Tuesday, January 24, 2006

The Darkness

I have been trying to type a blog entry for everyday of the week, but it is taking me sometime. Part of it is simply my writing and editing speed, the other parts is that so much is going on in my life, as usual, that I have not had enough time to figure out what I want to say.

I need a day.

So, I am two days behind.

This entry is for Tuesday night,

but I am writing it on Thursday morning.

Man!

The dark fragments of my mind,

Do absorb my time.

So, what happened on Tuesday night, on this Thursday Morning?

I saw Underworld 2, Evolution (directed by Len Wiseman).

I love this storyline. Went with WineExpertLesbo to the big IMAX theater at Opry Mills. This was the second time she saw the movie that day. She loves shit like this. This time Markus awakens to find the coven in disarray, and after doing a little research of his own, finds out what is really happening.

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and Michael (Scott Speedman) are the sexist couple on screen to date, and the fact that Michael is so unaware of his power and is vulnerable like a teenage kid ups the action and sexual attraction. The movie picks up right where it left off, and we soon see Markus in all his "goo" and gargoylish glory. I won't say more. It is dark, sexy and cool. I like the decadence of the vampires and the interwoveness of the Corvinus clan with the fate of Selene and Michael.

Now, the thing that kills me is that I was reading the reviews on rottentomatoes.com and everyone is crucifying it. Is it me? I wonder sometimes about this hyper-critical attitude towards movies. A perfect example is Star Wars III. Underworld 2 is 10 times better, and the heroine is a million times better, cause Natalie Portman really screwed up her part in the last of the prequels. Kate Beckinsale does a much better job, partly because she has a much better and juicier character with more action than fashion modeling. They had to bring Tom Stoppard in to save that freakin' anemic screenplay of George Lukas' computer graphic and lyrically taut and challenged mind, plus they couldn't get Portman to pot up the intensity. It was shitty to me, all three of them. At least the 3rd had some gravity to it. Its tragedy, erases the other two.

OK, that is baggage.

This past year I started to enter the gaming universe, and as part of the coven, I think that I am starting to have a better appreciation for fangoria, fantasies and sports. I am starting to show less appreciation for movie critics, at least in this instance. This intellectual separation that people make between art work and the critic is sad if the critic does not take the time to understanding the structure of the storyline. In this instance, Underworld 2 is written with a gamer in mind, the clues to the mystery must be fleshed out and that must happen through several trials. It is visual. It is looking for talismans. It means getting more power through the givers of the mysteries. It means battling a demon, and being defeated because you do not have that power. This was good shit, and all these bitches that are saying Kate Beckinsale's can't act are missing a point. She is suppose to be followed on the screen, not deconstructed.

OK. I will leave those ideas at that. I would like to develop them, but I have some more things I gotta work on today. Plus another doctor's appointment, tomorrow, which is Friday, because this is Thursday morning, and I am writing an entry for Tuesday night, about an event that has already happened.

I love the darkness.

--------

PS

I read the poem "A Great Day For a Lay" also known as "Platonic Blow", by W.H. Auden.

It is better than a Chi Chi La Rue film.

Trust.

I tell you,

That generation of dandies . . .

Something tragic about them.

All that booze, tweed, cigarettes, underground sex, in seedy motels on the East river, and parlors full of Americana . . .

Where was Langston in this line of dandies?

Dead?

Alive?

or

Dying?

Poor American Dandies.

Like they wanted to stay Edwardian even after the atomic bomb was detonated.

I don't know much about Auden, have to read up on him. But I do locate him in dandy time and space.

For us,

The self-pity is still here

In this new century

Even if the tight molars of New England accents

Have have long gone

Out of fashion.

They,

The dandies,

Are still

Here

In Nashville

Listening to Depeche Mode

Drinking sour apple martinis

And looking absolutely fuckin' dead.

And

I look

Wondering

If the pussy

Is any good.

4 comments:

John K said...

Hmmm, I just hate wasting time on bad movies or movies where the director, producers, editors, and studio are doing the same tired song and dance they've done for years. It's just not worth it. Then I got Netflix and really got spoiled, because once I started watching Tsai and Antonioni and so on I can barely stand to watch most of the crap that's out there for $10 a pop. It's just not worth it, and if I want to vegetate I can always watch cable or go on the Net. Étonnez-moi is about how it should be. Go see CACHÉ if it ever comes your way. Seriously.

Littlemilk said...

OK.

I honestly think that my problem is that I grew up in a house where we appreciated bad movies. I think it is because everyone is so mathmatically inclined, that they can be sweeped away by a low budget action sequence. They never bother to deal with the plot and how it unfolds, for them it is real life.

Art is not calculated.

So, I like all this stuff. Even the Mummy 2 and all of The Rock's films.

Have you seen the first Underworld?

Check it out if you can.

John K said...

I like the Rock's films cuz he's in em. In general though the older I get the less tolerance I have for bad movies, unless they're comedy, especially if it's all white people restaging the same sh*t they do over and over again. Been there, seen that. Some art is calculated. I say put the digits together and make magic, stop wasting millions on bullshit. We're stupid and zoned out enough as a society. ´Etonnez-moi.

(I passed on the first Underworld. I did see Sin City, though.)

Littlemilk said...

I missed Sin City. But I hear you on stupid white shit. I watched Sideways for 45 minutes and turned that shit OFF! Thank heavens I rented it.