly how Mulder must have felt anytime he got a call about a UFO sighting. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is when he finds his proof. Its like the heroin lady called, and she promises she is clean, and she doesn’t wanna get back together with you, but she does want to meet up and talk, and explain herself. And I want so badly to have that closure, just like Mulder. Doesn’t matter if the sister is dead or alive, all it matters is that he, is that I, know.

Tonight I go to the UFO site. Tonight I find that closure. It may be good, it may be bad. But atleast I’ll know. I am tired of squinting.

Hellboy 2 Review: SOME SPOILERS

no@spam.com (Kumail Ali) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT

So, for whatever reason, i have no objectivity when it comes to Hellboy. I love the first movie probably way more than I should. I've seen it almost twenty times. I have a Hellboy sized blindspot, and I acknowledge that. But I will try and be as objective as I can in reviewing Hellboy 2.

Hellboy 2 is the crowning cinematic, nay, cultural, achievement of humankind. When the earth is uninhabitable and destroyed, and alien travelers come to visit our ruins, I hope they find a dvd copy of Hellboy 2, for then they will know what a civilization we had. And they will cry. At the part where the elemental dies. And they will say "This race really did do a number on their planet, but the fact that they made Hellboy 2 makes up for all the evil and strife and pain that they put themselves through." And then they will find a copy of Biodome, and say "Hey this Pauly Shore guy is pretty funny." The aliens have a Pauly Shore sized blindspot, for some reason.

So, yeah, I'm being totally objective.

Here are three reasons why I love Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.

Hellboy is a great character.

To me, Hellboy is the most interesting superhero in comic books. He is a mess of contradictions. A Big muscular man who is just a little boy on the inside.A horrifying monster sent to destroy humanity, but ends up becoming a loving human being. He wants to be a cowboy and stand alone, but what he really wants is to be accepted by Liz, and by everyone else. He just wants to fit in. Unlike Spiderman, Hellboy can never take his mask off and know what it feels to be human, to not be stared at. That's why the scene in the Troll Market is so cool. For the first time in his life, he is out in the open, and no one is staring at him. And right after that scene, he is faced with the big decision. Does he side with humans, or with the monsters? Which brings us to:

The monsters are super fucking cool.

Del Toro's monsters don't feel just like monsters who have leapt into the frame; they feel like they have lived real lives. They have scars, and broken nails, and chipped tooths. The new Star Wars movies have these glossy shiny aliens, but the monsters here are messy and ugly. But I want to know what they were doing before the movie started. Fucking Cathedral Head! I would watch a whole movie about him. I wanna see him cramming for exams, I wanna see him at the grocery store getting milk. I wanna see him getting his head renovated. Do you think he decorates it for the holidays? I wanna see a plastic santa on his head. Oh, and that awesome elemental "monster" is great. I actually got a little teary eyed when Wink bites it. The monsters in this one are kind of the good guys. Del Toro manages to humanize a creature with a talking tumor.

Liz is a great character.

Her character in the first movie is tryign to figure out where she belongs, too. She looks human, but she knows that she is not. Does she stay with Hellboy, and embrace her monsterness, or does she leave BPRD and try and live a normal life? Her decision is made clear in the beautiful scene where she engulfs herself in flames to stand with Hellboy as cops point guns at him. Don't tell me to get away from the monster. I belong with him. Also, she looks pretty good. Selma Blair. Yeah, she's kind of attractive.

The movie is wonderful. The action is great, the monsters are great, the themes are developed and handled in a very satisfying way. Go see it. If you think it sucks, you need to get your head renovated.

A rant on Lost --- SPOILERS AHEAD

no@spam.com (Kumail Ali) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT

A rant on Lost

I made a huge mistake recently guys. I got myself into Lost. I had sidestepped the whole thing too. I watched the first season and was like “They don’t know what the fuck they are talking about. They are making it up as they go along.” And stopped watching it. And then my brother had seasons 2 and 3 on disc. “I should get into it.”

Big mistake.

I don’t like watching Lost. I just wanna know what the fuck is going on. I get no joy from it.

To me, watching Lost is exactly like a guy who comes up to me and is like “Betcha wanna know whats in this box, huh?” “Yes I do.” “I’ll tell you next week.” But stretched out over a period of six years. And he calls me every week and doesn’t tell me shit. And then some weeks he’ll call and its just some stupid story about before he ever got the box. And sometimes, strangely enough, a story that will happen after he loses the box. “How the fuck could you even know that?” “I’ll tell you next week.”

“Boy Sawyer and Kate are on the outs again huh?”
“FUCK THEM! WHATS IN THE BOX?”

Sometimes he’ll call and we’ll have this conversation::

LostMan: “Hey its green. Whatever’s in the box is green. I just looked.”
Me: “Awesome! Now I know something for sure! Its green!”
LostMan: “Its not green. It might be green. There’s a chance that it’s green. Green is a color that exists.”
Me: “Fuck you Lost.”

I am knee deep in Lost right now, and I can see why the whole country is gaga over it. But I still have a lot of problems with the way the show is written and the way the characters are handled. You can see the writers moving them around like puppets. When I watch the movies and tv shows I love, I usually think “Why is he doing that? Why would Mulder let him go?” etc. When I watch Lost I always think “Why are the writers making Jack do that? Why did the characters make Jin miss?” The characters exist just so the writers can move them around in favor of the plot. Why the fuck did Jin miss the explosives in the tent when the Others came to get the pregnant women at the end of Season 3? Jin is a badass kung fu mother fucking hitman. He doesn’t miss. Bernard should miss. He’s a fucking dentist.

Jin is just a “vessel” character, and they pour whatever personality they want into him. He hates his wife and is an asshole to her! No, he loves her, and understands! He’s a badass who can beat up 3 people! No, he can’t shoot a fucking knapsack from 10 feet away.

Why did Sayid fall in love with Shannon? Just so someone could be sad when she dies? What the hell do Sayid, an Iraqi torturor, and Shannon, a trixie, have in common?

Sayid: I am a torturer.
Shannon: I’ll tell you what torture is. Torture is finding out that MAC discontinued your shade of lipstick.
Sayid: Kiss me you fool.

Also, Sayid, we get it. You’re a torturer. You don’t need to bring it up at every possible turn.

Sayid: I am Sayid Jarrah. I am a torturer.
Sawyer: uhhh… We’re just going to collect mangoes dude.
Sayid: I could help you. I will use skills I learned. As a torturer.
Sawyer: Settle down Gunga Din.

Every single character on Lost has one, and exactly one, thing from their past that they need to reconcile. Sawyer killed a wrong man and wants revenge. Locke wants to deal with his daddy bullshit. Kate killed her daddy. Its all lazy paint by numbers characterization. Give them one flaw to make them interesting. You can see that Lost is written by a team in a conference room using venn diagrams and flow charts.

It also feels to me like they keep throwing crazy shit onto the wall to see what sticks. Did that bird whisper Hurley’s name? What? Really? Is this a conversation we are actually having? Describing the events of Lost to someone makes it sound like the worst show every made.

“So the hatch implodes and the island tells Locks that he needs to go rescue Mr. Eko from the polar bear cave, only to be killed later by the smoke monster, and Locke tries to repent but ends up in the cabin housed by the ghost of Jacob. He gets shot and left in a mass grave shortly thereafter, but its ok, cuz the island really likes him.”

What? How did we get here? How did we get to the point where “the island really likes him” is a fair explanation for… anything? And we’re buying it too! We’re like “Of course he’s ok. The island. Really. Likes. Him.”

We used to want real answers. Now we settle for that. They have won.

I think the last episode is just going to be the entire cast of Lost locking hands and line dancing as JJ Abrams quietly flips you off in the corner. And I mean, the entire cast. Boone is there, Shannon is there, the polar bear is there, the smoke monster. The fucking smoke monster… jeez… don’t get me started…

My least favorite genre of movies: The Person Who Inspires Others to Truly Live

no@spam.com (Kumail Ali) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT

This is a personal preference of course, but I hate this sub genre of movies. Its condescending and trite, almost always unrealistic and extremely predictable. From what I gather, these kinds of movies always fall into three sub genres. Here they are:

1. Free Spirit moves in, inspires stodgy family/town to really live each day.
(Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Amelie, Chocolat)
I watched Sound of Music and Mary Poppins as a kid, so I don’t even know if they are bad or good. But all these movies follow the exact same plot. A sad man is showed in the beginning riding the bus alone, heating tv dinners, just really letting life pass him by. You can extrapolate this to whole towns too, where an entire town is lame and boring. Until… Free spirit alert! A more recent example is Chocolat. Oh my. Chocolatier moves into town and makes people realize that Christianity is wrong. That’s how that pitch went? But my least favorite example of this has to be Amelie, the least subtle movie ever made. The director might as well have been in the theater yelling “Now you all cry! Ok now you all be charmed out of your pants. Now you all be inspired! Now you all be so inspired and charmed that you cry. Ok, now you start crying, but halfway through become really charmed and get inspired. Ok, now you get so inspir—“ We can think for ourselves Mr. Director Man. I found her character to be very unlikeable too. Why does she act like that? She’s like a crazy sociopathic woman child, but for some reason I’m supposed to like her? If you were friends with Amelie, could you handle her at all? She would be the hippy friend that always stared too long, brought up the power of Gaia all the time, and had a grin on her face that convinced you that her daddy loved her too much one night. The whole movie is so fucking exploitative. There’s a scene where she grabs a blind man and runs him around and describes the beauty of his surroundings to him. I threw up into my popcorn.

2. The mentally disabled person who teaches friends and family about what really matters in life.
(Rain Man, Radio, The Other Sister, Forrest Gump)
In some ways the most offensive of these kinds of movies. They reduce the mentally challenged to people who say the cutest possible things in each situation, and simplify the unique challenges of raising a mentally disabled child. The Other Sister is the worst of these. Those two fuckers always say the cutest goddamm thing possible and never do anything unsightly. This is an actual exchange from the movie:
Carla Tate: I wonder who thought up sex?
Daniel McMann: I think it was Madonna.

This is how this exchange would actually go.
Carla Tate: I wonder who thought up sex?
Daniel McMann: I feel happy! Can I have some juice?
Carla Tate: Me too. Lets hit someone really hard and then cry.

Not trying to make fun of the mentally disabled, just saying that if you really wanna make a movie about someone who is mentally disabled, treat the situation with some realism. All these movies reduce the mentally ill to cartoon characters. Oh, Radio actually has this line in it:
“We thought we were teaching Radio. Turns out, Radio was teaching us.”
What was he teaching you? To shout really loud? Cuz that’s all he does in that movie.

3. The Magical/Impossibly wise Black Man
(The Legend of Bagger Vance, The Green Mile, Family Man, Bruce Almighty)
Ok, this one is the most offensive. I think its very harmful. In romanticizing the other, it still dehumanizes and instead of dealing with people as real people, we get to just think of them as fairies or magic men. In The Green Mile, the magical black man can actually raise the dead! Its also like the worst manifestation of white man’s guilt, like ever, and the lamest kind of reparations possible.

“Listen, sorry about slavery and the existing racial divide and all, but to make up for it, we’ll make a bunch of movies where you guys help out white people with your black magic. Oh that didn’t come out right at all.”
“So I’m still servicing the white man. And isn’t that, in a way, just as condescending as anything else?”
“Wow, you’re articulate. Good for you. Listen, can you bring my dead cat back to life?”

My love affair with rom coms

no@spam.com (Kumail Ali) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

For a few years there, my favorite genre of movies, bar none, was romantic comedies. I am not ashamed of this. I am not. Ahem.

It makes sense now why it happened. Boy in Pakistan hits puberty, any thought of sex induces unholy (literally) amounts of guilt, so he starts fantasizing about himself in loving relationships where the sex was implicit, not explicit. It's a story oft told, people. Get over it.

I had little to no contact with girls. Most of my schooling happened at what was ostensibly a coed school, but the girls and the guys had classes in different sides of the building. And there was a dude with a big stick who sat in between the two, thwarting any attempts at infiltration. Not that I would ever want to go into that other side. The only thing scarier to me than the big dude with the big stick, were the girls who studied past him. I was nerdy, I was scared, I was told talking to girls was wrong. Which was probably just as well, since I had no idea what I would say to a girl. "You look soft," is probably the best I could muster. I wanted to be suave with girls, of course, but I could also hide behind the rules laid down by my religion. "The only reason I don't talk to them, is because God told me not to. Which is probably the best reason possible, if you think about it. I would totally be suave to girls. If it weren't such a sin."

In such times, when the twin forces of hormonal changes, and debilitating fear (of girls, or consequences) govern my life, I would turn to romantic comedies. Where the men were smooth, the women beautiful, and the endings happy. Oh, let me lay down some ground rules about what makes a rom com. The audience has to know right from the beginning who will end up with whom, and the entire movie is about the barriers leading to that. These movies stop the moment that the two get together, so that nothing in the actual relationship is explored. Oh, and the main point of the movie is the two getting together. There may be other things going on, but those are secondary plot points.

I cant remember exactly when my affair with rom coms started, but I can tell you I watched them almost every day. When Harry Met Sally, Hope Floats, If Lucy Fell. If it had love, I was watching it. And I was the main guy in every single one. I was very explicitly aware of that. I wasn't watching two other people fumbling towards love. I was watching an alternative version of my own life, where I was smooth and I was always got the girl. I was a scruffy yet likeable French rogue in French Kiss, a washed up golfer yet likeable golfer in Tin Cup, a slightly dickish yet likeable whatever-Billy-Crystal-was in When Harry Met Sally. And I watched some terrible ones too. Addicted to Love (Meg Ryan in a stealthy robber outfit?), I.Q. (Einstein had a lot of accomplishments in the field of science, but they pale in comparison to his accomplishments in field of match making) . I even hated Sleepless in Seattle, which takes the whole barrier to love thing to an extreme, so that the principals don't even meet till the END OF THE MOVIE! Hey,Nora Ephron,, if I wanted to see a movie about a guy not talking to a girl I would hit stop on the vcr and go live my life!

Then, things changed. I went to a different high school for my last two years, one a bit more liberal than Big Dude with Stick High, and found myself sitting in classes with girls. It was terrifying. I would sit all the way in the back, so that they couldn't see me. Long story short. I had a crush on a girl for a year, we "dated" for either 2 or 4 weeks, I can't remember which, and it took me a year to get over her. "dating" btw, was more like pretending to date. It meant talking to her every other day and deciding that we were going steady. NO kissing, no phone talking, no hand holding. Just a label that we would have proudly displayed for everyone to see.

Around the time that I was trying to "win" her over, I watched Four Weddings and a Funeral. This would be the peak of my rom com "period." Hugh Grant was the perfectly idealized version of myself. Attractive, funny, and possessing an awkward bumbling nervousness that came across as charming to the ladies. I watched the movie over and over. And when I finally asked the girl if she wanted to be my "steady", I based it on the moment when Hugh Grant tells an engaged Andie McDowell that he loves her.

Except, I replaced all the talk of "love" of course, with talk of "going steady." I also realized that nervous stuttering is cute only if there is swelling music in the background, and if you look like Hugh Grant.

Anyway, after our 2 to 4 week stint, she dumped me. And then started "seeing" someone else. I was Hugh Grant in Four Weddings still, and her new boyfriend was the aging Scottish asshole that Andie decided to get engaged to. For no apparent reason. Why the fuck would she wanna marry that guy? He is ugly and useless. Look at how adorable and nice Hugh Grant is. Stay with him. And then eventually she comes back to Hugh. Just as this girl would back to me. But she never did. How could I be Hugh Grant if our stories weren't parallel. So I moved on to Casablanca. Ingrid Bergman does leave our hero at the end, but not because she wants to. She does it because the fate of the world depends upon it. Finally, that made sense. She left with the other guy because, in some secret but very real way, the fate of the civilized world depended upon it. Heartbreak is so much easier to take if it occurs due to the threat of Nazi world rule.

I now realize just how unrealistic most depictions of romance in rom coms are. There is no such thing as love at first sight. Love is much more complicated, and beautiful, than first attractions. And all rom coms end when the couple gets together, which is obviously when the actual "love" part begins. In some ways, the simplistic depictions of love in rom coms has been more harmful to us than any other genre of movies. Sure, movies are too violent, but we are rarely in situations where we can use guns to mow down our enemies. But all of us get into relationships, and the over simplified view of love can cause so much harm. The real "love" happens not before you meet the person, but after. My fiancé and I live together, and my concept of love now is very different from the one I had during my "rom com" phase. Its about two people connecting on a deeper level than a series of "meet cutes", and about trying to find fulfillment and satisfaction individually while using each other for strength, comfort and… love. Our relationship does not make us one person, but two people stronger than they were before.

Also, I wanna see a rom com called Rent Check, where two people who really love each other try and come up with money to pay the rent every month. That's the rom com for me now.

Happy Birthday to the World's Biggest Badass, Kris Kristofferson

no@spam.com (Kumail Ali) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

So I was going to post this yesterday, in honor of the big man's 72rd
birthday, but instead decided to spend the day at the airport trying to get out of North Carolina. So here we go. This is why Kris Kristofferson is the biggest badass in the world.

First of all, look at his face. His face looks like if whiskey could smoke cigarettes. He’s only 72, but looks 700. He defines grizzled.This man could beat Clint Eastwood, Dennis Hopper and a Mummy in a grizzle-off. In fact, he kinda looks like a mummy who was like “fuck these bandages all I need is some whiskey and ass.”

But don’t take my word for it. Read the man’s bio I got from imdb. He’s like Forrest Gump, but with more brains cells and a wicked hangover. The bio in quotes, my comments in italics.

“Kris Kristofferson's father was an Air Force general who pushed his son to a military career.”
Son, killing things is what you wuz made for.

“Kris was a Golden Gloves boxer and went to Pomona College in California.”
It surprises me not at all that he can throw a punch.

“From there, he earned a Rhodes scholarship to study literature at Oxford.”
Ummm… what?!? The Rhodes scholarship?!? The most prestigious academic award in the world? To study… literature, of all thing? Ohkayyy…

“He ultimately joined the army and achieved the rank of captain.”
Of course he did.

“He became a helicopter pilot, which served him well later.”
Wait, how is this going to come into play?

“In 1965 he resigned his commission to pursue songwriting.
He had just been assigned to become a teacher at West Point. He got a job sweeping floors in Nashville studios. There he met Johnny Cash, who initially took some of his songs but ignored them. “
You don’t ignore the ‘stoff.

“He was also working as a commercial 'copter pilot at the time. He got Cash's attention when he landed his helicopter in Cash's yard and gave him some more tapes.”
Like, I said, you don’t ignore the ‘stoff. He will land a FUCKING HELICOPTER IN YOUR BACKYARD! “Hey my songwriting career isn’t taking off the way I would like. I know what I’ll do. I’ll land a helicopter in the backyard of one of HISTORY’S GREATEST SINGER/SONGWRITERS!” I would love to have seen Johnny Cash’s reaction to that. “Wait what's that sound? So loud! It sounds like a copter just landed in my yard. Ok, that is literally what just happened. Wait, is that the janitor from the studio getting out—“ The ‘stoff intimidated Johnny Cash into listening to him. Johnny Fucking Cash. The man who once sang “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” and made you believe it. Yeah, THAT Johnny Cash. Well, I hope the ‘stoff’s songwriting can back up his bravado.

“Cash then recorded Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down", which went was voted 1970's Song Of The Year by the Country Music Association. “
BAM! Song of the Year motherfuckers! Oh he also wrote Me and Bobby McGee, perhaps you’ve heard of it.

“Kris was noted for his heavy boozing.”
You don’t say.

“He lost his helicopter pilot job when he passed out at the controls, “
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

“and his drinking ruined his marriage to singer Rita Coolidge,"
Wait, wait, wait. Let's go back to that last one. He passed out drunk while he was piloting a helicopter, and survived. No one has ever survived passing out at the helicopter controls before. He lost his license because they had t take it away, but apparently his supervisor’s only rebuke to him was “That’s awesome.”

"when he was reaching a bottle and half of Jack Daniels daily.”
A bottle and a half? Do you have any idea how much Jack Daniels that is? If you drank that much in one day, your liver would literally fall out of your stomach. The ‘stoff did it every. Single. Day. While his liver kept yelling “Bring it!”

“He gave up alcohol in 1976.”
Cuz he reached the point where he can be perpetually drunk without ever having to taste alcohol again.

“His acting career nose-dived after making Heaven's Gate (1980) in 1980. In recent years he has made a comeback with his musical and acting careers. He does say that he prefers his music, but says his children are his true legacy.”
Nose-dived? Yeah, do you remember the Blade movies? Also, his legacy is not his children. There is no way they can live to a father who was a Golden Gloves Boxer, a Rhodes scholar, a Captain in the army, a helicopter pilot, an award winning singer songwriter, an actor who out badassed Wesley Snipes without even trying.

Here is a verse from Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down

And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin'.
And it echoed through the canyons,
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.

Disappearing dreams? Man, you sound like someone who’s already lived the dreams of five people. I feel lame. I gotta get to work.

My rant on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Loads of SPOILERS

no@spam.com (Kumail Ali) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a very disappointing movie. The more time goes by, the less I like it. Lets get the obligatory caveats out of the way. I love all the Indiana Jones movies. And this movie is not that bad. As a brainless action movie. As an Indiana Jones movie, it is pretty bad. There may be spoilers ahead so be careful. Here are my problems with it.

1.   Fucking gophers? Really? Why? No no seriously. Why? It reminds me of how busy every scene in the Star Wars prequels is. Just shit flying around everywhere. In present terms, it would be the equivalent of walking down the street and the street is littered with paperboys, bike messengers, detectives with magnifying glasses in their hands, a mime on a unicycle, an accountant balancing a sheet, two guys carrying a pane of glass, and a pregnant woman breaking up with her husband.
2.   Aliens? Really? Why? No no seriously. Why? Also, they’re not aliens, as John Hurt says. They’re interdimensional beings. They look just like aliens to me. (John Hurt has had a lot of experience with aliens before, so he should know better I guess.) And them being inter dimensional beings rather than aliens doesn’t really affect the story either way. But they still made it a point to mention, twice, that the crazy beings are inter dimensional, not alien. Its just so when people ask Lucas “Aliens? Really? Why? No no Seriously. Why?”, he can say, “Actually they’re inter dimensional beings.” And then he can pick what’s left of our childhoods out of his beard and slip it into his mouth.
3.   Marion has nothing to do. In fact, she has a decent intro scene, and then she devolves into a weird woman child who grins and makes crazy faces. Lucas does not know how to write female characters. We’ve known this before. Its because he hasn’t spoken to a woman since he convinced Carrie Fisher to kneel before a giant booger in a bikini thing. No, the giant booger is not wearing the bikini thi--- you know what I’m talking about.
4.   I hate sand. It gets everywhere. Wait. That’s the other movie he ruined.
5.   The last sequence is all cg. I expected David Duchovny to be in the hat after that alien shi--- sorry I mean inter dimensional ship, rose out of the ground into space--- sorry. Into the space between spaces.
6.   “Space between spaces?” Really? Why? No no seriously. Why?
7.   That scene where Mutt Williams tarzans all over the place. Also, his name is “Mutt”, Indy was the dog’s name… there’s a connection there maybe? Also, the monkeys. Goddammit. I expected Jar Jar to be swinging on one of the vines with him. “Mee sa swinging on trees.”

Ok. That’s all. Thanks for ruining my fondest memories. I now wait for Lucas to make a movie out of that really great day I had when I was 14 when we went to Universal Studios and I ate two Snickers ice cream bars and bought Psycho bath towels and rode in that awesomely kick ass Back to the future ride. But, in the movie version, the Back to the Future ride is changed to a Time Cop ride, the Snickers bars are now gigantic tubs of bubblegum and poop ice cream, and my Mom talks like she got lobotomized by a broken dvd of The Phantom Menace. Yes, I know that the movie didn’t come out until after my visit, but Lucas has never been a stickler for consistency.

Spielberg is ok tho.

Totally Recalling Awkwardness

no@spam.com (Kumail Ali) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

The first female breasts I ever saw were on that three breasted mutant lady on Total Recall. You know how the ending to Casablanca reminds you that, even with our propensity to do untold harm to each other, human beings have the singular capacity to find goodness within themselves, that no matter how bleak the situation might be, we maybe able to illuminate it with the sliver of light within each and everyone of us? That’s what it was like. Except replace the problems of “three little people” with “three medium sized breasts.” And add one very confused boner. I turned off the vcr and ran and told my parents. “That movie had scenes I shouldn’t be seeing. Also, uh, couple of questions…”

I was raised Muslim, and we had strict rules about movies. No sex. No sex at all. If I was watching a movie that they had rented for me that had sex, I was to turn it off and go tell them. And I did it everytime. What was worse, though, was when scenes would show up during movies I would watch with my parents. The rules were simple. Bury my head in the pillow as my dad fast forwarded through the offending scene. It was worst when you could kind of see it coming.

“Hey, thanks for helping me with the Nazi brigade back there. You wanna come up for some coffee?”
(Oh shit. No. No please don’t go up for any coffee. My mom and dad are right here.)
“I don’t drink coffee.”
(Awesome!)
“Well, honey, you won’t have to.”
(Noooooooo!)

Cue the very specific windy/whirry sounds of fast forwarding as I bury my face in a pillow.

It felt horrible, just the implicit acknowledgment that sex was about to occur, that I somehow knew the kinds of wordplay and verbal jousting that led to these scenes. I certainly had moments where I mistakenly buried my head in the pillow expecting love making. And then had to emerge from my pillow of shame a little embarrassed when the scene changed. “I totally thought she was into him.”

Here is the worst of these occurrences. Watching a movie with my parents, the sex scene happens, I bury my face in the pillow. Except there is no fast forwarding. My mom yells my dad’s name. “Fast Forward it!” “I don’t think the battery is working.” And then I sat there, my face in a pillow, the sounds of simulated sex filling the air as my dad fumbles with the remote control, trying to change batteries. The moaning gets louder with each fumble, or maybe it just seems to get louder. My mom is yelling my dad’s name, I can hear my dad trying to get the batteries in the right way, as the two people on screen moan towards faked ecstasy. One giant moan, and then silence. And then, when its obviously too late, the windy whirring sounds of fast forwarding. There has never been a bigger disconnect between the way characters have felt on screen and the way that an audience has felt watching them. Or, in my case, hearing them. What I felt was the exact opposite of having sex. We all emerged from the episodes changed. That moment took something from each of us.

The weird thing, however, was that we could watch the most violent movies ever made. And that was fine. Somehow, watching a man kill another man was better than watching the natural act of sex. I watched all the Rambo movies, all the Rocky movies, and every single horror movie I could get my hands on. I still don’t really understand this double standard. We watched the most gleefully sadistic scenes without a hint of awkwardness, but then would be reduced to quivering heaps of embarrassment as soon as two characters decided to spoon. What would get a worse reaction from my parents:

“Mom, dad, I had sex for the first time last week.”
vs.
“Mom, dad, I murdered someone for the first time last week. You know, one thing led to another, and next thing I know…”

Now that I think about it, I actually wouldn't be surprised if it was the former.

"What did you do? Have you no shame?!? This is not how we raised you!"
vs.
"Go hide in the basement. We'll bring you food down twice a day. We love you very much."

What awkward sex movie moments have you guys shared with your parents?