Ain't this the Life! No. 2

Ain't this the Life! No. 1

Gratuitous violence just doesn't make me laugh like it used to

So I went and saw Pineapple Express today and, while overall I enjoyed it, I was surprised by the number of times I thought to myself, "Well, that was unnecessarily violent." How could this be that I no longer found excessive, mindless violence in the name of comedy to be, well, funny?

If you haven't seen the film, oh there's no reason not to check it out. I mean, it's a not particularly a "have to see it in the theater" experience, but it's worth watching. It starts out strong, slows down some, gets kinda mindless and out of hand and then, at the final scene, it's back to being very well done.

If I were a thinking man, I'd say it's some kind of metaphor or somethin'.

If you don't know what it's about, imagine a Cheech and Chong film with action and a mostly thought-out plot. And, in between all the weed smoking, there's a good amount of sometimes oddly graphic violence.

*SPOILER ALERT*

I can't keep talking about the film without mentioning what actually happens. So if you don't care if parts get ruined, keep reading. If you do, visit the old site for a while (link in upper right of page).

It's not all the violence in the film I think is gratuitous, far from it, but there are a few scenes where I wondered, "Why even add that in? It's not funny, it doesn't advance the plot, and were it not there the scene could have been even tighter."

1. The police car chase - When Saul stops the car and the policewoman starts firing at him, one of the bullets, we're shown by way of a cut, hits a bystander. Okay, now what? We already knew she was a bad cop, it's not like that's some kind of turning point for her character.

And it didn't even hit a ha-ha bystander like a mime or, since the movie's produced by Judd Apatow's company, a humorous minority, it was just some white dude.

2. Red shooting off Matheson's foot - First he drives over the guy, which is fine, but why show him blowing off his dead foot? It was like Robocop minus the veiled anti-facsism message. Any laughs it generated were more from shock than anything else.

3. Ted's body after the bomb blast - Did they really need to hire Rick Baker for just the one scene? Seriously, comedy bomb blast victim = not moving + sooty face + singed hair. That's it. Done. Don't need the bubbly 4th degree burn look on the trunk of the body or whatever they were going for.

4. Killing off Bill Hader right at the beginning - Come on, his five minutes were better than the middle thirty of the movie. Again, his offscreen death was one of those shock laughs and really, I think, it traded off for giggles a character that could have been used later on.

Now, I'm no big-time comedy writer or anything, but I've seen enough dumb-ass movies to know that there's nothing funnier than revealing a guy, late into a movie, who everyone thought had died years ago.

You mean to tell me it wouldn't have been a bigger laugh for to him wander out in the middle of the big fight scene, after years of hiding and subsisting on pot? He could have even popped up from behind the wall Gary Cole knocks a hole in with his realistically charred midsection.

I don't know, that's just four things I thought of off the top of my head that bothered me. Yet, I know if I had seen this movie at 18 or 19 I would have laughed my head off and not blinked twice at any of it.

I wonder if it's because I've already seen it so many times that a shock laugh just isn't funny anymore, or if I feel like overworking a joke with violence is lazy and therefore a waste of my time. I really don't know. Maybe I think I know better than the writers, and I can see where they're pandering and taking the easy joke over really trying.

Because, certainly, there's a place for over-the-top violence. I'm not trying to come off like some anti-movie violence crusader or anything, but in the context of this film I just didn't see the point in many cases, why the writers and director took the extra-realistic and brutal step for what, essentially, is a comedy buddy picture.

But, oh well, not my movie. Though, and I'll say, if I were the editor, I'd take the first twenty-five minutes, paste on the last ten minutes, and you've got yourself a great short film.

Tonsorial Sisyphus

I need a haircut. Actually it's not so much that I need a haircut right now but rather I'll need one if I don't get it cut soon. I imagine this is the case for most people.

In any event, at this point my hair looks as good as it is going to for this cutting cycle. I don't know about you, but right as my hair starts to get longer it really falls into place. Maybe the new hair is just starting to relax and fit in with all the other hairs up there, who can say. Perhaps they're about to start up a rec volleyball team.

The thing is, some people I've found look best right at the moment their haircut is over. The stylist has, well, styled it properly; it's all sitting up or waved or permed or gelled or whatever and you know that it's all downhill from there.

There's no way that person is going to keep that going for a whole six weeks or however long they wait between appointments. By the end of the first week they've decided they "don't really like that style anymore" and want something new next time. The following Wednesday they've decided a nice hat is all the cranial style they need.

Some people's hair never seems to grow at all until right when they need a haircut. I don't know how this happens. It's usually with short-haired people.

My hair, though, looks okay after the cut, but steadily increases in power week by week. Right now I'm at week 6, with an appointment a few days from now, and I don't even comb it anymore. I mean, I never actually use a comb or anything, but now I just step out of the shower, dry it, shake it a little and it just looks perfect.

I wish I could explain it, but I can't. The saddest part is that I get so little time with the perfection. Just as it's reaching some mathematical eventuality for rightness, chop. Like a ripe tomato, which is plucked from the vine in its sublime, succulent, magnificent vegetable prime, then sliced, and put on a cheese sandwich.

In this case the cheese sandwich is the salon floor.

What I'm saying is it's a cruel life for me and my what's-on-top. This weekend is all I have to enjoy it; to have a fleeting glimpse of what might have been. Well, of what is, I suppose, for a short time. But the time might have been longer!

Still I say, don't cry for me, more than is necessary. It'll grow back.

Hey the site looks even more plain!

So here's the new design. Yes, it's pretty plain for now, but I'll work on that some. I'm not a huge fan of complicated-looking designs to begin with, but I'm sure there'll be some changes to this look. The nice part about it is that it's a lot easier to maintain than the previous site. Without getting into boring talk about HTML/CSS and FTP uploads and so on, I can update anything about the site having only to touch a couple of files.

Mostly that's because I'm using Blogger now to handle all of the articles. On the previous site I used them for the blog only, but the page template didn't exactly match the rest of the site and upkeep for that template was therefore kind of annoying. Even worse, adding new pages was a pain and prone to human error. Now both halves of the site and everything that describes the page style are in their own singular places. Basically I just maintain the home page and the rest is done for me. Much more to my way of thinking.

On the home page, you'll notice there is a "Featured Article" section, which will highlight one of either the Blog or Incredible Things articles. At the start it probably won't make much sense, as the Featured Article will be available in a couple of places. But as time goes on I figure it'll link to previous articles for the day, or for special sites/pages created as I go. Who knows? THE WORLD IS MY OYSTER.

I should also say the previous site content is still available; just click the "View old site" link in the upper right-hand corner and there you'll be. Aside from the obvious differences, I also stripped down the navigation between the old site and this one. After the first year or so I realized 99% of the articles went into the "Other" section, and the other bits were more blog-like so it became natural to have just two main sections, as there now are.