I was really confused though because nobody mentioned to me that now they have televisions installed up on the ceiling now. This is so that you have something to look up to while you get to be poked at by sharp metal sticks in your mouth. I was also really confused when the nurse handed me the remote and told me to turn the television to whatever channel I wanted.
It was too much pressure. It was bad enough being judged for my inconsistent flossing, now I have to be judged on my taste in what to watch. This is DAYTIME TELEVISION lady. My choices are limited to programs featuring quality slightly higher than that of infomercials and slightly lower than that of public access television. Our options go as far as the Worlds Most Mind-Blowing Cop Explosions to Super Serious Hospital Drama with people staring at each other for indefinite amounts of time.
So i tuned the TV to my old stand by, the best game show ever, TEMPTATION.
For those that don't know, Temptation is only "the new sale of the century." I don't know what that means, but it HAS to be important. Inspired by the online shopping mall of the same name, Temptation pits groups of three women against each other in a series of questions vaguely related to facts you could find in US Magazine. All this is done while a guy with slick hair yells "Can I TEMPT you?!" while waving cash at the contestants.
The show creatively has it's own currency system of "Temptation Dollars" which luckily makes it next to impossible to win the car, the same car which I think has been on stage since the game's inception.
Basically, Temptation is that claw machine at the fair with all the really cool prizes jammed in the back. You know no one will ever make it, but you can't help but watch them try.
So I watched them try while I had the plaque scraped off my teeth.
When I was looking at these someone else in my art class mentioned it reminded them of a music video. The only problem was he couldn't remember which one.
Taking a random guess I said, "Take On Me," which, miraculously, it was.
INT. 5,000 FEET UNDERNEATH THE NEVADA DESERT - NIGHT
The evil scientists congregate inside the super-secret conference room, which also for some reason has an evil hologram of the Death Star.
Super-Evil Scientist: "Gentlemen! The summer solstice approaches, and with it the hearts and minds of a thousand women!"
Evil Scientist 2: "And how to you plan on harvesting these so called 'hearts' my lord?"
Super-Evil Scientist: "Not just their hearts, but their wallets as well. I have devised a scheme so vile and evil, no man could ever challenge it's brilliance. Evil brilliance, that is."
Evil and Gay Scientist 3: "Oh do tell!"
Super-Evil Scientist: "We will produce a romantic comedy about two naive single New Yorkers who travel to Vegas and end up married."
Evil Scientist 2: "But my lord, I think that has been done."
Super-Evil Scientist: "Yes... but did I tell you that they end up winning THREE MILLION DOLLARS and then must remain married for six months to collect the earnings?!"
Evil Scientist 2: "No, but I think that also has been done before."
Super-Evil Scientist: "Yes, but has it been done with... ASHTON KUTCHER and CAMERON DIAZ?!!"
Evil Scientist 2: "Actually-"
Super Evil Scientist uses a death ray-laser-panther and kills Evil Scientist 2.
Less-Evil Scientist: "You couldn't possibly expect this to work?!"
Super-Evil Scientist: "And why not, I ask? Let's say for example we throw in some mildly amusing gags involving peeing in sinks and Ashton Kutcher being hit in the nuts?"
Less-Evil Scientist: "But sire! Those jokes couldn't possibly hold up on their own out of the context of a trailer!"
Super-Evil Scientist: "Of course not, but by the time the audience is inside the theater it will be too late."
Less-Evil Scientist: "It couldn't possibly work."
Super-Evil Scientist: "Did I mention the movie will also have... QUEEN LATIFAH?!"
The Less-Evil Scientist falls out of his chair.
Less-Evil Scientist: "MY GOD! My God, you're MAD!!"
The Super-Evil Scientist looks out a window even though he's 5,000 feet underground.
Super-Evil Scientist: "Mad? Perhaps. Perhaps... But one thing is for certain, by the time this film is released the world will be ours for the taking!"
Less-Evil Scientist: "I hope you're wrong..."
Super-Evil Scientist: "I know... BROTHER. And that is why you must... DIE!"
I remember watching an episode of the Simpsons with my brother Nick. This was back at a time when all they ever showed were the good reruns, in fact, this was a time when there was no such thing as a "bad" episode of the Simpsons at all. I was sitting on the carpet, and I looked up to the television in time to see a trailer for Starship Troopers. That was when my brother said "we have to go see this." It may not seem like a long time ago that Starship Troopers was released into theaters, for me it certainly doesn't, but the reality is somewhat striking. Starship Troopers, the heavily laden special-effects extravaganza, was release on November 7, 1997. As of now that makes it roughly eleven years old. I was nine at the time.
1997 was the stone age. There was no such thing as the "internet," fat Star Wars kid still had a future, and lolcatz still could haz all the cheeseburgers they wanted. Furthermore, The World Trade Centers were still standing, Columbine was a place in Colorado no one had ever heard of, and the only snipers around were kids with bee-bee guns. So who cared if I got a ticket to go see Starship Troopers? Sure, I still had to sneak into the theater close behind my (at that time, future) brother in law, but it was no big deal. It's not as though any reviews had been posted online for anyone to reference.
So when I saw the images of a young soldier shot in the head and his exposed brain matter splattered across a landscape, I wasn't quite sure how to take it, apart from looking down at my popcorn. Nor was I sure how to mentally process the severed limbs, disemboweled corpses, melting soldiers, let alone what was going on with all that nudity.
Basically, I didn't know what "awesome" was yet.
Clearly, my brother in law's friends did, and they didn't help much afterwards with their somewhat crude reflections concerning the film on the ride home. Reflections which were hilariously more disturbing than the event itself.
I can't say I was disturbed by Starship Troopers, but I can say that it served as a perfect preparation for what was to come over the next ten years. For better and for worse. As mentioned earlier, the world has become a far different place since the bug-blasting action movie was released. It's experiences like mine, in which "children" are exposed to the horrors of entertainment, that are now retrospectively blamed for massacres and terrorist acts. Our society has attempted to end violence by regulating what we can decide to participate in. We have taken censorship to the level of science, correcting "chemical imbalances" to lower our anger, depression, and excitement, until we are left numb, with nothing but Novocain in our heads. A cure worse than the disease. Have we reacted in the right way? Which was more disturbing to me, the fact that sick people were doing bad things in this world, or the fact that I was told they did bad things because they liked the same movies I did?
This past week I watched Starship Troopers for the first time since I was nine years old. In some ways, it has certainly aged. People of the future seem to use computers with the processing power of a current calculator. In other ways, it has surprisingly remained ahead of it's time. Especially in concern to special effects, which have even been recycled in trailers for direct to video sequels to the 1997 film.
Then, amazingly, Starship Troopers has improved, like a fine wine. It's cynical satire on wartime propaganda films is still what it was eleven years ago, but it's commentary on wartime politics is almost disturbingly prophetic. Starship Troopers tells the story of a military that declares a war against a foreign enemy after an attack hits home. Given, this foreign enemy happens to be a planet inhabited by giant bugs, but the human military makes the strangely familiar mistake of underestimating the enemy and beginning a war that has no perceptible end in sight.
The characters, although wooden and interchangeable, have a striking value system in which the primary virtue is to die, preferably by the hands of a comrade, in the midst of battle. It doesn't matter how useful or meaningful the battles are, just as long as they keep killing bugs. The primary criticism of the movie is that there really is no degree of human involvement, we're dealing with people as empty as their bullet casings. But unintentionally or not (most likely unintentionally) it improves the film's argument, of war not just being hell, not just something inhuman, but something un-human. It's something out of this world.
I loved Starship Troopers more now than I did when I was nine. In fact, strangely, I feel as though it's something I would have imagined on my own and would have tried to make today. Well, maybe not in exactly the same way, but I still connect with it.
Of course, I'd never take my kid to see it. But then again, I don't want any kid to have to watch Dora the Explorer, or have anything to do with the Disney Channel, or go the other route and have television outlawed altogether. I'd probably give my kids the same upbringing I did. We'll watch old episodes of Animaniacs. Reflect the moral lessons we learned from Batman: The Animated Series. And then maybe I'll get to top it off with old reruns of Simpsons. Of course, only the good ones.
Movies might take a similar course. But then again, if I see something cool come up sometime, who knows. I might neglect to check the review.
Documentaries were practically invented for music, and the same could be said in reverse. While a projected screen can serve as a forum for performances, it can also take the viewer behind the scenes and even at times, take a journey into the psyche of the performers themselves. But only a great documentary can take that personal experience and turn it into a beautiful allegory for life itself, and Young At Heart is a great documentary.
Stephen Walker follows the Young at Heart Chorus, a performance group who specializes in classic rock and pop song covers. Their selection of tunes is diverse, ranging from Sonic Youth, to Coldplay, to James Brown. But it's not the songs that set this group apart, it's the fact that all the performers are senior citizens, with an average age of 81.
Age serves as an unparalleled catalyst for action, as one member of the group puts it, and I paraphrase, "No one gets out of this world alive." While the Young at Heart performers have performed overseas in the presence of royalty, the goal remains the same. Learn the songs, be able to perform the songs, and just keep on living. But they don't just survive, they live for the music. As such, they prove themselves to be real, true musicians, perhaps more so than the artists they cover. Though their voices have been limited, their age gives them a sense of poetic justice.
It's the souls portrayed that set this film apart from other documentaries, not the documentary itself. While the film making is generally solid, it's the characters and people that make it what it is. Stephen Walker, who narrates and performs interviews, could easily be interpreted as a bit melodramatic, but to be frank, it's clear that he has no idea what kind of a story he is in the midst of. It needs no introduction, requires no extrapolation, these people are real and that's why we love them.
My Teeth, If I Was A Woman and Had Great Teeth
I Only Regret I Didn't Kill More People
