First Things First

Welcome.  I hope that you take a few minutes to check out my entire site.  I've been working on adding a few more things, but they weren't ready for this monthly update.  Hopefully next month.  As for this month's Elsewhere I have an afterthought pertaining to being a fool, an editorial on the Britney Spears movie Crossroads, and finally a good movie recommendation, Shane.

Afterthoughts : Playing the Sap

What I try to do in this particular part of the site is to look back at something personally significant that occurred over the past month.  This time I'm writing about how stupid I am, and have been for a while... not just this month.  However, it wasn't until this month that I realized that I was being played for the sap.  Talia is a girl I met some time last year.  I don't remember the exact date.  I was interested in her after talking to her for five minutes.  Over the last year, or so, I've come to like her all the more.  I've called her on the phone and I've told her so.  However, all the time she was playing me like a violin.  She would tell me just the right things to keep me interested, like telling me that she liked me too.  But, then when it came to me asking her out she said no.  I stopped talking to her until a couple of weeks ago.  Valentine's day, to be exact.  She called me because she didn't have a valentine.  We had a really nice talk, and she said some things to me that made me believe a relationship between us was finally going somewhere.  Boy, was I wrong.  In the short time since Valentine's day things have gone from sweet, to tepid, to plain ol' indifferent.  Suddenly, like Brando says in the movie Apocalypse Now, it hit me like a diamond bullet through the middle of my brain... Talia doesn't like me.  Nor does she love me, like she claimed on Valentine's day.  She just needs me to fulfill some strange perversion meant to tear my heart apart.  And, now that I see her intentions I'm just going to say good-bye and not look back.  I'm not going to call her, and if she calls me I'll just politely tell her that I'm busy.  Having my heart broken by this girl isn't something I'm looking forward to.  And, if I allow myself to like her any more I know that that is exactly what will end up happening.

Editorial : Crossroads : Watchable for all the wrong reasons

I wanted to see Crossroads because I knew that it was going to be absolutely horrible... and it kinda was.  I say kinda because when I think about the movie objectively there were points that they movie was actually picking up steam... but, like every bad movie it faltered and fell on its face.  I think the editor of this movie must have nearly gone insane trying to find something that he/she could put in the movie, because several times I noticed that a scene would just stop... often right in the middle of a sentence. The editor.  They must have finally just given up and said, "Screw it, I don't care anymore."  The only reason I wanted to see this movie was to make fun of it, in the tradition of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and it was way easy to make fun of it.  It has every cliché that so-called 'road' pictures employ... like having car problems, and not having the money to fix it... the dirty, rundown, motel room... the Karaoke bar where the lead always sings great and gets more than enough money to pay for the car repairs, and finally, the side trip to some far off place that changes the lead's life.  Come on, it's the same old thing, over and over again.  On a side note, a great 'road' picture is Five Easy Pieces, which is true because it's about going from nowhere to nowhere.  Crossroads will probably be liked by pre-teen girls, the insane, those with no taste at all, and by those who will use it for fodder for ridicule.  I know I'll see it again because it was just so fun to make fun of the whole thing.  I never laughed so hard, especially when it was supposed to be sad.

Etcetera : Shane

The movie Shane is one of those movies that many people may have heard of, but have never seen.  That's a shame because Shane is not just a great Western, but a great movie, period.  Starting Alan Ladd as a wandering gunfighter who finds himself in a fight he doesn't want to fight, Shane explores a man's attempt to change his life.  It's a simple story, but with many layers of subtlety.  Shane is the quintessential loner gunfighter who sees his life for what it is and wants to change it.  But, will forces beyond his control cause Shane to return to his gunfighting ways?  Watch the movie and see.
Shane is one of the most beautifully photographed Westerns, excellently portraying both the solitude and the freedom of a bygone era.  Shane is not a movie that many people today have seen, which is sad because it is finer than every blow up, shoot 'em up movie out there today.  It has something that they never have, a story, and heart.