The true Gospel is Salvation based solely on the atoning blood and imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. All gospels that preach anything different are false, including those that state that Christ died for everyone, or that Christ loved and loves everyone. More here. Salvation is not conditioned on the sinner's decision to "give their life to Christ" , or "accept Christ's love" as most of the world's false Christians believe it to be. Anyone who believes these things is unsaved. Faith in the true gospel is the evidence of salvation.
Why am I saying this here? I don't even remember what was written on this website. I am pretty sure that I would not endorse any of it now. I put this here in love so that whomever may be interested might read it. This is what is important. Believe and repent.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Apocalypto (2006)
Apocalypto (2006)
This movie could also be called Good Things Roman Catholics Have Done For the World, that is, if you define "world" as South America and "good thigs" as savagery equal or greater than that depicted in the movie. Anyway, there isn't much of a story, the movie is mostly spectacle. It held my attention, like Mel Gibson's Braveheart, but did little more than that. The problem for Gibson here was for us to get us to care about Jaguar Claw, involved with him and his life, the two obstacles the obstacles being language (the mnovie is subtitled) and culture. It did not work because we did not know enough about him, did not get to empathize. At the end I did not feel cheated by the deus ex machina, nor did I feel satisfied, I was just slightly short of being happy it was over.
This movie could also be called Good Things Roman Catholics Have Done For the World, that is, if you define "world" as South America and "good thigs" as savagery equal or greater than that depicted in the movie. Anyway, there isn't much of a story, the movie is mostly spectacle. It held my attention, like Mel Gibson's Braveheart, but did little more than that. The problem for Gibson here was for us to get us to care about Jaguar Claw, involved with him and his life, the two obstacles the obstacles being language (the mnovie is subtitled) and culture. It did not work because we did not know enough about him, did not get to empathize. At the end I did not feel cheated by the deus ex machina, nor did I feel satisfied, I was just slightly short of being happy it was over.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
The absurdly macho pyrotechnics of Smokin' Aces. - By Dana Stevens - Slate Magazine
The absurdly macho pyrotechnics of Smokin' Aces. - By Dana Stevens - Slate Magazine: "The weirdly magnetic Piven is the only reason I still watch HBO's Entourage (which I've inveighed against here and here). He's a mercurial actor, one of the few I could imagine effecting the transition from magician to gang lord. (Isn't it always the way? One minute they're pulling bunnies from hats, the next they're collecting protection money.) But Piven is powerless to combat the deep stupidity of this role, and his performance ranges from adequate (in the comic scenes) to excruciating (in the 'tragic' ones). At the movie's puzzling dramatic nadir, Buddy stares blearily into the bathroom mirror, wearing a single bright-blue contact lens, as a tear rolls down his cheek. I wish my insurance covered Lasik surgery too, but you don't see me crying about it."
Grindhouse is bloody good. - By Dana Stevens - Slate Magazine
Grindhouse is bloody good. - By Dana Stevens - Slate Magazine: "But Death Proof is a reminder of what there was to like about Tarantino in the first place: his uncanny ear for dialogue that's at once naturalistic and deliriously wordy, his kinetic action sequences, and his voracious love for cinema in all its incarnations, especially the sleazy ones. With its lean 90-minute running time and a near-complete absence of CGI, Death Proof feels like an experiment in austerity after more than a decade in which Tarantino had free run of the special-effects candy store. And it works fabulously, much to the surprise of this generally Tarantino-weary writer."
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
The movie itself, is about two strangers writing a pop-song, and it's funny if you get the references, if you know who Wham or A-ha or Duran Duran were. Barrymore is, as she always is, winning and sweet and vulnerable to the point where you wish that people like that existed in real life and that you knew them and they liked you. Grant has a very definite sense of humor, I always knew it, even when he was annoying me and in this movie, beset by age, he shows it more than in any film before. They sold me the story, and I liked it.
Music & Lyrics
Hugh Grant ... Alex Fletcher
Drew Barrymore ... Sophie Fisher
Brad Garrett ... Chris Riley
Kristen Johnston ... Rhonda Fisher
Campbell Scott ... Sloan Cates
Scott Porter ... Colin Thompson
Technorati Tags: Hugh, Grant, Drew, Barrymore, Music, Lyrics, movie, film, review, movies, comedy, romantic, 80's, wham, duran+duran, pop, music, writing
Monday, June 04, 2007
I never got to see this one because none of the video stores I frequented had it in stock. It's not your average person's idea of a comedy. Not to say that there is anything wrong with liking average comedy, just that this is isn't it.
One sentence summary: Amoral asshole dad tries to win back the favor of his genius family.
No, it doesn't sound like much with a one-sentence summary, but it's one of those movies that work on quirk and low-key dryness. I would have said that Bill Murray would have been excellent as Royal Tenenbaum except Gene Hackman did such a brilliant job. Is there anything quite as funny as an uninhibited, remorseless liar? Well, in this movie there isn't. Hackman as Tenenbaum steals every scene and makes you like him long before he tries to change his ways. Something about the fact that he never gives up, is never discouraged, reads spy-novels and encyclopedias.
Technorati Tags: Royal, Tenenbaums, movie, comedy, cinema, DVD, film, Gene, Hackman, Anjelica, Huston, Gwymeth, Paltrow, Luke, Wilson, Owen, Ben, Stiller,
Friday, March 23, 2007
Man Rips Wife's Eyes Out
A MAN who ripped out his wife's eyes in a fit of rage was sentenced by a French court to 30 years behind bars today.
Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Samira Bari's eyes following a heated argument in their apartment in the southern French city of Nimes in July 2003 after she refused to have sex with him.
Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Samira Bari's eyes following a heated argument in their apartment in the southern French city of Nimes in July 2003 after she refused to have sex with him.
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Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
Have you seen Snatch? Well this is Snatch without the Pikies or the diamond. If you haven't seen Snatch, well, you should, but you should see this first.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is worth seeing because it has a cool title, yes, and because even though 80 percent of the plot was recycled for the smoother, more professional Snatch, it's still entertaining. The plot: 4 friends pool their savings for a high-stakes card game, only to lose it because the game is rigged. They wind up 500,000 pounds in the hole and must pay a violent criminal named Hatchet Harry (Bricktop without the pigs) or his henchman will cut their fingers off. Add to this a complicated set of subplots involving antique guns and stolen weed, and you have a fairly entertaining heist movie. Much of the acting is amateurish, very much like community-theater, but remember, the actors aren't the stars here, Guy Ritchie is. It's smartly written and smartly directed. Ritchie's content is very similar to Quentin Tarantino's in that both men seem heavily influenced by Elmore Leonard, but Richie's work feels more like a EL fast-paced books than Tarantino's.
Note that this is a British movie, with a wide range of regional English accents, so if you are one of those people who can't understand people from other states, let alone from other countries, keep your subtitles on.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is worth seeing because it has a cool title, yes, and because even though 80 percent of the plot was recycled for the smoother, more professional Snatch, it's still entertaining. The plot: 4 friends pool their savings for a high-stakes card game, only to lose it because the game is rigged. They wind up 500,000 pounds in the hole and must pay a violent criminal named Hatchet Harry (Bricktop without the pigs) or his henchman will cut their fingers off. Add to this a complicated set of subplots involving antique guns and stolen weed, and you have a fairly entertaining heist movie. Much of the acting is amateurish, very much like community-theater, but remember, the actors aren't the stars here, Guy Ritchie is. It's smartly written and smartly directed. Ritchie's content is very similar to Quentin Tarantino's in that both men seem heavily influenced by Elmore Leonard, but Richie's work feels more like a EL fast-paced books than Tarantino's.
Note that this is a British movie, with a wide range of regional English accents, so if you are one of those people who can't understand people from other states, let alone from other countries, keep your subtitles on.
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Monday, July 10, 2006
I don't get a lot of free time. I had a choice between this, Pirates of the Caribbean 2, The Devil Wear Prada, and I chose to spend a Saturday afternoon on this sorry, miserable feature. Woe is me. The best part of the whole thing was the trailer for Talladega Nights, 2 Minutes of which was funnier than all 9 hours of Click.
This piece of Happy Gilmore Productions shit was even more miserable and even more embarrasingly stupid than Sandler's re-make of The Longest Yard which had all the wit of a dinner-table fart.
Guy (Adam Sandler) gets a "universal remote-control" that enables him to control his life. Speed through the the boring parts, mute annoying people, and so on and so forth. It's a concept with exactly zero interesting possiblities beyond marginally interesting digital special-effects. You get the idea that this was written for little kids, but dirtied up by the "S-word" to get PG-13 and draw in the 10 year-olds; I have a prejudice against PG-13 movies for exactly this reason.
Is there anything good about his movie?
1. Special effects. Nothing new, really.
2. Fat-chick and fart jokes. Oh yeah, and there's this dog that humps a stuffed duck. Ha.
3. Christopher Walken. No, not really. He is seriously creepy in this one. I mean pedophile-creepy.
4. David Hasselhoff. No, also very creepy.
5. The Make-up. Ok, yes, this movie had some of the best aging make-up I have ever sen in a hollywood film. Still not a good enough reason to waste your time on it.
This is one of those few movies with absolutely no merit whatsoever. I mean NONE.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
The only other book by Dashiell Hammett I have ever read was the Maltese Falcon a few years ago. I was at a different point in my life and therefore my take on the book, my ability to assess it's quality (if literature can be assessed for quality) was somewhat less developed than I believe it is now. In any case, I was not particularly impressed by Mr Hammett, though I remember that for some time I listed him as a favorite author because it sounded good and his name is easy to remember. At least to me. He would be among those authors I read becasue they are easy, not because they are good. It took me a while to get through The Maltese Falcon, and I imagine what enjoyment I got came from my picturing Humphrey Bogart in the part of Sam Spade.
I started The Thin Man a few nights ago and while not impressed my Mr Hammett's talent, though I am sure it's there, I find the book easy to read, if not particularly original. I imagine that at the time Nick Charles, wealthy, connected American Private Eye might have been something of a novelty among your down-on-their-luck working-class pulp-fic gumshoes. I don't really care. I don't care about the people in the book either, but, like I said, it's all easy to read.
The Thin Man is cute, it's a chick-flick kid's story of a murder-mystery, and while mildly annoying, it's also vaguely pleasant. I can read knowing that I will not be disturbed in the least, which is a little bit of a relief.
Technorati Tags: Dashiell, Hammett, The, Thin, Man, novel, fiction, mystery, murder, book, books, novels, reading, writing, read, reader, story, stories, Humphrey, Bogart, Movies, Movie, Maltese, Falcon, Nick, Charles
The only other book by Dashiell Hammett I have ever read was the Maltese Falcon a few years ago. I was at a different point in my life and therefore my take on the book, my ability to assess it's quality (if literature can be assessed for quality) was somewhat less developed than I believe it is now. In any case, I was not particularly impressed by Mr Hammett, though I remember that for some time I listed him as a favorite author because it sounded good and his name is easy to remember. At least to me. He would be among those authors I read becasue they are easy, not because they are good. It took me a while to get through The Maltese Falcon, and I imagine what enjoyment I got came from my picturing Humphrey Bogart in the part of Sam Spade.
I started The Thin Man a few nights ago and while not impressed my Mr Hammett's talent, though I am sure it's there, I find the book easy to read, if not particularly original. I imagine that at the time Nick Charles, wealthy, connected American Private Eye might have been something of a novelty among your down-on-their-luck working-class pulp-fic gumshoes. I don't really care. I don't care about the people in the book either, but, like I said, it's all easy to read.
The Thin Man is cute, it's a chick-flick kid's story of a murder-mystery, and while mildly annoying, it's also vaguely pleasant. I can read knowing that I will not be disturbed in the least, which is a little bit of a relief.
Technorati Tags: Dashiell, Hammett, The, Thin, Man, novel, fiction, mystery, murder, book, books, novels, reading, writing, read, reader, story, stories, Humphrey, Bogart, Movies, Movie, Maltese, Falcon, Nick, Charles
The only other book by Dashiell Hammett I have ever read was the Maltese Falcon a few years ago. I was at a different point in my life and therefore my take on the book, my ability to assess it's quality (if literature can be assessed for quality) was somewhat less developed than I believe it is now. In any case, I was not particularly impressed by Mr Hammett, though I remember that for some time I listed him as a favorite author because it sounded good and his name is easy to remember. At least to me. He would be among those authors I read becasue they are easy, not because they are good. It took me a while to get through The Maltese Falcon, and I imagine what enjoyment I got came from my picturing Humphrey Bogart in the part of Sam Spade.
I started The Thin Man a few nights ago and while not impressed my Mr Hammett's talent, though I am sure it's there, I find the book easy to read, if not particularly original. I imagine that at the time Nick Charles, wealthy, connected American Private Eye might have been something of a novelty among your down-on-their-luck working-class pulp-fic gumshoes. I don't really care. I don't care about the people in the book either, but, like I said, it's all easy to read.
The Thin Man is cute, it's a chick-flick kid's story of a murder-mystery, and while mildly annoying, it's also vaguely pleasant. I can read knowing that I will not be disturbed in the least, which is a little bit of a relief.
Technorati Tags: Dashiell, Hammett, The, Thin, Man, novel, fiction, mystery, murder, book, books, novels, reading, writing, read, reader, story, stories, Humphrey, Bogart, Movies, Movie, Maltese, Falcon, Nick, Charles
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Jim Thompson's work has the feel of a writer trying to recreate the seaminess and ugliness of real life, and doing a fair job. That seems to be his motive: to let you in on the dark side. To some extent he succeeds, there is an ugliness in his fiction that approximates the more obvious (as opposed to the more subtle) ugly apsects of humanity, human life, human society. Most of it has no shelf-life, transcends the time in which it was written in and the generation to which he belonged, especially since Thompson's mission was never to create lovable characters who have hope and wind up happy.
Technorati Tags: Jim, Thompson, book, books, story, stories, fiction, fictional, noir, crime, mystery, suspense, genre, novel, novels, writer, writing, write,
Technorati Tags: Jim, Thompson, book, books, story, stories, fiction, fictional, noir, crime, mystery, suspense, genre, novel, novels, writer, writing, write,
Saturday, May 13, 2006
BUYING TIME
I am somewhere between the two base camps of literature, the first being the idea of fiction as art, as personal expression, and to the reader, as a means of seeing another perspective, hopefully one deeper than your own, from someone who spends more time thinking. The idea is of the story as a means to say, to share. The other is of fiction as a product (by "product" I mean an item with a specific function). This latter involves manipulation, it involves a willingness of the reader to entrust their imaginations to you in return for an intellectual amusment park ride designed by you.
Fiction - The Art, The Beautiful Swing that Misses
One man's art is another man's boring schoolwork. Writing for the purpose of beautiful expression is as pointless and masturbatory an endeavor as you can have. The elegance that is there for the people who have the time to go looking for it. So you have something to say...what now? How profound is it? Somebody else has seen it, somebody else has said it, so what's your twist? How will knowing what you have to say change my life? In other words, are you worth
the time? Fiction in this sense is a form of higher communication, a reaching out of the soul. This involves my own personal ideas about life and people. This art is limited to my own personal opinions. This is me speaking to you, earnestly, honestly. Here the characters represent real people.
Fiction - The Product, Heroin of the Soul
The idea is of fiction as a simple product. An item to be purchased or sold. A diversion, not unlike a greeting card or a boardgame. Something with which to pass the time by firing the imagination or by doping it into submission. There is nothing moral about artificial human beings, they are words on a page, not concepts, not truth. They bare a similarity to real-life only insofar as is necessary to serve the purpose of the product. They die because people die and death inspires a reaction, they fuck and fear and yearn because it gets your attention. In other words, death, violence, sex are tools of diversion with no bearing on real life. Here the characters are props.
BUYING TIME
It feels like a scene from bad TV show, me waiting here in the kitchen like this. I can't think of a specific TV show, but think of something old, and American, and in black-and-white. You know the kind - Dad finds out that Timmy stole a bicycle so Dad tells him what a good boy he is, and how he knows that he would never steal a bicycle, even though he knows that little Timmy is a fucking thief the whole time. It guilts Timmy into a confession, because his dad believes in him, see? That's what it feels like, like they are trying to guilt me into saying something.
This is where I start to have that feeling, the pressure creeping up my chest till it's right level with my collarbone. I get this look on my face like I'm about to cry. It's completely involuntary. I go inward looking so hard at what's inside that forget to hide what I feel. I take the look off my face as soon as I realize it's there.
But what if I was wrong, what if they didn't know? What if they are telling the truth? You never know. People get desperate, they get greedy. All kinds of good reasons for bad judgment.
It was always a hopeless case, this laptop-for-rent shit. You don't rent in Jamaica, unless it's something so big that no one can run away with it easily. You rent marquis to people having fairs and concerts, you rent giant fridge-sized speakers for shows, you might even rent a truck or shipping containers, but you don't rent the small and expensive. They should have known better.
My aunt she's flitting about the kitchen making lunch. Happy in the belief that she is making money, that there are people right now using our laptops and paying money into our account. She's buying time till she won't look anxious, or over-eager when she asks. She's probably waiting till after dinner.
It's only a matter of time.
They cannot possibly have invested their life savings, their house in me. Me of all people. They have got to be bullshitting. You would have to be delusional, mentally ill, or so desperate that you can't blame anybody else. It can't be my fault, it has to be your fear, or your greed that drove you into it. I mean I was just what came along, it wasn't me you put your money in with, me the guy who has fucked up everything he ever touched. You bet your savings on the only available horse. It would have been the next guy if it hadn't been me. I mean seriously, how hard did I work to get them to do it. I just said what the idea was, they made their minds up.
My aunt she seems so happy. So secure. It's as if a burden has been taken off her shoulders. I want to tell her that all along I new it wouldn't work, I just needed to buy time. If I had that money then I wouldn't be broke, wouldn't go homeless. That all her money did was buy time.
The food-smell makes me sick.
"Back in a minute." I say to her.
Out in the backyard I put a cigarette in my mouth and the world feels like it's the end of days, where the hours are a second long and you are rushing to the edge of eternity like a jetliner into the side of a Latin American mountain. There is nothing but my impending destitution and the possibility that I fucked the only people I ever mattered to. If I'm going to be living on the street, why should it matter to me what they think of me or where they are?
I start thinking about suicide again. No way doI have the balls to face the other side of any kind of reality without being kicked into it, but sometimes it helps just to think about it. You feel better knowing that you are that far down. I put the lighter back into my pocket and feel the knife there. Now if I could just buy myself some more time...
They would know later, when the bank called, that I did it because I was full of remorse. They might not be so angry then, so disappointed in me.
"Jeff! Dinner's ready!" Yells Aunt Myra.
The cigarette falls from my lips in the hurry to grab and open the knife. I still think, seeing that I have no choice, that it won't be fatal. Will have to be a hell of a cut though. Get an ambulance and everything.
There is no thought here, just rapid spasms, jerky motions: the struggle to get the knife open, looking at my shirt and hesititating about destroying it.
I stick the knife into my left forearm. Just one quick plunge, once it's in and I feel the first sting and the feeling of violation, it's still not so hard to pull it down to my elbow. I can see the layer of fat under my skin before it wells up with blood. The blade moves through the rubbery gumminess that is my physical presence easier than I would have thought. I move quickly before my brain gets the message and starts screaming. Then I have to drop the knife. I start to run back to the house so they can see. but the blood it just pouring down off my arm, onto the leg of my jeans like warm thick piss. It would be so hard now, would it? I mean to just sit down and wait it out. Wait to see if this would end it. All the bullshit struggling, all the banging my head against the stonewall of this fucking country, this fucking life. The hard part's already done.
So I stop running, instead of going inside, I sit down on the grass in their backyard and I wait to see what will happen now.
THE END
Technorati Tags: suicide, depression, Jamaica, hopelessness, tv, television, short, story, fiction, writing, literature, writer, reading, reader, stories,
I am somewhere between the two base camps of literature, the first being the idea of fiction as art, as personal expression, and to the reader, as a means of seeing another perspective, hopefully one deeper than your own, from someone who spends more time thinking. The idea is of the story as a means to say, to share. The other is of fiction as a product (by "product" I mean an item with a specific function). This latter involves manipulation, it involves a willingness of the reader to entrust their imaginations to you in return for an intellectual amusment park ride designed by you.
Fiction - The Art, The Beautiful Swing that Misses
One man's art is another man's boring schoolwork. Writing for the purpose of beautiful expression is as pointless and masturbatory an endeavor as you can have. The elegance that is there for the people who have the time to go looking for it. So you have something to say...what now? How profound is it? Somebody else has seen it, somebody else has said it, so what's your twist? How will knowing what you have to say change my life? In other words, are you worth
the time? Fiction in this sense is a form of higher communication, a reaching out of the soul. This involves my own personal ideas about life and people. This art is limited to my own personal opinions. This is me speaking to you, earnestly, honestly. Here the characters represent real people.
Fiction - The Product, Heroin of the Soul
The idea is of fiction as a simple product. An item to be purchased or sold. A diversion, not unlike a greeting card or a boardgame. Something with which to pass the time by firing the imagination or by doping it into submission. There is nothing moral about artificial human beings, they are words on a page, not concepts, not truth. They bare a similarity to real-life only insofar as is necessary to serve the purpose of the product. They die because people die and death inspires a reaction, they fuck and fear and yearn because it gets your attention. In other words, death, violence, sex are tools of diversion with no bearing on real life. Here the characters are props.
BUYING TIME
It feels like a scene from bad TV show, me waiting here in the kitchen like this. I can't think of a specific TV show, but think of something old, and American, and in black-and-white. You know the kind - Dad finds out that Timmy stole a bicycle so Dad tells him what a good boy he is, and how he knows that he would never steal a bicycle, even though he knows that little Timmy is a fucking thief the whole time. It guilts Timmy into a confession, because his dad believes in him, see? That's what it feels like, like they are trying to guilt me into saying something.
This is where I start to have that feeling, the pressure creeping up my chest till it's right level with my collarbone. I get this look on my face like I'm about to cry. It's completely involuntary. I go inward looking so hard at what's inside that forget to hide what I feel. I take the look off my face as soon as I realize it's there.
But what if I was wrong, what if they didn't know? What if they are telling the truth? You never know. People get desperate, they get greedy. All kinds of good reasons for bad judgment.
It was always a hopeless case, this laptop-for-rent shit. You don't rent in Jamaica, unless it's something so big that no one can run away with it easily. You rent marquis to people having fairs and concerts, you rent giant fridge-sized speakers for shows, you might even rent a truck or shipping containers, but you don't rent the small and expensive. They should have known better.
My aunt she's flitting about the kitchen making lunch. Happy in the belief that she is making money, that there are people right now using our laptops and paying money into our account. She's buying time till she won't look anxious, or over-eager when she asks. She's probably waiting till after dinner.
It's only a matter of time.
They cannot possibly have invested their life savings, their house in me. Me of all people. They have got to be bullshitting. You would have to be delusional, mentally ill, or so desperate that you can't blame anybody else. It can't be my fault, it has to be your fear, or your greed that drove you into it. I mean I was just what came along, it wasn't me you put your money in with, me the guy who has fucked up everything he ever touched. You bet your savings on the only available horse. It would have been the next guy if it hadn't been me. I mean seriously, how hard did I work to get them to do it. I just said what the idea was, they made their minds up.
My aunt she seems so happy. So secure. It's as if a burden has been taken off her shoulders. I want to tell her that all along I new it wouldn't work, I just needed to buy time. If I had that money then I wouldn't be broke, wouldn't go homeless. That all her money did was buy time.
The food-smell makes me sick.
"Back in a minute." I say to her.
Out in the backyard I put a cigarette in my mouth and the world feels like it's the end of days, where the hours are a second long and you are rushing to the edge of eternity like a jetliner into the side of a Latin American mountain. There is nothing but my impending destitution and the possibility that I fucked the only people I ever mattered to. If I'm going to be living on the street, why should it matter to me what they think of me or where they are?
I start thinking about suicide again. No way doI have the balls to face the other side of any kind of reality without being kicked into it, but sometimes it helps just to think about it. You feel better knowing that you are that far down. I put the lighter back into my pocket and feel the knife there. Now if I could just buy myself some more time...
They would know later, when the bank called, that I did it because I was full of remorse. They might not be so angry then, so disappointed in me.
"Jeff! Dinner's ready!" Yells Aunt Myra.
The cigarette falls from my lips in the hurry to grab and open the knife. I still think, seeing that I have no choice, that it won't be fatal. Will have to be a hell of a cut though. Get an ambulance and everything.
There is no thought here, just rapid spasms, jerky motions: the struggle to get the knife open, looking at my shirt and hesititating about destroying it.
I stick the knife into my left forearm. Just one quick plunge, once it's in and I feel the first sting and the feeling of violation, it's still not so hard to pull it down to my elbow. I can see the layer of fat under my skin before it wells up with blood. The blade moves through the rubbery gumminess that is my physical presence easier than I would have thought. I move quickly before my brain gets the message and starts screaming. Then I have to drop the knife. I start to run back to the house so they can see. but the blood it just pouring down off my arm, onto the leg of my jeans like warm thick piss. It would be so hard now, would it? I mean to just sit down and wait it out. Wait to see if this would end it. All the bullshit struggling, all the banging my head against the stonewall of this fucking country, this fucking life. The hard part's already done.
So I stop running, instead of going inside, I sit down on the grass in their backyard and I wait to see what will happen now.
THE END
Technorati Tags: suicide, depression, Jamaica, hopelessness, tv, television, short, story, fiction, writing, literature, writer, reading, reader, stories,
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Jim Thompson: The Grifters (Orion Crime Fiction-Paperback)
I remember seeing the movie as a wee lad in Jamaica, back when Anjelica Huston looked more human and less like a bad CGI animation from a Harry Potter movie. Annette Bening was hot too, which she still is, only in a different way, and John Cusack was perfectly cast as Roy Dillon, even if he was never, in my opinion, anyway, handsome. Roy Dillon, was supposed to be, among other things, abnormally good-looking.
So here I am thirty-one years old, pseudo-Jamaican, living in Charleston, SC, and I'm reading Thompson's ultra-simple prose and wondering why I like this book since it seems to have no literary merit. I'm also reading Robert Alain Grille's Repitition which I find tedious and trivial and pretentious. Maybe Thompson is ruining me the way Faulkner ruined me for a time. The edginess, the casual seaminess, the easy amorality, is so very easy to identify with. Maybe this is how I will start writing now. Maybe my characters will have only basic internal monologues, be completely without compassion or shame.
I've spent alot of time looking in real-world bookstores for Mr Thompson's books (I don't usually buy online unless it's something I can't find in a store where I can actually touch and open the book). They have been hard to find and I have no idea why.
Technorati Tags: Anjelica, Huston, The, Grifters, John, Cusack, Jim, Thompson, Harry, Potter, Annette, Bening, Roy, Dillon, GGI, Effects, book, books, movie, movies, dvd, classic, pulp, fiction, novel, novels, reading, writing, story, stories, William, Faulkner, film, films, cinema, , incest, maternal, oedipus
I remember seeing the movie as a wee lad in Jamaica, back when Anjelica Huston looked more human and less like a bad CGI animation from a Harry Potter movie. Annette Bening was hot too, which she still is, only in a different way, and John Cusack was perfectly cast as Roy Dillon, even if he was never, in my opinion, anyway, handsome. Roy Dillon, was supposed to be, among other things, abnormally good-looking.
So here I am thirty-one years old, pseudo-Jamaican, living in Charleston, SC, and I'm reading Thompson's ultra-simple prose and wondering why I like this book since it seems to have no literary merit. I'm also reading Robert Alain Grille's Repitition which I find tedious and trivial and pretentious. Maybe Thompson is ruining me the way Faulkner ruined me for a time. The edginess, the casual seaminess, the easy amorality, is so very easy to identify with. Maybe this is how I will start writing now. Maybe my characters will have only basic internal monologues, be completely without compassion or shame.
I've spent alot of time looking in real-world bookstores for Mr Thompson's books (I don't usually buy online unless it's something I can't find in a store where I can actually touch and open the book). They have been hard to find and I have no idea why.
Technorati Tags: Anjelica, Huston, The, Grifters, John, Cusack, Jim, Thompson, Harry, Potter, Annette, Bening, Roy, Dillon, GGI, Effects, book, books, movie, movies, dvd, classic, pulp, fiction, novel, novels, reading, writing, story, stories, William, Faulkner, film, films, cinema, , incest, maternal, oedipus
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Lucky Number Slevin
The good things about this movie:
The dialogue with its would-be David Mamet coolness that only sometimes succeeds, Lucy Liu with her freckles, Josh Hartnett who has a sense of humor mature enough to make you like him in this role, Ben Kingsley's performance, Ben Kingsley's role, Morgan Freeman's performance in a sucky part, the title-credits, the name "Slevin Kellavra".
The bad things about this movie:
The dialogue with its would-be David Mamet coolness that so often falls short, Lucy Liu with her minor-league talent, Josh Hartnett with his smugness, the fact that everybody in this movie is an asshole. Yes, even Lindsay, who is too dumb to live.
The Plot:
Slevin (Josh Hartnett) gets "mistaken" for a guy who owes a lot of money to rival crime lords "the Rabbi" (Ben Kingsley)and "the Boss" (Morgan Freeman). In order to pay The Boss his $96,000, he is asked to take out The Rabbi's son in retaliation for The Boss's son having been assassinated by the aforementioned Rabbi earlier. It's both more and less complicated than it sounds. Nothing in this movie approaches, or is meant to approach, real life, but it manages to get away with it on actor charisma and tight editing. You won't be bored, and you probably won't want your money back.
"I liked the fact that the good guys are bad-asses, and that the bad guys really do get what they deserve (everything they love taken from them, then death)." That's not really a spoiler...
Rated R for some nudity, some explicit sex, a few curse-words, a little blood and brain-matter.
If you really liked this movie you should buy these:
Technorati Tags: David, Mamet, Bruce, Willis, Josh, Hartnett, Morgan, Freeman, Ben, Kingsley, Lucky, Number, Slevin, Stanley, Tucci, The, Heist, , Sting, movies, television, cable, film, films, cinema, acting, actor, roles, parts, script, director, action, cinemas, hit-man, assassin,
The good things about this movie:
The dialogue with its would-be David Mamet coolness that only sometimes succeeds, Lucy Liu with her freckles, Josh Hartnett who has a sense of humor mature enough to make you like him in this role, Ben Kingsley's performance, Ben Kingsley's role, Morgan Freeman's performance in a sucky part, the title-credits, the name "Slevin Kellavra".
The bad things about this movie:
The dialogue with its would-be David Mamet coolness that so often falls short, Lucy Liu with her minor-league talent, Josh Hartnett with his smugness, the fact that everybody in this movie is an asshole. Yes, even Lindsay, who is too dumb to live.
The Plot:
Slevin (Josh Hartnett) gets "mistaken" for a guy who owes a lot of money to rival crime lords "the Rabbi" (Ben Kingsley)and "the Boss" (Morgan Freeman). In order to pay The Boss his $96,000, he is asked to take out The Rabbi's son in retaliation for The Boss's son having been assassinated by the aforementioned Rabbi earlier. It's both more and less complicated than it sounds. Nothing in this movie approaches, or is meant to approach, real life, but it manages to get away with it on actor charisma and tight editing. You won't be bored, and you probably won't want your money back.
"I liked the fact that the good guys are bad-asses, and that the bad guys really do get what they deserve (everything they love taken from them, then death)." That's not really a spoiler...
Rated R for some nudity, some explicit sex, a few curse-words, a little blood and brain-matter.
If you really liked this movie you should buy these:
Technorati Tags: David, Mamet, Bruce, Willis, Josh, Hartnett, Morgan, Freeman, Ben, Kingsley, Lucky, Number, Slevin, Stanley, Tucci, The, Heist, , Sting, movies, television, cable, film, films, cinema, acting, actor, roles, parts, script, director, action, cinemas, hit-man, assassin,
Sunday, April 09, 2006
It's interesting that movies and books with/about the Southern United States or Southerners so often have quirky sexual themes. The Grifters' Lily Dillon has a quasi-incestuous relationship with her son, Roy, for instance, then there is the "entrapment" of the soldier in The Beguiled, Faulkner's work is riddled with sexually precocious youngsters, rapes and "almost-rapes", sexual bargaining and compromise, and, of course, there is Deliverance. It all has to do with family and clannishness (especially if you consider a plantation a clan, which they kind of were). I am not familiar with enough of this side of the south to say why exactly, or to put my finger on how it all works, or even if it exists purely in fiction.
Technorati Tags: The, Grifters, Lily, Roy, Dillon, books, movies, south, southern, united, states, america, sex, incest, incestuous, william, faulkner
Technorati Tags: The, Grifters, Lily, Roy, Dillon, books, movies, south, southern, united, states, america, sex, incest, incestuous, william, faulkner
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
I've spent years looking for a Jim Thompson book. I can't find them in the local library or at the local B&N, and it wasn't enough of a priority for me to spend too much time or money. Currently reading The Grifters. He has the most straightforward, possibly bland, prose-style I have ever seen outside of the work I did when I was 15 or 16 years old.
anjelica huston jim thompson John Cusack The Grifters movies film cinema books literature pulp
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Darkness Take My Hand
I've read four of Dennis Lehane's books, I was impressed with the first three: Shutter Island, Mystic River, and A Drink Before the War. They were smart and witty, with none of the filler of, say, a Robert Crais, who really doesn't have anything to say or a story to tell, but writes anyway. Darkness, Take my Hand is by far the least impressive of the Lehane novels I have read so far, though it does not sink the depths of your latter Elvis Cole novels (Crais showed promise with The Monkey's Raincoat, but fell off sharply after that). As a novel it's hardly original, one of the 90's serial killer genre, it has Kenzie and Gennaro trying to catch a dismembering, stalking, really smart psycho who taunts them at every turn. It doesn't have the dark feel of Lehane's better work, it lacks the fresh wit of A Drink Before War, and the original everything of Shutter Island. That's not to say that it's a stupid book, it's smarter and rawer and more original than most, but he can do better. This book is for completists, the ones who have to read every book by a particular author.
I've read four of Dennis Lehane's books, I was impressed with the first three: Shutter Island, Mystic River, and A Drink Before the War. They were smart and witty, with none of the filler of, say, a Robert Crais, who really doesn't have anything to say or a story to tell, but writes anyway. Darkness, Take my Hand is by far the least impressive of the Lehane novels I have read so far, though it does not sink the depths of your latter Elvis Cole novels (Crais showed promise with The Monkey's Raincoat, but fell off sharply after that). As a novel it's hardly original, one of the 90's serial killer genre, it has Kenzie and Gennaro trying to catch a dismembering, stalking, really smart psycho who taunts them at every turn. It doesn't have the dark feel of Lehane's better work, it lacks the fresh wit of A Drink Before War, and the original everything of Shutter Island. That's not to say that it's a stupid book, it's smarter and rawer and more original than most, but he can do better. This book is for completists, the ones who have to read every book by a particular author.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Inside Man
If they had pitched this as a TV movie, without the Denzel Washington/Jodie Foster/Clive Owen star-power, they would have had a hard time selling it. This is one of those that make for excellent trailers, (or maybe it's that Spike Lee movies make for good trailers, not really sure which) but not much more. I wasn't bored, but that was largely due to Denzel Washington's electric performance, pulling an entertaining character out of a nothing script. Jodie Foster hams away, as does Christopher Plummer. Clive Owen gives a decent little performance, like an up-and-comer trying to make his name inspite of the script, which he is. There isn't anything worthwhile here (apart from a pair of buxom women), nothing original, very little that is even mildly entertaining.
Spike Lee's message has been reduced to criticizing video games and mild, buried messages about NYPD bigotry. No I didn't miss the (yawn) subtext about American financial power and Nazi-Germany, my response is, so? Pretty much every financial empire on earth has been in bed with unsavory characters at one point or another. The pursuit of wealth necessitates ugliness. Rich men are pretty much always amoral, particularly men who make the acquisition of wealth their life's work. Nothing new there, Mr Lee.
As with all Spike Lee films, there are a few of those WTF moments, when something completely gratuitous/inappropriate/downright bizarre shows up in the screenplay. The latter love-scene with Denzel Washington's character and his girlfriend, the video game animation, the signature floating-down-the-street, shot, the stripping-down sequence.
Technorati Tags: Inside, Man, Denzel, Washington, Clive, Owen, Jodie, Foster, movies, movie, film, films, cinema, Spike, Lee, Joint, director, NYPD, Nazi, screenplay, actor
If they had pitched this as a TV movie, without the Denzel Washington/Jodie Foster/Clive Owen star-power, they would have had a hard time selling it. This is one of those that make for excellent trailers, (or maybe it's that Spike Lee movies make for good trailers, not really sure which) but not much more. I wasn't bored, but that was largely due to Denzel Washington's electric performance, pulling an entertaining character out of a nothing script. Jodie Foster hams away, as does Christopher Plummer. Clive Owen gives a decent little performance, like an up-and-comer trying to make his name inspite of the script, which he is. There isn't anything worthwhile here (apart from a pair of buxom women), nothing original, very little that is even mildly entertaining.
Spike Lee's message has been reduced to criticizing video games and mild, buried messages about NYPD bigotry. No I didn't miss the (yawn) subtext about American financial power and Nazi-Germany, my response is, so? Pretty much every financial empire on earth has been in bed with unsavory characters at one point or another. The pursuit of wealth necessitates ugliness. Rich men are pretty much always amoral, particularly men who make the acquisition of wealth their life's work. Nothing new there, Mr Lee.
As with all Spike Lee films, there are a few of those WTF moments, when something completely gratuitous/inappropriate/downright bizarre shows up in the screenplay. The latter love-scene with Denzel Washington's character and his girlfriend, the video game animation, the signature floating-down-the-street, shot, the stripping-down sequence.
Technorati Tags: Inside, Man, Denzel, Washington, Clive, Owen, Jodie, Foster, movies, movie, film, films, cinema, Spike, Lee, Joint, director, NYPD, Nazi, screenplay, actor
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