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In Praise of Jason Bourne

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, and that one of you will jump in and correct me on it (as long as it's not that Charles Liu guy with the specious reasoning) but I think the Bourne story might be the best trilogy out there, especially in recent years.  The quality level of all three movies is consistent, and even when they changed directors, Liman stayed on as a producer.  The cast is top-notch - Damon plugs more into a single facial expression than most actors do in an hour of performance, and when the supporting cast of a trilogy boasts Chris Cooper, Karl Urban, Scott Glenn, Clive Owen, Brian Cox, Albert Finney, David Strathairn, Julia Stiles, Lola and Adebisi and the exceptional Joan Allen, there's no shortage of talent on-screen selling this thing.  It's not three stories - it's one continuous story with different layers underneath.  I saw the third one over the weekend with Jimbo, and it was fantastic.  I really can't think of a trilogy better than this one.  So let's break it down;

vs. 1st Star Wars: Bourne has no Ewoks.  No laser flashlights, either.  He has Moby, though.
vs. 2nd Star Wars: Jason Bourne could kick Anakin's ass, and that's with him using the Force.  In fact, Jason Bourne would just take the Force away, roll it up and choke Anakin with it.  It would be a great disturbance.
vs. X-Men: The consistency level is uneven - not so with Bourne.  And, of course, Bourne got Stryker to kill himself, just by playing a tape recording.  Magneto had to chain that fucker to a wall.
vs. Lord of the Rings: suffer from the "Are we at Mt. Doom yet?" problem.  No slow spots with Bourne.  You kind of wait for the cars to stop for a second - that's about it.
vs. Back to the Future: Yeah.  That second movie was just - well, 1/2 a movie.  Bourne needs no hoverboard.
vs. Indiana Jones: This was a tough one, but Willie Scott, Mola Ram and the extremely accurate depiction of the culture of India (snicker) clinched this one for me.  Bourne - hands down.  Soon not to be a trilogy anyway.
vs. Spider-Man: Bourne has more reasons to cry than Peter Parker, and does it less.
vs. Shrek: Bourne only switches bodies with himself.
vs. The Matrix: Please.  At least Bourne fights real people.
vs. The Godfather: GF III?  What the hell was that about?
vs. Austin Powers: If Jason Bourne had a penis pump handy, he'd kill you with it.
vs. Pirates of the Carribbean: Again, the second film was a fall-off in quality.  1st & 3rd - far superior.
vs. Evil Dead: Only sort of a trilogy, but I think Jason could take Ashe, even with chainsaw intact.
vs. Blade: Uhhh...there are no mass abortions or killing of blind women or killing of Patton Oswalt in the Bourne movies.  So fucking there.

There are of course, other trilogies, but putting Bourne up against French art films, spaghetti Westerns and whatever the hell Koyaanisqatsi is seems a little surreal, and gets me back into assertions about consistency anyway.  It does give you a reason to appreciate the CIA for a change.  Without it, we'd be missing some really good Hollywood.

Great Wall Six Freed

The six activist/signmaker/wallclimbers from Students for a Free Tibet detained by the Chinese authorities earlier this week have been let go, presumably as they were guilty of nothing more than seeking freedom for others.  And free expression, but hey - this is China.  Of course, they were also deported.

Three days or so ago now, these guys sort of scaled the Great Wall of China, and turned a small package into an enormous banner, getting the whole thing on video.  I love that this is happening during the year-long lead up to the Olympics coming to Beijing, too.  I have included the video here, and if you have no idea why this is important, go here and here.  Also consider reading this.  And this.

The Squidbag raises a virtual fist into the air for Tibetan independence.

Geography is Huge

In fact, it's way bigger than you think.  Just ask the people who live in these FEMA "villages" and who are slowly going mad as they stew in their own desperation, fucked by the situation, wrecked by circumstance and left to rot in the mire of red tape, rage, fear and depression.  I've covered these here before, and now NPR punched me in the guts with it on the way home.  We are pressure cooking a generation of people who are totally screwed and likely screwed up - if they don't kill themselves, as many talk about doing, they're going to move on from antifreezing animals and mutilating other peoples' dogs to murdering people just for something to feel, something to create a feeling of power over something.  Here are people who have literally lived through one of the worst natural disasters anyone can even remember, made it through the authorities royally dropping the ball during the major crisis points, only to find that they get dropped into poison cans so they're fresh while society finds new ways to fuck them.

I can't relate to this exact problem, or the depth where these people find themselves - but that whole feeling of being trapped, knocked on the head and set aflame by your situational geography?  That sense of "I could probably fix this, if I could just get the fuck out of here?"  Yeah, I think I can come up with a couple of times in my life I could relate to that.  I'm not a counselor or anything, and I don't know where to send money or resources on this one, but I feel obligated to at least bring this to your attention while I look for other ways to help these people.

Phone Calls from the Restless Dead

For those of you who read this blog to psychoanalyze its author;

I keep having this series of dreams, where I'm sitting with a few people in a restaurant.  My dining companions change, and so does the food.  The company is always good and appreciated, however, and the food is always rich and filling.  In fact, by the time the bell captain brings the 50's style telephone, sans dial, to the table and places it on the luxurious white linen tablecloth, I am quite full.  When the phone is delivered, I am informed that I have a call, and I excuse myself to my fellow diners, picking up the receiver.  I feel kind of rude, but also like the waitstaff have gone to all this trouble, and if someone's calling me here, it must be important.  I answer.

It is always some deceased acquaintance of mine.  Good friends, an old girlfriend, a great-uncle, a classmate, my grandfather, recent deaths, and ones that happened a long time ago.  The only unifying characteristic is that I have missed them since.  It takes me a few seconds of conversation to realize they aren't alive, and this realization is like ice cold water starting at the crown of my head and slowly flowing downward to cover all of my skin.  Apparently, the look on my face is a (heh) dead giveaway to my companions, because there is slow consternation about the nature of my call(s).  Generally, being the sort of person that I am, I point this out to the caller, who acknowledges it and moves on, asking me about stuff that's happened since.  One person asked me about their wake, another about their death, and still another about their grave marker.  After a few minutes of chat, I am filled with a longing to see the person again, and also to get off the phone.  That trips my internal fail-safe, and I wake up.

Usually about an hour before my alarm's due to go off in the morning.  Any takers on this one?

Weird Faith(s)

A couple of days ago, my attention was directed to this article in Slate that contends, essentially, that Scientology is not in fact a weird cult, but is just new, and that we aren't used to it yet.  It supports this funny little argument by invoking Mormonism, which seems weird (but not as weird as Scientology) because it's relatively new, and then invokes Christianity and Judaism, asserting that you (the reader) don't find them weird at all, because they've been around for awhile.  I don't know what it takes to become a "religion writer," but apparently, a grasp of the perceptions of other people isn't really required.  This man Oppenheimer is possibly an idiot, and maybe some kind of robot.  I don't think he has the normal perceptual range...

Let me just throw this out for you; In spite of the perfect tolerance we as human beings put on display all the time, pretty much everyone thinks other people's religions are weird.  If they didn't, your religion would be their religion.  It's one of those sign-up-at-the-door things, and when you don't sign up, it's because you think it's weird.  ("You said you needed a haircut, they're gonna fucking cut your hair!" ) Christians think Jews are weird, Muslims think Christians are weird, Protestants think this about Catholics, most people about Mormons, and an even greater number of people think it about Scientology.  And you can vice goddamn versa that whole last sentence.  And yes, I deign to speak for humanity.  Suck it up.  Those of us who have no belief system that begins with a capital letter or has meetings every week pretty much think that E-Meters, Moroni, not celebrating birthdays, blue donkeys, the big-hat theory of intercession, redemption through murderous carpentry, sitting on unpadded furniture, and wearing boxes on your head - is weird.  Sometimes people use words like "heathen," "sinful," "nutjob," "zealot," and "Tom Cruise," but they mean, "weird."  It's a human being thing - check it out, Oppenheimer, when your frontal lobe grows back.

In short, though it's too late for brevity?  I think Scientology is pretty fucked up way to live your life, but I don't care as long as it's your life and no one tells me I need to become Scientologist.  (There's also that  -ologist, which just wrecks credibility.  JB will know what I'm talking about.)  From what I gather, I couldn't afford it anyway.  As Bill Hicks asserted, "beliefs are odd."  Everyone's.  Just because a larger mass of people believe the same thing you do (or indeed, indict you as wrong) doesn't make them right.  It just makes them convicted.

This does raise a question I've been asking myself for a long time - how do you start a new, charismatic faith and dodge the weirdness factor?  Any ideas?

OJ Simpson = Gall

I mean, I suppose he's all about having more balls than sense.

Freed murderer OJ Simpson is now criticizing the family of slain waiter Ron Goldman, who OJ killed when he got in the way back in 1994 when OJ went to kill his wife and mother of his two kids, Nicole Brown Simpson.  (It's important to remember here that I have never espoused any kind of commitment to objectivism.)  Ron's family, represented in public for the most part by Ron's dad, has won the rights to the book OJ wrote called, unbelievably, If I Did It.  See, OJ got let off in criminal court, because he had fame, money, lawyers, and the stupidest fucking jury since 1992's King case.  Any jury swayed by a rhyming lawyer, well - they're fit for Hollywood, I guess.  Anyway, civil court came along and found OJ clearly responsible for the dead people, to the tune of several million dollars.  So OJ owes.  Huge.  That being the case, the Goldman family blocked him making any money off their dead son, calling it what would have been, "blood money."  Now, they have sued and acquired the rights to the book, so if any money is generated by it, they get it.  Since OJ owes them, this makes a weird kind of sense.  Now, he appears in public, blasting them - as if killing their son wasn't enough - and whining about his life.  This, after a double murder and then penning a "hypothetical" blueprint as to how to pull that off.  Also, he didn't write it anyway, it's the ghost writer's fault, and it's "full of errors."  What?  'Cause that's not actually how you did it?  Bah.  Anybody remember when OJ was "hunting for the real killers" by playing golf?  I think Bush hunted Osama the same way, to matched effect.  There is bad precedent here.

So yeah, fuck you, Orenthal.  You deserve pretty much anything that happens to you now.

(Thanks to the B. Davis Schwartz Memorial Library at Long Island University for the excellent OJ Murder collage at the top.)