Tag Archives: terminator

Thot Dump*

Posted on by under Generic Rant, Movies, Original writing

From time to time, it becomes necessary to do a Roto-Rooter® job on my brain. Ideas, thoughts, whims, and other random ephemera (to borrow a phrase from the subtitle of my 9th book) clog up my scarred brain and need to be snaked out before they leak all over the place and/or my brain backs up. Either one would not be pretty.

Let me now foist some of these notions on your innocent and unsuspecting mind:

Not long ago I watched (for about the 14th time) the original “Terminator” movie. You know, the one where Ahnold is a bad guy and he says “I’ll be bahk!” As often happens after multiple viewings of the same movie, something new and absurd caught my eye. Sarah Connor and her protector, Kyle, escape from the police station that the Terminator had just gone bahk to and, well, terminated. For the first time, I noticed the vehicle they escaped in. It’s an AMC Gremlin! I love it! Could there be a more incongruous mode of transportation in such a movie? I’ve since learned that there are at least three Gremlins in different scenes in the movie. Can you spot them? (Now we know what happened to the rest of the car, toots.**)

You might see me as just another blogger whose writings captivate you with flights of literary genius, thus bringing you back time and again to reach new heights of reading ecstasy, but I’m a lot more than that. In all humility, I must tell you I’m a worker of miracles. In fact, I perform such miracles almost every day when I make a huge deal out of nothing at all. Ask my wife, she’ll tell you.***

My favorite activity (or at least one of my top three favorites) is something I do every chance I get. Whenever I see babies, the younger the better, I try to catch their eyes. Babies have an incredible ability to lock onto your eyes and never let go until it’s impossible to maintain visual contact because of distance or angle. They stare at me (or you!) as if I’m the most fascinating thing on earth. It’s great for the ego but I always wonder what’s going on in their impressionable, developing minds. I hope it’s not, “Wow, there’s a strange looking dude.” But I don’t care what it is. I just love looking into those beautiful, innocent, inquisitive eyes.

One last question: How is it that saying “something is up” means the same as “something is going down”? Just asking.

* See what I did? I shortened “thoughts” to “thots”, thus saving valuable time and electrons. Of course I’ve blown both by adding this asinine comment but, hey, you can’t have everything.

** Obscure reference to old Gremlin commercial from the 70’s. Yeah, I’m that old. And more. Sadly, I can’t find the commercial anywhere except in the dark recesses of my dark (and getting darker every day) mind.

*** She’ll also tell you that I’m adept at the equally miraculous feat of turning molehills into mountains.

Start at the beginning…

Posted on by under Movies

harehatterSpeaking of movie trends that annoy me (which I was, though you’d have no way of knowing since you aren’t here listening to me rant) in recent years, a lot of films have messed around with the order of things. They obviously haven’t listened to the sage advice of the March Hare and Mad Hatter in Disney’s version of Alice in Wonderland,

Mad Hatter: Something seems to be troubling you. Won’t you tell us all about it?

March Hare: Start at the beginning!

Mad Hatter: Yes, yes….and when you come to the end…..STOP!

It seems that once “Pulp Fiction” came along, the whole space-time continuum was thrown to the wind with scenes falling wherever they landed. The value of that gimmick can be debated in PF, but it doesn’t always work. (Opinion: It does more than work in “Memento”; it’s crucial and brilliant.)

bttfThe only places where messing around with time is always excusable are time-travel movies: the “Back to the Future” trilogy, “Déjà Vu”, “Terminator” movies, and all the rest, some good and some (and I’m thinking here of “Somewhere in Time”) excruciatingly bad. The only truly meaningful time-travel movie is the one that treats the concept with the flippancy it deserves: “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”. (Good news: There will be a third B&T movie with them as adults… or as adult as they could possibly be, I’d guess.)

Less adventurous directors have decided they can hedge their bets by swapping just one scene: The end.

I can’t even count the number of films I’ve seen post-PF where the first scene is the end of the movie. This technique has been used effectively in great films such as “Sunset Boulevard” and “Citizen Kane”. None of the movies I’m thinking of are “Citizen Kane”.

Here are a few possible reasons directors use this cliché:

  1.  It was used in successful films such as “Sunset Boulevard” and “Citizen Kane”. Wrong answer.
  2. The last scene is usually a “grabber”. There’s no point grabbing the audience’s attention at the end of the movie. That could be too late. Grab’em right up front.
  3. You’re unsure whether the audience will stay awake until the end so you want make sure they see it ASAP. If that’s it, you got bigger potatoes to fry.
  4. No point waiting for critics to give away the “spoilers” when you can do it yourself.

That last one is the one that bugs me. Should these movies have a warning at the beginning the way some reviews do? Warning: This movie contains its own spoilers. They all want to be Lucy, the ultimate spoiler:rosebud

I’m waiting for this movie opening:

butler

I have the mixed blessing of a miserable memory. True story: My wife and I were watching a movie not too long ago. As it approached the denouement, I called out – as I am wont to do – what I thought would happen next. My more able spouse corrected me. “No, he gets shot. Don’t you remember they showed it at the beginning?”

sunsetboulIt wasn’t ruined for me, but it was for her and all the other non-brain-damaged folks who watched it. The “good” news is that the movie was a flop and pretty much no one saw it. So much for copying “Sunset Boulevard”.

As a public service, I’d like to list here all those movies with built-in spoilers… but I forget what they are.