I can feel like a child

My excitement threatened to bubble over into raving insanity when the trailer for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman went online last week-and-a-half.  Those who know me best know of my deep, undying love for actor Michael Keaton and that he is still my Batman of choice.  Every time a movie with his name in the credits is announced I squeal with girlish glee and eagerly count down the days until its release.  To that end Keaton’s increased cinematic presence this year has certainly been welcome though it‘s a blubbering shame it had to be in the horrifying form of the predictably bad Robocop and the predictably yet somehow unbelievably bad Need for Speed [despite the latter being an unquestionably worse and all around horrible movie (Aaron Paul, you are going to destroy your film career in a flash of golden lightning if you keep picking movies like this) it is the former which actually hurts more since it also stars Gary Oldman].  The trailer for Birdman was certainly more enjoyable than either of those movies but I stopped trusting trailers years ago after losing several thousand dollars and the use of my left pinky.  Still, it is the rich combination of Keaton, the trailer (which truly is glorious) and Iñárritu which gives me high hopes for this particular cinematic entry.  Though I was able to find all sorts of enjoyment in 21 Grams and Biutiful (not as much in Babel) I feel Iñárritu has never quite matched the heights of his debut Amores Perros.  To be fair, that is an insanely high standard to set for anyone and I would personally posit that film as one of the best of the aughts decade.  Still, I have faith he may again scale those heights and would love for that to happen with this upcoming feature.  As many have pointed out the strange parallels to Keaton’s own career suggest this film could be to him what The Wrestler was to Mickey Rourke.  The only thing making me apprehensive about this movie is Ed Norton but I think I can use the next few months to grow as a human being and accept his presence.  Oh Keaton, I will do anything for you.  I await this feature with bated breath.   

I was inside the palace at last.  I was here so many times before but never in real life.  This time the taste was so sweet.  There were guards and goblins at the gates and I felt afraid but I was allowed to pass.  You allowed me to enter.  Everyone assembled and on display and I was terrified.  I could not intellectualize or contextualize the situation as everything was moving far too fast.  Brass nails held things in place and there were gears and pistons and many moving parts.  I saw a man who was half machine, the pale skin of his body becoming rusted metal, one eye a rotating reflective lens, a circuit board his stomach, his manhood half organic but ending in a splay of wires connecting to a battery the size of a cinderblock.  He smiled and his teeth were glistening sharpened steel.  “I can feel the energy inside of me; it tickles me and makes me tremble and smile.  When I touch it, the spark is so wonderful, I can feel it in the center of my body and it makes me laugh and bleed and I love it.  I can bring the pleasure outside of myself when I am being shocked; I live for the sweet torment.  Please don’t tell the children and please don’t tell Annabelle.  My brain belongs to the stars now and my body is in a perpetual state of ecstatic damnation.  I don’t know who I pray to anymore”. 

There are times where I weep uncontrollably as I realize what a horrible person I am.  In those moments I think of all the fragile, wonderful people around me and how I wish they would all be happy and never have to feel pain. I know I am the source of sadness for many and this makes me panic and scream and I so badly want to omit myself from all future proceedings.  I am sorry to everyone, I truly am.  I know I am a waste.  I am a fucking disgusting, ugly waste and I do not why I am allowed to continue. 

Mark Wahlberg consistently appears in some of the most generic mainstream movies of our generation and for that I treasure him.  I used to loathe him and his filmography but now I find his films soothing, akin to slipping into a warm bath of the man’s saliva.  And he is a far better actor than I originally believed. 

I’ve been doing some deep soul searching lately on the band Creed and I realized how unfair I was to this group.  For years I slagged them in the associated press and to my compatriots yet they are truly no worse or better than a band like Stone Temple Pilots.  In fact the similarities could not be clearer!  Simply put, they are both highly derivative bands that pilfered a huge amount of things from groups like Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains and spun some calculated, catchy and arena ready songs in the process.  Honestly, take a listen to “What If” by Creed and “Wicked Garden” by Stone Temple Pilots and the only thing really separating them is slightly (and I mean slightly) slicker production on the Creed track.  They are both very faceless tunes, retreading shadows of better songs by the aforementioned bands however both are enjoyable in their own way and perfectly harmless.  “What If” could have appeared on 1992’s Core by STP and no one would have found it out of place.  I’ll even go so far as to say you are a damn hypocrite if you love one of these two bands but hate the other!  Stone Temple Pilots and Creed are my new favorite bands and the wiry Scott Weiland and the nimble Scott Stapp are my new favorite singers.  The two Scotts make my heart burst with joy and with their faux-angsty showmanship.  I wonder how history will view them?   Already STP enjoy a more flattering reputation than in their heyday when Rolling Stone listed them as worst new band (Creed also enjoyed a similar accolade by that very same magazine) and I submit that Creed will be likewise revered in 10 or 15 years. 

Even when I bought the blu-ray of The Shining I could still not part with my DVD copy due the difference in aspect ratios – the dvd in 1.33:1 and the blu ray in 1.78:1 – and the continued debate over which was Kubrick’s true preference for the flick.  I used to beat myself up over owning two copies of this movie but I’m done feeling guilty.  I’ve removed those oppressive shackles and made the decision to go forward in my life as someone who loves himself and is at peace with the world around him.   

Kicking my ass would be a pleasure.