Over the weekend, two highly anticipated films which will forever be relegated to the "Cult Classics" section of your local DVD store:
Clerks II and
Snakes on a Plane.
Let's start with the last first.
Snakes on a Plane, as I hardly need to inform the internets, has been hyped to hell. I doubt if any other film has ever had so many superlatives lobbed at it, let alone before its unveiling. But it's here now. And on Sunday evening, several friends and I sat alone in a theater in Provo (which is likely the ideal viewing circumstance for this film).
It's apparent that Samuel L. Jackson really enjoys acting in movies. I'm glad of it, because he's damn good at it. And he made this one actually watchable. From his very first line to the very end, everything Jackson said was gold. However, it'd be wrong to call it a good movie. There were some campy laughs to be had (especially in the exposition, which is hypercliché), but there was a lot of action movie bullshit in between to drudge through. And there's a lot. I was actually surprised at the amount of carnage in this film. At times it felt more like a zombie gorefest than a campy thriller, at one point prompting one of my friends to jokingly remark "Quick, kill her, before she becomes a snake!"
Oh, and just in case you miss them, there are snakes on the plane.
Now, onto
Clerks II.
I like Kevin Smith. He isn't the most visually inspiring director, but his dialogue is generally fantastic. The original
Clerks film is among my favorite comedies, largely because, with its extremely limited budget, Smith was forced to play to his strengths - characters and dialogue.
Clerks II is his best film in the twelve years since
Clerks. Returning us to the world of Dante Hicks and Randall Graves provides us with the same sort of limited canvas he was working with in 1994.
Not to say the film doesn't have its missteps. The character of Dante's fiancée, Emma, is obviously not meant for him. Kevin Smith will not allow us to fail to catch onto this. Subtlety isn't Smith's strongest suit. From the moment she appears on the screen, she's obnoxious. Perhaps this is a more general gripe about film that I'm taking out on this movie, but I wish characters like these weren't simply used as pawns. Allow us to feel a degree of pain for Emma when the inevitable happens. Make us a little conflicted.
Overall, though, the film succeeds. If I were the sort who assigned film ratings, this would be a three-and-a-half out of four stars film. It delivers much of what made the first
Clerks great: dialogue. Dialogue in which one character's perceptions of the world and directly challenged by those of another, in which we witness a clash of two realities fighting for a claim to normalcy. It's a recurring theme in Smith's films, and one that I love to see explored.
Also, the movie's funny as hell. No fart jokes, even.
And a word needs to be said about Rosario Dawson. Not only was she her acting spectacular, but she was incredibly sexy. Seriously.
Labels: babbling about films
Leaving Riverside today, we stopped at a plaza where I procured some of the best donuts I've ever had. (Genie's Donuts in Riverside. Represent.) As I stood outside the Rite-Aid, waiting for my companions, my eyes fell upon a sign that has destroyed my mind. I regret that I didn't snap a picture of it, but I was too shaken. Posted next to the door were the words, printed on a large red plastic sign, "WE WELCOME ALL SAV-ON CUSTOMERS." (For those not in the know, Rite-Aid and Sav-On are competing drug store chains in the Western U.S.)
I stood, confused. My thoughts stirred feverishly. What possible reasons could this store have for posting this sign? On the first glance, I had thought it had read "coupons" in place of "customers." That wouldn't be uncommon. However, what situation would prompt a store like Rite-Aid to expect that someone who would consider oneself a "Sav-On customer" would feel unwelcome in a Rite-Aid? Does this particular Rite-Aid have a history of past abuses against Sav-On customers? No, of course not. That's absurd.
So what made it seem to whoever had commissioned this sign that this was a prudent - or necessary - strategic advertisement? Every scenario seemed equally ridiculous. Obviously, a store like Rite-Aid
wants Sav-On's customers, but implying that they might have reaosn to suspect second-class treatment on the basis not already being a regular Rite-Aid customer seems a peculiar strategy. What if I'm a Walgreen's customer?
As each of my friends trickled out of the store, I asked them if they could come up with an explanation. The best I could get out of them was someone who could see where I was having a problem, though he couldn't see it himself. All the rest couldn't really understand why it was bothering me at all. However, it was
really bothering me. A friend suggested that it was merely hospitability. But by extending a specific invitation to Sav-On's customers, doesn't that feel a little exlusive to customers of neither Sav-On nor Rite-Aid?
Driving away, the sign miles behind me, it was still eating at my mind. Now, an hour later, I'm no more satisfied. Perhaps you, dear reader, will be as perplexed as my friends at my own perplexion.
It was thoroughly bizarre.
And why do these stores need to misspell the words in their names?
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Saturday, August 19, 2006 |
This is my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean from the mainland American coastline. Many times, I've looked in this direction, too far away from everything else to see anything but open ocean.
The beach presents an interaction between man and Earth unlike any other. Though constantly crowded with people (though today's not too bad), parallel all sorts of touristy shops and restaurants, and adorned with the occasional tacky dock, we're largely content to leave it exactly in its natural state: sand and water. There's a degree of solace to be found in standing in the path of the tide, just letting it wash over your feet, feeling the sand collapse beneath you, adjusting your weight to compensate. People have been doing this for tens of thousands of years, I'm sure, on this very spot; and, in fact, various spots all over the globe. Their descendants now gather here to do the same. Our forebears would never have met, and yet I see people of all ethnicities enjoying the exact same thing. It's human. It's natural.
And I'm kind of worried one of these seagulls is going to shit on my laptop. My friend stands ankle-deep in the foam, calling his girlfriend in New York. And we laugh at another friend, who, at 23, we've all decided resembles a "dad." A gray smog obscures things less than half a mile away. And my blog gets just a little sappier.
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Thursday, August 17, 2006 |
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Greetings from the Wester West |
Tonight, I find myself in California. I don't often find myself in California. Yet here I am. In California. Which is west of where I usually am. Hence the title of this posting.
This post has no real point, except to exist as a blog post from California. It adds a sense of the exotic. You know where you sit in the world when you think of California as exotic. In the past, I've found myself regretting being in parts of the world that aren't Utah (read: Idaho), and leaving no electronic record of my exploits.
Allow me to ramble on a bit. I just got a new (used) laptop. Thus, I stand in this "shed" that I'll be sleeping in tonight, connected on my own computer via a wireless connection. This shit's bananas. Good bananas.
I spent ten hours in a car with six other people today. And yet I've remained in remarkably good spirits. Any time you can get seven people together, never more than ten feet from one another, for nearly 24 hours, without a single dramatic standoff, hurt feelings, or anything other than laughter and bemused silences, I count as successful day.
I'm ending now because the directionless nature of this post could lend itself to several more paragraphs of increasingly incoherent bullshit. Before I go, allow me to give a shoutout to my good friend, Eli, who has just started his new blog,
Modern Revelation! Check it.
