Always Remember Who Is The Man That Set Me Free

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Film Noir, The Decay of Modern Cinema and Why The Happening Doesn't Happen #2

You guys, this is, like, totally my first followup post. Yay!!!

Ok, so. As told before by me, there is but one moment that completely and utterly obliterates this fucking movie (The Happening). No, it's not the fact that the ending sucks. No, it's not the fact that, regardless of how believable the plot can be, it still doesn't really add up for a decent horror movie. No, it's not the fact that Wahlberg's acting consists of clean language and a "I wanna take a shit" grin throughout the goddamn movie. And No, it's not the fact that most of the movie happens in the country side as opposed on the movie posters which was kind of a turn off for me.

It's the kids that get blown away by shotguns.

THERE, I FUCKING SAID IT!!!! WHO ON THEIR RIGHT FUCKING MINDS COMES UP WITH A SCENE LIKE THIS?!?!?!?! WHO ON THEIR SHITFULL LITTLE HEADS DARES TO MAKE AN AUDIENCE UNDERSTAND THIS?!?!?!?!?! ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MINDS?!?!?!?!?!

Sooooo....halfway round the movie, after we've put up with seemingly enough bullshit and welcome some cinematic sense anytime soon, our heroes and the addition to the group who are two teenage kids that don't look a year over 16, give or take, wind up in front of this house. Finally, some shelter to protect them from the mean, vicious, sucide inducing plants. As they come closer to the house, I'll say, it started to give me a certain sense of uncertainty while seating in the movie theater with my sister and her friend. I didn't said anything of course, but had you been me, you wouldn't have shaken that feeling either.

Come to think about it, nobody would've shaken that feel of uncertainty. It was a big, old "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" style house. From the outside it looked so decrepit that you could just hear it squick by looking at the damn thing. As the group of survivers comes closer to that house we see how it's pitch dark on the inside...and on the outside there's nothing but old, rotting window wodden blinds and a big ass tree. Old one too, as they say in the movie. So now you have what I called "shit factors" when I saw it. Shit Factors meaning that any of those two can give way to a moment were you conciusly go "Shit, I didn't expect that". Here being the windows and the big ass tree.

The window blinds looked like you could knock them the fuck off with your elbow. Now for some reason, I thought "Imagine what a shotgun could do to those things". We're talking old, non sturdy wooden blinds. AND A BIG ASS TREE, by now, it's pretty clear that anything plant is bad. So what happens? Good guy Wahlberg starts looking inside the house through the cracks in the window and when realising there's movement inside asks for help.

Here's an important lesson in horror movies. People's psyche is fired when watching this movies. I mean, anyone will get inmersed in the storyline of any horror movie, wether it's good or bad. Now, something life has tought us and Death Proof's very own Quentin Tarantino has remarked; In a horror movie, you don't hate the maniac killer, the vicious monster, the underlying threat to people's lives or anything related to that matter. You hate the assholes. The men and women who, among the events that unfold and threaten the very way of life in people, act like utter idiots. They don't help, they don't die and they repeatedly get in the way. We're talking the skeptics or the overly fanatic, the stuborn, the bastards or bitches, and finally the people that take advantage of others. Be it the sassy white bitch or the rapist macho mother fucker.

In this movie, it just so happened to be the owners of said creepy house. Upon asking for help, our hero encounters that the current tenants don't want to open the fucking door and let them in, not because they might be infected, nor because they might bring said sickness into the house. They won't let them in, get this, because according to the owner of the house, Mark Wahlberg and company could be the terrorists. AHA!!!! A redneck asshole who's got his head far up his ass to realize a man, a woman and three minors of which non of them represent a serious threat are not terrorists, even though he could hear them. Wow, talk about hating material.

The scene carries on, the kids get impatient. "OPEN UP BITCH!!!" shouts one of them (By the way, one kid is white the other is black). The one that does stands in front of the doorway, the other starts hollering from a window. The man still refuses and you can feel the tension. Suddenly the voice from inside says somehting like "OPEN THIS" or something and out comes the long, stiff barrel of a shotgun and voila. White kid goes down. Not only does he go down, we get to see from his back how all the little pellets of the shotgun shell pierced right through his whole torso.

Everyone shrieks in fear, the dramatic music get's pumped and just as his friend, the black kid, looks in horror at the bloody body of his now deciesed friend, another barrel comes from within the cracks and points to his right side temple and boom. There goes the black kid. Now, I have to admit that this is horror. True, undeniable horror. The kids get killed, that used to be a big no-no in the horror film industry and only the directors with the cojones and the compelling story line could pull that off. Why then does this scene piss me off so damn much I even dared to write all of this?

Simply put, there is no retaliation. The kids get shot, the other flee the scene and we know nothing of Tim Fuck and the hillbilly gang. Nothing!!!!!Nada!!!!Zero!!!! Two kids, two perfectly and incredubly inocent kids have just been blown away BY FUCKING SHOTGUNS!!!! And nobody does anything. That's it, that's what pisses me off so much. You waste your time and energy creating this scene. You strive to make it perfect, you wanna lead audiences to fear, to hate, to suffer. Good, now were's our goddamn price. As a director/writer/whatever you can't ask that much from an audience.

Hey that's me. Maybe you'd think "DON'T KILL THE KIDS", wereas I think "Go ahead. Kill the little buggers. It adds up for the suspense and thrill of the movie. BUT WERE'S MY FUCKING PAYBACK?!?!". That scene had me haiting a non existing sorce of evil. Non whatsoever. It wasn't enough the guy was undeniebly stupid and wild, clearly he's some country ass boy who, like I said before, must be the sort of stupid white american macho asshole to believe. Firmly hold the fact that this people might be terrorists as truth. Well it isn't enough to lead me into believing this, analysing the situation and draw up conclusions. Now you also want me to swallow up the fact that, not only can't I see his face, but neither do I get to see Trigger McHappy in all his republican gun enthusiastic shitface fucking existence bite the dust.

NOT FUCKING FAIR. You don't do that. The assholes, as unnimportant to the story IS STILL THE ASSHOLE and nothing says satisfaction more in a horror oriented movie, were violence of any kind is condoned, than watching most of this very own violence get wasted senslessly on the one goddamn asshole. Fuck the plants, fuck the people. If somebody really deserved to die, was White Trash Toby sitting on his stupid rural ass on that movie. And it might seem like I'm overreacting but come on. In horror movies, if you're gonna kill the kid, you best make sure someone pays for it. It's hard allready to see someone die from a shotgun blast that's not the bad guy, let alone a kid.

That's what I'm talking about. All I get was a voice, were's the promise that them assholes gonna end up killing themselves? Were's the scene in which the big ass tree gets inside the house and chokes that motherfucker to death? Dude, it's pissy. When you're watching such bullshit all around you, like an unworthy plotline, crappy acting, out of role personalities and stupid solutions to way too over themselves problems, the LAST thing anyone needs is watching the kids get shot, in the chest and in the head....with a shotgun....FOR NO APPARENT REASON...and sitting there as nobody does anything.

That's not the Mark Walhberg I know, that's not how Zoey Deschanel would leave it and there's absolutely no way in fuck end hell M. Nigh Shyamalan would let any of his stories go this bad. Not even a curse word, or a "YOU SHOT A KID, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!". Not even a face, I mean not even have a decency to show us what to hate but give us something to hate anyways. Last time I cheked, unfocused anger was not a huge seller.

So if this movie sucked so bad, why invest time on it? Why talk about it silly? I'll tell you why, because there are other examples of better movies. Examples of movies that don't seem to be better movies but are anyway.

This is Mr. Bitchin Telling you, It's all about the audiences true needs. Tune in next time to find out what movies are keeping it real in the revange department, which are the movies that are decaying the medium and what in the holy darn world is all that about Film Noir.

Film Noir, The Decay of Modern Cinema and Why The Happening doesn't happen. #1

"It was done, it had happened. The people, the places, the images. It was all worthless now. Any attempt for me to fix this was now miles away in a highway of despair filled with broken illusions that could cut you up like shards of fine glass laid on the floor and terrified screams emanating from the souls of those as unfortunate and unprepared to visualize this horror.

Still, I didn't know what was worse. Knowing of this crime and it's effect on us, acting up on the impotence it carried within or being like the others, uncaring, unaware, indifferent. Nevertheless, we had been cheated, lied too and I felt cheap, maybe cheaper than some regular bar fly looking for a little adventure. Me the wise guy, I thought I had this all figured out but in the end it was me who got played for a fool. I felt like one too.

It all started about a week ago, or so. My lil' sis had her friends come over. Too young to be asked to the ball, too old to play with dolls. Perhaps that's why the house got to small for them. They needed out, they needed air and for multiple reasons I was assigned the task to take 'em out. Little did I knew that I was leading them and myself towards disaster. We took all the precautions; I even invested in my decision. Said that it must've been the right path to choose. So I got along with the idea that all was gonna be ok.

But it wasn't. I took them to watch....M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening.

The rest is history and to the day I still carry that burden over my shoulders"

...

Ok, so I might've exagerated a liitle bit. Big deal, that movie sucked and it shouldn't have. What the fuck, dude? It's Shyamalan. Motherfucker is like big on horror themed movies and suspense thrillers, so what the hell went wrong here?

The Happening, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring, Tough guy Mark Wahlberg, Pretty eyes Zooe Deschanel and John Leguizamo juts doesn't happen. Where's the intensity? Where's the feeling? Where's the meaning? Where the fuck is Shyamalan? Are we seriuosly supposed to belive this is him? Are we to accept that the same man who brought us to our knees with his rendition of a ghost story called "The Sixth Sense", the same man who showed us a movie about superheroes like we've never seen before with Bruce Willis on the lead role no less (Unbreakable), THE SAME GUY WHO SCARED THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF ALL OF US WITH SIGNS (SIGNGS, PEOPLE, SIGNS!!!!! THEY WERE FUCKING ALIENS. WHEN'S THE LAST TIME YOU GOT SCARED BY ALIENS?)...made this?

Ok, reason numero 1 why I'm so outraged buy this. Shyamaln directed AND wrote this. Now, I have an undying respect for people who write and direct their own movies. Generally they're just increadibly good. But this, this movie isn't Shyamalan AT ALL. First, there's the plot

...................SPOILER ALERT.....................not that you should care.....

So, finally and after years of abuse, planet earth decides to take action and what best way to do so than letting plants, yes plants, kill humans. But they don't do it in a fashionable way. They don't raise from the ground and start strangelling people, neither do trees start stepping on people or are there any diabolical branches that rape young women slowly and painfully a lá Evil Dead. No, what do plants and other specimens of the green leafed species do to take on motherfuckin humans? They evolve and release toxins into the air that, when sniffed, humans give up on their logical skills and kill themselves. that's right, KILL THEMSELVES!!!! In the most gruesome way possible. As soon as they've, so to speak, been infected, people grab whatever is at hand to kill themselves. Not before acting weird (not making any sense in what they say, walking backwards, shit like that).

So far, so good. The storyline seems good, the premises are awesome and at first it all seems perfect. People star killing themselves, shooting themselves, willingly falling off from buildings, evem coming up with ignenious ways to die. All this are valuable elements for some scary shit, why, then, does the movie blow?

The acting. Come on, really? Mark Wahlberg? Marky Mark? You put him as the film's wussy. What gives? Wahlberg is this science teacher who becomes the leading man in what seems to be the end of time. Along his best friend/math teacher Leguizamo, Leguizamo's in-movie-daughter who adds up for the cuteness factor in the movie and his now-distant-due-to-relatioship-problems girlfriend, he sets out to find a place that appears to be safe. Safe meaning nobody who appears not to have suicidal tendencies grab hairspray and a blowtorch and come up with a way to melt their own face (Doesn't happen, but like I said, ingeniuos) are there.

So naturally, you would expect this guy to be tough as nails or at least pretty straight forward. WRONG. Wahlberg's character does not develop as anything in particular. Early on in the movie he's a concerned guy, not so big into action and oviusly not a threat to society. As the movies keeps going, his character fails to realize the imminent danger that surronunds the story line and even come up with any witt what-so-ever. Maybe it was the director's intention to portray an average joe as the movie's hero. But everybody knows, that regardless the scenario, survival horror oriented plots allways wind up with the main character growing a pair in the midst of battle. Besides, Deschanel is off her personality. She's a witty, smart ass gal, she can also be tough. So why make her the pessimist damsel in distress who's ever so scandalous little secret involved having dessert with some guy.

Really, the movie suggests she might be cheating on Wahlberg and she just had a fucking dessert with some guy. Then, it's the storyline itslef. So people and the media start pulling out their own theories and without a moments notice pull out the big pointy finger and bame it all on terrorism. Because it isn't enough they live in the fucking deser, they somehow got a hold of some chemical weapon that screws you up so badly that you'll kill yourself, again, in the most gruesome way possible.

This was actually a good point. Taking in consideration Shyamalan is of middle eastern descent, not only is he blatanly making fun off the publics paranoid fears in a tongue in cheek fashion, he's also exploiting today's biggest weakness of the american people. Terrorist attacks on small town in the middle of butt fuck nowhere, miles away from anything remotley important and with small population census. Only true red, white and brute americans would buy that. But beyond that point nothing supports the story, we're suggested that it isn't terrorits (NO, REALLY? YOU'RE FUCKING KIDDING ME) by another character. Instead he suggests, it's the plants. The plants evolve when facing new threats, and since humanity aren't exactly a ray of fucking sunshine, it was only a matter of time before plants went "WHO'S THE BITCH NOW?".

The problem with this is that it's to early on in the movie. Now we know what's wrong and there's no mystery. On the other hand, the character that suggests this is a goddamn farmer. A farmer for christ's sake, who minutes after getting introduced to the story IS TALKING TO FUCKING PLANTS. He also says that it's been proven by science that is you talk nice to plants, they'll respond to the stimulus, which is true. I know that, HOW ABOUT THE REST OF THE FUCKING WORLD? the plot is believable; both things are true. Plants do respond to stimulus giving the fact of quantum physics and other things, therefore plants do act on sweet talk AND it's also true that they evolve in a rapid manner when facing a new predator therefore creating new improved deffenses against other types of creatures. Mother nature is tough you guys.

So then, how does it work? Nobody ever really explains that, how do the plant pick and select their victims so they can sniff up suicide sented leaves? At first we're told it's big groups of people, then if the plants think they're threats, they have it in for them. At the end the plants get super sensitive and start "attacking" one person at a time (though we only got one example like this) but somehow the leading guys, which at this point it's just Wahlberg, Deschanel and the little girl, don't die or get affected by the plants. So I'm pushed to believe "OK, the plants attack people who has negative feelings, like anger or hate" but if so, then why did all the other people die. They surely weren't all angry. Scared out of their asses, but not angry.

At lasts, and I'm saving this because of it's hate inducing nature, the one moment in the movie, the point of no return, the minute were it jumped the shark and it all went to hell. The scene were the shit hit the fan....Look onto the next post, to find that out.

A Rose in the Gutter

Twas one lonely afternoon, amidst a summer now gone
That I remember I saw a friendly ghost
Sure, I was half asleep and out of this world
But I know what I saw, and what I saw was a girl in grey robes.

She was sweet and quite happy
I can tell by the way her face looked
She was tender and sassy
I can tell by the feeling that gave me her touch

She holded my face between her beautiful ghastly hands
She looked dead on in my eyes
I was obliged, and quite happy, to look back
"Wake up" she said in a calm tone as I shuffled back to this land

I had forgot about that, about a nice day in which I came back
Though at first I gave credit to my imagination and my mind
I know what I saw; I saw a time to pass
I saw a moment that would sooner than later come to my life

That day I felt alive, unlike I had on previous occasions
No wonder I forgot, There was no reason to remember
But now I see why that day was so special
Call it a dream or a vision, but what I saw made me feel better.

....

Just as there's no decent or coherent explanation to what I just wrote, there's no reason to do so. A simple as a flickering ray, just a eenie-winny-tiny-teeny spick of whatver the fuck it is that holds your mind at bay in this realm. It's simply a word, a sentence, an hours-long stone cold talk or a close-to-insignificant gesture that things are going to be ok.

A rose in a gutter, it's one of the good cliches. Kind of cliche that's true, honet. Kind of cliche that works. We've allways got our rose in the gutter, a really beutiful thing that's on the most unexpected of places. That's that tiny spick, the flickering ray, the 1% chance that things will work out in the end in the 99% probability to fail. That's what it is.

To anyone who's ever been alive, that 1% is worth something, it's hope and hope is allways worth something. I remeber one day when I was 16 that I had that dream. I was in my couch, slowly falling asleep, getting to the point in which you're half awake, half asleep. Illussions start to kick in, and I started to see places, people mixed with memories. Like witnessing the formation of a dream, and right smack in the process of falling asleep, I saw a girl that closely ressembled a cartoon, the nature girl from Fantasia 2000.


She told me "Wake Up" and I woke up rapidly, allmost alarmed because it felt so. It felt as if someone had kneeled to wake me up. When I did, I just felt nice. And just like that I forgot about that day, I forgot about that dream and forgot about allmost everything from those times. Ocassionally I remember those moments with everything including how I felt, what it felt.

And there it is...Right now, I feel it. Creeping up my spine working its way to my head. That feeling. The drive, the inspiration and every single other thing out there that just lets me know that it is time once again, the memories, the dreams, the feelings. All of it, and then a little more that just make up for all the time spent, all the time lost. It's time. Slowly the irrationality kicks in. Each time more and more I remember, but this time is a good one. It's not like when I'm all sad and pathetic, no this is one of the good ones.

I'm not sad. It's the memories, all over again one by one in my mind. But they're not screaming or making fun at me. My head spins around that notion, I'm standing but I'm not alone. Everything that surrounds me isn't a reminder of darkened times and pittyful moments. It's taking hold allready, like in my last post. The nothingness, the what-could've-been scenarios. They take shapes, forms, images of people I know and love or hate. But they're not laughing. They're not even smiling, they just look back at me, pranks and jokes now spent, bottles on the floor, remains of an ongoing party at my back, a celebration of the weakend state of my mind, which lives no longer and they're looking at me just as I look back.

They know I'm angry, they know I'm furious, they know I'm drunk and high with strength and hope and exaltation and love. They know I'm not afraid and that scares them. It's my rose in the gutter. It's me, it's my mind, it's my friends, my mum, my family, my books, my stories, my movies, my EVERYTHING. It's realizing that IT NEVER STOPS and therefore THERE SHOULD BE NO FUCKING REASON FOR ME TO FEAR. It never stops, the shit, the suffering, the pain, so why the fuck should I. Me who has come all the way up to here being the way I am and doing the things I do.

Every single little thing that I've allways wanted to say and do. All the fucking things I've allways wanted to be, it's been building up, waiting, and it's time once again to let it out. My kids, my boys and girls, my dear beloved readers who might wander ever so carelesly into this space and find nothing new and interesting or stumble upon the key phrase or word they needed to read, this is me. The insanity, the senselessnes, the constant and abundant feeding to my ego on this rare special ocassions.

It's why sometimes I pass as an italian from brooklyn called Frank. It's why I suddenly speak in as many accents as I possibly can, because I want to do it. It makes me happy and what let's me go through. Fuck it, anything I don't care I'm training to be a New Yorker so I gotta be hardcore just as I am all fluffy and nice, I gotta get things done, I gotta get things said. At least, I know that there will allways be the next thing to a rose in the gutter.

Shaky Promises and Half Truths: The Unnerving Reality of What is to Come

It's that time allready when we all look at the mirrors, take a deep breath and tell ourselves that which we need to so the day can carry on forward. We're on the verge of a new year, 2008. We're in the beggining of a process called New Year's Resolutions. All the things we said we would do, all the things we're doing are just the first steps into our prominent succes or our inevitable failure. The only thing that, at most, is definite, is our desire for the better in our own lives however and whatever the cost of it.

It's in this times were I tell to myself things are gonna go different from now on. It's in this times were I face those old ghosts of mine who, regardless of the many, many pep talks and all those self medicated spoonfulls of wisdom, courage and self-esteem, refuse to die or even walk away. But specifically, it's this time in the early morning that I just sit quietly awaiting the giant that approaches and this year's battle for my survival. It's here and now were my mind plays tricks on me, deceives into missery and sadness. Emoeness.

I begin to understad now, this is what happens to those who stay up late. After hours and hours of continuos conciousness, the wrong type of memories strike in. It's only the mentally ill who stay up this late and carry on. Beings without real souls who have not a care in the world for anything but themselves. Those who do, like me, suffer the consecuences of a world and a reality not made for us. It is what consumes us, what makes us act like utter savages. Worlds were thoughts are made up of ironic moments in our lives, hurful remarks and sudden thoughts of what-could've-been scenarios.

It is here were most radiant smiles turn grimm. Were brilliant minds turn to mush. They are this hours, the one were drugs, fear, pain and humiliation reign. It's here were they all work together to make up for the time they loose during the day, scheeming plans to take control of my life and those like me who wander in the unknown realities of this late hours.

I talk and write, so as not to loose my mind. I'm being bombed by irrational thoughts of envy towards people who do not deserve it, ongoing questions and impossible dessires. I feel dragged, compelled to stay here until I've gotten statisfied. Obligated to finish and call it a day. A crooked and faulty day. I wish it weren't so but I can't stop it. Not now, I lack the stregnth to stand up and not look onto the computer.

I look for answers were there is no question, I walk in circles threateaning the nothing that it better keep it's eyes open. For me. For what is to come. Yet nor I nor anybody truly know. People could have an idea, but nobody really knows. I feel, though I ignore, therefore I fear. Slowly and thankfully fear and anxiety leave my body. False sense of emptyness and lonelyness disipate with the immediate tick-takcs of the keyboard. I'm beggining to get back my senses.

I coulnd't go to sleep because I had to do something. Check my mail, see this page, something. Sometimes I see it as a sickness that never really heals. It's been some time since I actually had a goodnight sleep and therefore some time since I just lied down to rest instead of lying down, sitting or standing and talk to myself. It's hard to wonder, to face the truth and swallow my anger or pride. It's tough to stay up this late and fight the mixed memories and thoughts I get when there is nothing to do, nobody around. Everyone I know just might be asleep. Maybe not. I just hope they're not to fighting themselves. It's tyresome and probably very unhealthy.