The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Ned Plimpton: I'm gonna fight you, Steve.
[Steve hits Ned in the face]
Steve Zissou: You never say, "I'm gonna fight you, Steve." You just smile and act natural, and then you sucker-punch him.
Ned Plimpton: You fight your way, and I'll fight mine.
Steve Zissou: Oh, listen, Ned. Don't you try to...
[Ned hits Steve in the face]
Steve Zissou: I think your Team Zissou ring might've caught me on the lip.
Festival Director: [translating] That's an endangered species at most. What would be the scientific purpose of killing it?
Steve Zissou: Revenge.
Steve Zissou: Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.
Steve Zissou: Don't point that gun at him, he's an unpaid intern.
Steve Zissou: Anne-Marie, do all the interns get Glocks?
Anne-Marie Sakowitz: No, they all share one.
Steve Zissou: Where'd you come from? You look pregnant.
Jane Winslett-Richardson: I am pregnant. I'm not even going to ask what you men are doing out here in your matching pajamas, by the way.
Ned Plimpton: Stevesy, what's going on? Are those hijackers?
Steve Zissou: Well, out here we call them "pirates," Ned.
Steve Zissou: Supposedly Cousteau and his cronies invented the idea of putting walkie-talkies into the helmet. But we made ours with a special rabbit ear on the top so we could pipe in some music.
Ned Plimpton: You don't know me, you don't want to know me... I'm just a character in your stupid film.
Steve Zissou: This bull dyke's got something against us.
Ned Plimpton: I don't think she's a lesbian. She's pregnant.
Steve Zissou: Are you finding what you were looking for... out here with me? I hope so.
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Barry: Healthy Choice and American Airlines got together and put this promotion: If you buy any 10 Healthy Choice products, they will reward you with 500 frequent flier miles; with this special coupon, they'll up it to 1,000 miles. So, I think they are trying to push their teriyaki chicken which is $1.79, but I went to the supermarket and I looked around and I saw that they had pudding... for 25¢ a cup... comes in packages of four. But insanely... the barcodes... are on the individual cups! So, quarter a cup, say you bought $2.50 worth. That's worth 500... with the coupon it's 1,000 miles. It's a marketing mistake but I'm taking advantage of it. If you were to spend $3,000, that would get you a million frequent flier miles. You would never have to pay for a ticket the rest of your life.
Lena: You... you bought all that pudding so that you could get frequent flier miles?
Barry: I have to get more pudding for this trip to Hawaii. As I just said that out loud I realize it sounded a little strange but it's not.
Barry: I didn't do anything. I'm a nice man. I mind my own business. So you tell me 'that's that' before I beat the hell from you. I have so much strength in me you have no idea. I have a love in my life. It makes me stronger than anything you can imagine. I would say 'that's that', Mattress Man.
Barry: I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna fuckin' smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty.
Lena: I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them.
[pause]
Barry: OK. This is funny. This is nice.
Barry: I didn't ask for a shrink - that must've been somebody else. Also, that pudding isn't mine. Also, I'm wearing this suit today because I had a very important meeting this morning and I don't have a crying problem.
Barry: I don't know if there is anything wrong because I don't know how other people are.
Barry: [out of breath to his love Lena] Lena. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I left you at the hospital. I called a phone-sex line... I called a phone-sex line before I met you, and four blond brothers came after me and they hurt you, and I'm sorry. Then I had to leave again because I wanted to make sure you never got hurt again. And I have a lot of puddings, and in six to eight weeks it can be redeemed. So if you could just give me that much time, I think I can get enough mileage to go with you wherever you go if you have to travel for your work. Because I don't ever want to be anywhere without you. So could you just let me redeem the mileage?
I've been meaning to write this blog for some time, I saw the Darjeeling Limited the New Wes Anderson film a couple of weeks ago and both these guys have a handle on saying yo um... what the fuck, and I don't think that's what they mean to say, but then again I've never met them so I don't know. But regardless, the topic for today for them is identity. Their pictures in my opinion are identifiably their pictures. Both of these directors say their piece that is distictively their pictures. They have this way of awkwardly telling a story that is unsubtly their story. I like them both, except for PT's magnolia which I've taken hard-core criticism for not enjoying or relating to. Maybe I'll watch it again.
In my opinion, they have their identities on lock down. They tell the story cinematically, and visually the way I believe they wrote it without having to give up any artistic interpretation to anyone. Their weird but not too F'en weird that you can't enjoy it.
I've been reading a book. " How to be an adult in relationships". My cousin gave it to me last christmas and I believe it took till now to feel well enough to crack it open. It's brilliant in a lot of different ways. On one way it helps you get in touch with yourself and actually open up to way the criticism of others of you. What it has done also is give way to let go of my ego, which I think as good as my european experience was, my ego has gotten worse while I was there. I don't know how or why. I did'n't accomplish anything I set out to accomplish but I believe I adapted many of the locals traits and ego was definitel;y one of them. I thought it was pride. Nope it was ego, which I guess they are similiar in some ways, none of them good.
Even though I wouldn't say I'm happy persay since I've come home, I am content. I started a new script that I believe will be a good start before I attempt daydreams (another script) this summer. I'm moving in the same direction I was a year before I left, and crazy as it may soud, I'm happy with that. I'm content and happy that I'm back on track. I know how to do this, beyond what's been said of how it is done or could be done. I know my mistakes with this better then trying to understand my mistakes with people. I look to books and knowledge from now on to try and understand those. I believe the trial and error from here on out should be isolated into what I'm trying to make, what is the message I'm trying to say. How will it be recieved. On that notion I'm there, I'm getting good.
It's a harmony. Two voices, different pitch, singing the same words but singing, saying, speaking, conveying, differently. It is the most important. I feel it, like it is right. Like when we release this film it will be a black tie affair. Please come ;) Essentially, film wise, we will fix all the mistakes of before plus my charachters will have solid motivations, and those motivations will bring to life a much different way of life then you or I are accustomed to. I believe it, this picture will bring to life the simple pleasures of our lives. That is my disertation. What simplicity has to offer. I gotta say this off the last post, I just have to, cause I have no tact, god knows if I ever will, but when I say simplicity, or better yet when I call myself a name like truth, I think that truth is feeling. I believe in it like faith, like religon, and that faith and religon makes a certain set of oppertunities availible and those oppertunities will not have to be said, perhaps making the situation less truthful according to some, but those emotions that drove all of it into play, they were, they are.
Makes a bit of a contrast doesn't it.... Well it's pitch ain't so tightly threaded. I will cats cradle it before the day is through cause hey.. umm this is like my life and this is like the time that I need to understand it. I have a saying up on my myspace. Life isn't about finding who you are, life is about creating who you are. That saying, me tattooing "know thyself" on my arm, it's a process. I can't say for certain that these twon dudes that I've seen all their movies have it but what I can say is that they are still tring to do it. And I admire it. It's raining out, hard-core and shawshank redemption is playing, off the player, I recommend you listen to it, when it came on I stopped typing and went outside in the middle of the street and took on that rain. It felt soooo right, sooo now!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Kill The Batman
Batman (1989)
The Joker: Haven't you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?
The Joker: I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman.
Knox: You know what they say? They say he can't be killed. They say he drinks blood. They say...
Eckhardt: I say... you're full of shit, Knox. Oh, uh, you can quote me on that.
Vicki Vale: You're insane!
Joker: I thought I was a Pisces!
The Joker: The pen, is truly mightier than the sword!
Dist. Atty. Harvey Dent: We've received a letter from Batman this morning. 'Please inform the citizens of Gotham that Gotham City has earned a rest from crime. But if the forces of evil should rise again, to cast a shadow on the heart of the city, call me.'
Alexander Knox: Question. How do we call him?
Commissioner Jim Gordon: He gave us a signal.
Vicki Vale: [distracting Joker] Mr. Joker, you say such beautiful things. Oh, you're so powerful. And purple! Oh, I love purple.
Batman: Excuse me.
[Joker looks]
Batman: Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?
The Joker: Tell me something, my friend. You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?
The Joker: Gotham City. Always brings a smile to my face.
Vicki Vale: A lot of people think you're as dangerous as the Joker.
Batman: He's psychotic.
Vicki Vale: Some people say the same thing about you.
Batman: What people?
Vicki Vale: Well, I mean, let's face it. You're not exactly normal, are you?
Batman: It's not exactly a normal world, is it?
Batman: You killed my parents.
The Joker: What? What? What are you talking about?
Batman: I made you, you made me first.
The Joker: Hey, bat-brain, I mean, I was a kid when I killed your parents. I mean, I say "I made you" you gotta say "you made me." I mean, how childish can you get?
The Joker: Joker here.
TV Technician: We got interference. Call the OB unit, will ya?
The Joker: Now you fellas have said some pretty mean things. Some of which *were* true under that fiend, Boss Grissom. He *was* a thief, and a terrorist. On the other hand he had a tremendous singing voice. He's dead now, and he's left me in charge. Now, I can be theatrical, and maybe even a little rough - but one thing I am not, is a *killer*. I am an artist. I *love* a good party. So, truce. Commence au festival!
Joker: I now do what other people only dream. I make art until someone dies. See? I am the world's first fully functioning homicidal artist.
The Dark Knight (2008)
Bruce Wayne: I knew the mob wouldn't go down without a fight. But this is different. They crossed the line.
Alfred Pennyworth: You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them, you hammered them. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand.
Gotham National Bank Manager: The criminals in this town used to believe in things. Honor. Respect. Look at you! What do you believe in? What do you believe in!
The Joker: I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger.
Mayor: [regarding The Joker] What do we got?
Lt. James Gordon: Nothing. No DNA, no fingerprints. Clothing is custom, no tags or brand labels. No name, no other alias. Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint.
Bruce Wayne: People are dying, Alfred. What would you have me do?
Alfred Pennyworth: Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. He'll hate you for it. But that's the point of Batman, he can be the outcast. He can make the choice that no one else can make, the righteous.
Bruce Wayne: Well today I found out what Batman can't do. He can't endure this. Today you finally get to say "I told you so."
Alfred Pennyworth: Today, sir, I don't want to.
[pauses for several moments]
Alfred Pennyworth: But I did bloody tell you.
The Joker: [to Batman] Come on, I want you do it, I want you to do it. Come on, hit me. *Hit me!*
rvey Dent: You're Alfred, right?
Alfred Pennyworth: That's right, sir.
Harvey Dent: You've known Rachel her entire life.
Alfred Pennyworth: Well, not yet.
[chuckles]
Alfred Pennyworth: [small pause]
Harvey Dent: Any psychotic ex-boyfriends I should be aware of?
Alfred Pennyworth: Oh, you have no idea!
e Joker: Where do we begin? A year ago, these cops and lawyers wouldn't dare cross any of you. I mean, what happened? Did your - did your balls drop off? Hmm?
Two-Face: The only justice in an unfair world is chance.
The Joker: The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules!
The Joker: See, I'm not a monster...I'm just ahead of the curve.
The Joker: [speaking to Harvey] Do I really look like a man with a plan, Harvey? I don't have a plan. The mob has plans, the cops have plans. You know what I am, Harvey? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. I just *do* things. I'm a wrench in the gears. I *hate* plans. Yours, theirs, everyone's. Maroni has plans. Gordon has plans. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I am not a schemer. I show schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So when I say that what happened to you and your girlfriend wasn't personal, you know I'M telling the truth.
[hands Dent a gun]
The Joker: It's a schemer who put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. Look where it got you. I just did what I do best-I took your plan and turned it on itself. Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple bullets. Nobody panics when the expected people get killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It's fair.
The Joker: If you're good at something, never do it for free.
The Joker: You look nervous. Is it the scars? You want to know how I got them? Come here. Hey, look at me. So I had a wife, beautiful; like you. Who tells me, I worry too much. Who tells me, I ought to smile more. Who gambles, and gets in deep with sharks. One day they carve her face. We have no money for surgeries. She can't take it! I just want to see her smile again. I just want her to know that I don't care about the scars. So I stick a razor in my mouth and do this... to myself. And you know what? She can't stand the sight of me! She leaves. Now I see the funny side. Now I'm always smiling!
The Joker: [Rachel kicks the Joker away] A little fight in you. I like that.
Batman: Then you're going to love me.
The Joker: [Holding a knife inside Gamble's mouth] Do you want to know how I got these scars? My father was...a drinker...and a fiend. One night he goes off crazier than usual, and Mommy picks up a kitchen knife to defend herself. Well, Daddy doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife and slices her up, laughing as he does it. And then he looks at me standing there, and says, "Why...so...serious?" And as he's walking over to me: "Why...so...serious?" And then he puts the knife in my mouth, like this, and says, "Let's put a *smile* on that face!"
The Joker: You just couldn't let me go could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.
Batman: You'll be in a padded cell forever.
The Joker: Maybe we can share one. Then we'll be doubling up the rate this city's inhabitants are losing their minds.
Batman: Sometimes, truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.
Batman: Why do you wanna kill me?
The Joker: Kill you? I don't wanna kill you... you complete me.
I say a lot about contrast. I sit and think about it often, why people say one thing and all to often mean the exact opposite. I saw the dark knight at midnight a week ago. The first film in the longest time that I waited one hour in a line and another hour in the cineama before it came on. The advertising was seriously unreal. For a solid year I have been looking forward to this movie. I think the last movie that I went to the midnight show was Matrix revolutions and that movie fell slightly short of the expectations, so did the two towers. But the dark knight was on the money. Even if Heath didn't die the contrast is noteably. They are getting better in hollywood in that department. I know I've been sayinbg contrast all this time but what I should be saying is balence.
Balence, though not exactly a concise study more religious or buddist is so important."you just couldn't let me go could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever." Is similiar to the matrix's pin of agent smith and neo. This is what us in the business (philosophy) call balence. This philosophy put into film isn't easy. With the lines of the original batman, which at the time and there after I loved, the idea that the joker was that batmans nemisis is doubtful. Like I don't believe it. It could be cause christian bale's batman is so modernlikely correct. That's a mouthful. The joker as well. The joker even more so I think, and I'm trying to separate feelings that I have for heath, which is hard cause he's our generation A-list talent, but more. There are a lot of A-list actors that my generation relates to, or likes but doesn't dismantle the way I think a true movie buff does.
I say true movie buff, cause in my opinion they're aren't that many of us. Especially now, and as the years catch up with us we will be replaced by better movie buffs then us. But as for right now we, movie buffs have our likes and dislikes but still have critical thinking to anchor us to what is good and what's not good. The Dark Knight and Batman begins stomps the old versions. The Val Kilmer and George clooney batmans are laughable, I'm sure reading this you who know know, they were BS marketing ploys, but the first two with michael Keaton and Tim Burton had a darkness and subtle motivation of the dark Knight. However that subtlity is trumped completely by the new installments. Completely without a doubt.
I say this because Batman, Two face, and the joker are grounded in believiable motivation. Believiable charachter driven plot. If you saw this film, movie buffs, action was the marketing, but the main reason it hasn't gotten bad critisizm is because it's charachter driven which is an indie movie thing, it's not an action movie thing. Charachter driven! It's important to highlight that. I saw Hancock the other night with my brother. As we were sitting in the movie theater he said tell me the synapsis of the dark knight cause he wasn't going to see it, he's hella busy, so I tried. And by this time I had seen it twice, and still, still had a hard time telling him the plot.
Why is that? I'd say it was because the trenches of charachter developement are so engrained in the story, the lines, and the motivation, that even after seeing it twice what exactly was going on elludes me a bit. I think I'd have to sit down with the DVD, remote in hand, a sheet of legal pad, and break that bitch down scene by scene of what was being said, done, and percieved, what the soundtrack, camera movement and guidelines told. All of it, is worth watching again, and again, and again. I say this because it's rare. I watch movies all the time and am rarely moved (with exception to love stories cause those are like my disertation or something). Anyway's contrast and balence is extremely hard to grab a handle on. It could very well just be me, but that mirror, some dark, some light, isn't ever what you think, and if capable, which I'm admitting in this moment that I'm not, at least not yet, is extremely hard to harness, but if capable, if balenced enought to see both at once and tell the story with the full force of both extremes, the impact of that message (really F'en complex) is completely worth it.
The Joker: Haven't you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?
The Joker: I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman.
Knox: You know what they say? They say he can't be killed. They say he drinks blood. They say...
Eckhardt: I say... you're full of shit, Knox. Oh, uh, you can quote me on that.
Vicki Vale: You're insane!
Joker: I thought I was a Pisces!
The Joker: The pen, is truly mightier than the sword!
Dist. Atty. Harvey Dent: We've received a letter from Batman this morning. 'Please inform the citizens of Gotham that Gotham City has earned a rest from crime. But if the forces of evil should rise again, to cast a shadow on the heart of the city, call me.'
Alexander Knox: Question. How do we call him?
Commissioner Jim Gordon: He gave us a signal.
Vicki Vale: [distracting Joker] Mr. Joker, you say such beautiful things. Oh, you're so powerful. And purple! Oh, I love purple.
Batman: Excuse me.
[Joker looks]
Batman: Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?
The Joker: Tell me something, my friend. You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?
The Joker: Gotham City. Always brings a smile to my face.
Vicki Vale: A lot of people think you're as dangerous as the Joker.
Batman: He's psychotic.
Vicki Vale: Some people say the same thing about you.
Batman: What people?
Vicki Vale: Well, I mean, let's face it. You're not exactly normal, are you?
Batman: It's not exactly a normal world, is it?
Batman: You killed my parents.
The Joker: What? What? What are you talking about?
Batman: I made you, you made me first.
The Joker: Hey, bat-brain, I mean, I was a kid when I killed your parents. I mean, I say "I made you" you gotta say "you made me." I mean, how childish can you get?
The Joker: Joker here.
TV Technician: We got interference. Call the OB unit, will ya?
The Joker: Now you fellas have said some pretty mean things. Some of which *were* true under that fiend, Boss Grissom. He *was* a thief, and a terrorist. On the other hand he had a tremendous singing voice. He's dead now, and he's left me in charge. Now, I can be theatrical, and maybe even a little rough - but one thing I am not, is a *killer*. I am an artist. I *love* a good party. So, truce. Commence au festival!
Joker: I now do what other people only dream. I make art until someone dies. See? I am the world's first fully functioning homicidal artist.
The Dark Knight (2008)
Bruce Wayne: I knew the mob wouldn't go down without a fight. But this is different. They crossed the line.
Alfred Pennyworth: You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them, you hammered them. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand.
Gotham National Bank Manager: The criminals in this town used to believe in things. Honor. Respect. Look at you! What do you believe in? What do you believe in!
The Joker: I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger.
Mayor: [regarding The Joker] What do we got?
Lt. James Gordon: Nothing. No DNA, no fingerprints. Clothing is custom, no tags or brand labels. No name, no other alias. Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint.
Bruce Wayne: People are dying, Alfred. What would you have me do?
Alfred Pennyworth: Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. He'll hate you for it. But that's the point of Batman, he can be the outcast. He can make the choice that no one else can make, the righteous.
Bruce Wayne: Well today I found out what Batman can't do. He can't endure this. Today you finally get to say "I told you so."
Alfred Pennyworth: Today, sir, I don't want to.
[pauses for several moments]
Alfred Pennyworth: But I did bloody tell you.
The Joker: [to Batman] Come on, I want you do it, I want you to do it. Come on, hit me. *Hit me!*
rvey Dent: You're Alfred, right?
Alfred Pennyworth: That's right, sir.
Harvey Dent: You've known Rachel her entire life.
Alfred Pennyworth: Well, not yet.
[chuckles]
Alfred Pennyworth: [small pause]
Harvey Dent: Any psychotic ex-boyfriends I should be aware of?
Alfred Pennyworth: Oh, you have no idea!
e Joker: Where do we begin? A year ago, these cops and lawyers wouldn't dare cross any of you. I mean, what happened? Did your - did your balls drop off? Hmm?
Two-Face: The only justice in an unfair world is chance.
The Joker: The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules!
The Joker: See, I'm not a monster...I'm just ahead of the curve.
The Joker: [speaking to Harvey] Do I really look like a man with a plan, Harvey? I don't have a plan. The mob has plans, the cops have plans. You know what I am, Harvey? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. I just *do* things. I'm a wrench in the gears. I *hate* plans. Yours, theirs, everyone's. Maroni has plans. Gordon has plans. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I am not a schemer. I show schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So when I say that what happened to you and your girlfriend wasn't personal, you know I'M telling the truth.
[hands Dent a gun]
The Joker: It's a schemer who put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. Look where it got you. I just did what I do best-I took your plan and turned it on itself. Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple bullets. Nobody panics when the expected people get killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It's fair.
The Joker: If you're good at something, never do it for free.
The Joker: You look nervous. Is it the scars? You want to know how I got them? Come here. Hey, look at me. So I had a wife, beautiful; like you. Who tells me, I worry too much. Who tells me, I ought to smile more. Who gambles, and gets in deep with sharks. One day they carve her face. We have no money for surgeries. She can't take it! I just want to see her smile again. I just want her to know that I don't care about the scars. So I stick a razor in my mouth and do this... to myself. And you know what? She can't stand the sight of me! She leaves. Now I see the funny side. Now I'm always smiling!
The Joker: [Rachel kicks the Joker away] A little fight in you. I like that.
Batman: Then you're going to love me.
The Joker: [Holding a knife inside Gamble's mouth] Do you want to know how I got these scars? My father was...a drinker...and a fiend. One night he goes off crazier than usual, and Mommy picks up a kitchen knife to defend herself. Well, Daddy doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife and slices her up, laughing as he does it. And then he looks at me standing there, and says, "Why...so...serious?" And as he's walking over to me: "Why...so...serious?" And then he puts the knife in my mouth, like this, and says, "Let's put a *smile* on that face!"
The Joker: You just couldn't let me go could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.
Batman: You'll be in a padded cell forever.
The Joker: Maybe we can share one. Then we'll be doubling up the rate this city's inhabitants are losing their minds.
Batman: Sometimes, truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.
Batman: Why do you wanna kill me?
The Joker: Kill you? I don't wanna kill you... you complete me.
I say a lot about contrast. I sit and think about it often, why people say one thing and all to often mean the exact opposite. I saw the dark knight at midnight a week ago. The first film in the longest time that I waited one hour in a line and another hour in the cineama before it came on. The advertising was seriously unreal. For a solid year I have been looking forward to this movie. I think the last movie that I went to the midnight show was Matrix revolutions and that movie fell slightly short of the expectations, so did the two towers. But the dark knight was on the money. Even if Heath didn't die the contrast is noteably. They are getting better in hollywood in that department. I know I've been sayinbg contrast all this time but what I should be saying is balence.
Balence, though not exactly a concise study more religious or buddist is so important."you just couldn't let me go could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever." Is similiar to the matrix's pin of agent smith and neo. This is what us in the business (philosophy) call balence. This philosophy put into film isn't easy. With the lines of the original batman, which at the time and there after I loved, the idea that the joker was that batmans nemisis is doubtful. Like I don't believe it. It could be cause christian bale's batman is so modernlikely correct. That's a mouthful. The joker as well. The joker even more so I think, and I'm trying to separate feelings that I have for heath, which is hard cause he's our generation A-list talent, but more. There are a lot of A-list actors that my generation relates to, or likes but doesn't dismantle the way I think a true movie buff does.
I say true movie buff, cause in my opinion they're aren't that many of us. Especially now, and as the years catch up with us we will be replaced by better movie buffs then us. But as for right now we, movie buffs have our likes and dislikes but still have critical thinking to anchor us to what is good and what's not good. The Dark Knight and Batman begins stomps the old versions. The Val Kilmer and George clooney batmans are laughable, I'm sure reading this you who know know, they were BS marketing ploys, but the first two with michael Keaton and Tim Burton had a darkness and subtle motivation of the dark Knight. However that subtlity is trumped completely by the new installments. Completely without a doubt.
I say this because Batman, Two face, and the joker are grounded in believiable motivation. Believiable charachter driven plot. If you saw this film, movie buffs, action was the marketing, but the main reason it hasn't gotten bad critisizm is because it's charachter driven which is an indie movie thing, it's not an action movie thing. Charachter driven! It's important to highlight that. I saw Hancock the other night with my brother. As we were sitting in the movie theater he said tell me the synapsis of the dark knight cause he wasn't going to see it, he's hella busy, so I tried. And by this time I had seen it twice, and still, still had a hard time telling him the plot.
Why is that? I'd say it was because the trenches of charachter developement are so engrained in the story, the lines, and the motivation, that even after seeing it twice what exactly was going on elludes me a bit. I think I'd have to sit down with the DVD, remote in hand, a sheet of legal pad, and break that bitch down scene by scene of what was being said, done, and percieved, what the soundtrack, camera movement and guidelines told. All of it, is worth watching again, and again, and again. I say this because it's rare. I watch movies all the time and am rarely moved (with exception to love stories cause those are like my disertation or something). Anyway's contrast and balence is extremely hard to grab a handle on. It could very well just be me, but that mirror, some dark, some light, isn't ever what you think, and if capable, which I'm admitting in this moment that I'm not, at least not yet, is extremely hard to harness, but if capable, if balenced enought to see both at once and tell the story with the full force of both extremes, the impact of that message (really F'en complex) is completely worth it.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
It's just like... singing, with your body. A place where there are no happily ever afters
Enchanted (2007)
Nathaniel: My most adored queen, where did you send her?
Queen Narissa: To a place where there are no happily ever afters.
Giselle: [singing] How does she know...
Robert: Awe, no, no, no.
Giselle: You love her? / How does she know...
Robert: People l-look-looking.
Giselle: She's yours?
Robert: [interrupting] Don't sing. It's OK, you know. Let's just walk. Can we walk?
Giselle: [speaks] Well, does she?
Robert: Yeah.
Prince Edward: [threatening Robert with his sword] Have you any last words before I dispatch you?
Robert: You have got to be kidding me!
Prince Edward: Strange words!
Prince Edward: [holds sword in front of construction worker's neck, trying to find Giselle] I seek a beautiful girl. My life partner, my one coquette, the answer to my love's duet.
Arty: [stuttering] I-I'd like to find one of them too, you know?
Giselle: Is that the only word you know? "No?"
Robert: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, No!
Giselle: "No! No! No!" Over and over! When you keep saying "No!" it just makes me so... Sometimes you make me so!... angry.
[laughs really hard]
Morgan Philip: Remember, when you go out not to put too much makeup otherwise the boys will get the wrong idea and you know how they are...
[off Giselle's wide-eyed look]
Morgan Philip: They're only after one thing.
Giselle: What's that?
Morgan Philip: [laughs] I don't know. Nobody will tell me.
Robert: [struggling to break free of her grasp] You're crazy!
Queen Narissa: No. Spiteful, vindictive, *very large*, but never crazy.
Nathaniel: [talking on the phone while in a taxi cab] No, uh... I've always treated her like a queen, but... lately I'm starting to feel there's this whole other side to her, like I... I don't even know her anymore.
Radio Therapist: [over the radio] I think you need to take her aside and find out how she really feels about you.
Queen Narissa: [peeks in through open taxi cab window] Hello, Worthless. Miss me?
Giselle: Why are you staring at me?
Robert: I don't know. It's just that... it's like you escaped from a Hallmark card or something.
Giselle: Is that a bad thing?
Robert: [tries to stop Nancy from leaving] What... what about taking Morgan to school, you know, for some grown-up girl bonding time?
Nancy Tremaine: What, so you can have some grown-up girl bonding time?
Nancy Tremaine: [glares pointedly at Giselle]
Nancy Tremaine: I don't think so.
Giselle: Is this a habit of yours? Falling off of stuff?
Robert: Only when you're there to catch me.
Giselle: [after leaving the shower] Good morning, Robert. I hope you had wonderful dreams.
Robert Philip: I think I'm still in one.
Nathaniel: Sire, do you like yourself?
Prince Edward: What's not to like?
Giselle: Nobody has been very nice to me.
Robert: Yeah, well, welcome to New York.
Giselle: Thank you.
Phoebe Banks: Everybody has problems. Everybody has bad times. Do we sacrifice all the good times because of them?
Phoebe Banks, Ethan Banks: [looking into one another's eyes] No.
Robert: So, what's the deal with this prince of yours? How long you been together?
Giselle: [wistfully] Oh, about a day.
Robert: You mean it feels like a day because you're so in love.
Giselle: No, it's been a day.
Robert: You're kidding me. A day? One day?
Giselle: Yes.
[wistful again]
Giselle: And tomorrow it will be two days.
Robert: You're joking.
Giselle: No. I'm not.
Robert: Yeah, you are.
Giselle: But I'm not.
Robert: You're gonna marry somebody after a day? Because you fell in love with him?
Giselle: Yes.
[grins]
Giselle: Yes!
Robert: [laughs as she drags him away]
------------------------------- ------------------------------- ------------------
Giselle: What about you? How long have you known your Nancy?
Robert: Uh, five years.
Giselle: And you haven't proposed?
Robert: Well, no, I...
Giselle: Well no wonder she's angry.
Robert: Well...
Morgan Philip: But I think she might be a real princess!
Robert Philip: Morgan honey, just because she has on a funny dress doesn't mean she's a princess. She's a seriously confused woman who's fallen into our laps.
Happy Feet (2006)
Ramón: Just a moment. I hear people wanting something... ME!
Ramón: Kiss my frozen tushy! Kiss it, kiss it!
Lovelace: Ladies, please avert your eyes... 'cause I've been known to hypnotize.
Ramón: We got personality, with a capital Y. Why? Because we're hot!
Norma Jean: [singing] You don't have to be beautiful/ to turn me on.
------------------------------- ------------------------------- ------------------
Norma Jean: You don't have to be beautiful, to turn me on. I just need your body, baby.
Male Penguin #1: Hello...
Norma Jean: From dusk 'til dawn.
Male Penguin #1: Is it me you're lookin' for?
Norma Jean: You don't need experience.
Male Penguin #2: Take...
Norma Jean: To turn me out.
Male Penguin #2: These broken wings.
Norma Jean: You just leave it all up to me.
Male Penguin #3: Let's talk about eggs, baby. Let's talk about you and me.
Norma Jean: Mm-mm, mm-mm. You don't have to be rich to be my pearl. Don't have to be cool to rule my world. Ain't no particular song I'm more compatible with. I just want your...
[turns to the huge crowd of males following her]
Norma Jean: Boys, boys! Give a chick a chance!
Memphis: [appearing on the crest of a hill] Well, since my baby left me I found a new place to dwell. It's down at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel. And I said, I'm feelin' so lonely, baby. I'm feelin' so lonely.
Norma Jean, Memphis: I'm feelin' so lonely...
Norma Jean: ...I could die.
Memphis: You don't have to be rich to be my girl.
Norma Jean: Don't have to be cool to rule my world.
Memphis: You rule my world.
Norma Jean: You're the particular song I'm compatible with.
Memphis: I just want your...
Norma Jean, Memphis: ...extra time... and your kiss.
Lovelace: I must retire now to my couch of perpetual indulgence.
Mumble: It's just like... singing, with your body.
I started reading this book. "How To Be An Adult in Relationships". My cousin recommended it back in Christmas and it was sitting here from then till I returned from Europe. If I had it then I probably wouldn't have read it. But of late I'm vastly interested in learning, growing, and teaching myself to make myself happy. I'm only on the first chapter but it says that meditation is key. Just with doing something as simple as montoring your own breathing the distractions of the past disappear. Just focus on you, your breathing and your environment, and things from your past or thoughts or emotions that are limiting your own happiness will disappear. The Power of Mindfulness "meditation is not a means of forgetting the ego; it is a method of using the ego to observe and tame it's own manifestations." - Mark Epstein.
With that said there is a manifestation that has stayed with me as long as I can remember. This manifestation is directly related to the two films discussed in today's blog. I really loved "Enchanted". First real Disney Disney like movie I've seen in quite sometime and it did in a lot of ways what Shrek did to Disney Movies. It played off our pre-conceptions of romance and happy endings. I know someone who can finish my duet. And in a lot of ways she is a fantasy. I've never met in her is person but can count on her the most. Everytime we speak the hope and belief that we were meant to be is conveyed. There is no one I can compare that to. I don't think most people would wanna even take that on. I haven't be able to not wear my heart on my sleeve like this with everyone, believing the best in people.
I've thought forever I need inspiration, acceptance, compassion. I've thought other people are the only true conveyers of these. Today and now I think it is all in me. If I can ward off my feelings towards things, games, rhetoric, the past, if I can see them for what they are, then maybe anything is possible. Especially forgiveness. Me included.At one point gizelle says is no the only word you know. And in a subtle way makes you think how impossible so many things that we may think that are fantastical are actually in fact improbable instead.
On one hand I'm excepting my fate and saying I don't need anyone again but on the other hand I think the direction I'm moving in presently is present. Like now, with some self assessment I think I can see what is at hand at what exactly is old baggage that has no business in now. I think I can keep my hope, virtrue, and beliefs. Just stop expressing them so much and often I might add when I've expressed them it's been expressed as the opposite.
At one point in enchanted Nathaniel turns to prince edward and asks him does he love himself and he's like what's not to love. I've been holding on to things that are not to love. It's about time to let them go and push forward.
Nathaniel: My most adored queen, where did you send her?
Queen Narissa: To a place where there are no happily ever afters.
Giselle: [singing] How does she know...
Robert: Awe, no, no, no.
Giselle: You love her? / How does she know...
Robert: People l-look-looking.
Giselle: She's yours?
Robert: [interrupting] Don't sing. It's OK, you know. Let's just walk. Can we walk?
Giselle: [speaks] Well, does she?
Robert: Yeah.
Prince Edward: [threatening Robert with his sword] Have you any last words before I dispatch you?
Robert: You have got to be kidding me!
Prince Edward: Strange words!
Prince Edward: [holds sword in front of construction worker's neck, trying to find Giselle] I seek a beautiful girl. My life partner, my one coquette, the answer to my love's duet.
Arty: [stuttering] I-I'd like to find one of them too, you know?
Giselle: Is that the only word you know? "No?"
Robert: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, No!
Giselle: "No! No! No!" Over and over! When you keep saying "No!" it just makes me so... Sometimes you make me so!... angry.
[laughs really hard]
Morgan Philip: Remember, when you go out not to put too much makeup otherwise the boys will get the wrong idea and you know how they are...
[off Giselle's wide-eyed look]
Morgan Philip: They're only after one thing.
Giselle: What's that?
Morgan Philip: [laughs] I don't know. Nobody will tell me.
Robert: [struggling to break free of her grasp] You're crazy!
Queen Narissa: No. Spiteful, vindictive, *very large*, but never crazy.
Nathaniel: [talking on the phone while in a taxi cab] No, uh... I've always treated her like a queen, but... lately I'm starting to feel there's this whole other side to her, like I... I don't even know her anymore.
Radio Therapist: [over the radio] I think you need to take her aside and find out how she really feels about you.
Queen Narissa: [peeks in through open taxi cab window] Hello, Worthless. Miss me?
Giselle: Why are you staring at me?
Robert: I don't know. It's just that... it's like you escaped from a Hallmark card or something.
Giselle: Is that a bad thing?
Robert: [tries to stop Nancy from leaving] What... what about taking Morgan to school, you know, for some grown-up girl bonding time?
Nancy Tremaine: What, so you can have some grown-up girl bonding time?
Nancy Tremaine: [glares pointedly at Giselle]
Nancy Tremaine: I don't think so.
Giselle: Is this a habit of yours? Falling off of stuff?
Robert: Only when you're there to catch me.
Giselle: [after leaving the shower] Good morning, Robert. I hope you had wonderful dreams.
Robert Philip: I think I'm still in one.
Nathaniel: Sire, do you like yourself?
Prince Edward: What's not to like?
Giselle: Nobody has been very nice to me.
Robert: Yeah, well, welcome to New York.
Giselle: Thank you.
Phoebe Banks: Everybody has problems. Everybody has bad times. Do we sacrifice all the good times because of them?
Phoebe Banks, Ethan Banks: [looking into one another's eyes] No.
Robert: So, what's the deal with this prince of yours? How long you been together?
Giselle: [wistfully] Oh, about a day.
Robert: You mean it feels like a day because you're so in love.
Giselle: No, it's been a day.
Robert: You're kidding me. A day? One day?
Giselle: Yes.
[wistful again]
Giselle: And tomorrow it will be two days.
Robert: You're joking.
Giselle: No. I'm not.
Robert: Yeah, you are.
Giselle: But I'm not.
Robert: You're gonna marry somebody after a day? Because you fell in love with him?
Giselle: Yes.
[grins]
Giselle: Yes!
Robert: [laughs as she drags him away]
------------------------------- ------------------------------- ------------------
Giselle: What about you? How long have you known your Nancy?
Robert: Uh, five years.
Giselle: And you haven't proposed?
Robert: Well, no, I...
Giselle: Well no wonder she's angry.
Robert: Well...
Morgan Philip: But I think she might be a real princess!
Robert Philip: Morgan honey, just because she has on a funny dress doesn't mean she's a princess. She's a seriously confused woman who's fallen into our laps.
Happy Feet (2006)
Ramón: Just a moment. I hear people wanting something... ME!
Ramón: Kiss my frozen tushy! Kiss it, kiss it!
Lovelace: Ladies, please avert your eyes... 'cause I've been known to hypnotize.
Ramón: We got personality, with a capital Y. Why? Because we're hot!
Norma Jean: [singing] You don't have to be beautiful/ to turn me on.
------------------------------- ------------------------------- ------------------
Norma Jean: You don't have to be beautiful, to turn me on. I just need your body, baby.
Male Penguin #1: Hello...
Norma Jean: From dusk 'til dawn.
Male Penguin #1: Is it me you're lookin' for?
Norma Jean: You don't need experience.
Male Penguin #2: Take...
Norma Jean: To turn me out.
Male Penguin #2: These broken wings.
Norma Jean: You just leave it all up to me.
Male Penguin #3: Let's talk about eggs, baby. Let's talk about you and me.
Norma Jean: Mm-mm, mm-mm. You don't have to be rich to be my pearl. Don't have to be cool to rule my world. Ain't no particular song I'm more compatible with. I just want your...
[turns to the huge crowd of males following her]
Norma Jean: Boys, boys! Give a chick a chance!
Memphis: [appearing on the crest of a hill] Well, since my baby left me I found a new place to dwell. It's down at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel. And I said, I'm feelin' so lonely, baby. I'm feelin' so lonely.
Norma Jean, Memphis: I'm feelin' so lonely...
Norma Jean: ...I could die.
Memphis: You don't have to be rich to be my girl.
Norma Jean: Don't have to be cool to rule my world.
Memphis: You rule my world.
Norma Jean: You're the particular song I'm compatible with.
Memphis: I just want your...
Norma Jean, Memphis: ...extra time... and your kiss.
Lovelace: I must retire now to my couch of perpetual indulgence.
Mumble: It's just like... singing, with your body.
I started reading this book. "How To Be An Adult in Relationships". My cousin recommended it back in Christmas and it was sitting here from then till I returned from Europe. If I had it then I probably wouldn't have read it. But of late I'm vastly interested in learning, growing, and teaching myself to make myself happy. I'm only on the first chapter but it says that meditation is key. Just with doing something as simple as montoring your own breathing the distractions of the past disappear. Just focus on you, your breathing and your environment, and things from your past or thoughts or emotions that are limiting your own happiness will disappear. The Power of Mindfulness "meditation is not a means of forgetting the ego; it is a method of using the ego to observe and tame it's own manifestations." - Mark Epstein.
With that said there is a manifestation that has stayed with me as long as I can remember. This manifestation is directly related to the two films discussed in today's blog. I really loved "Enchanted". First real Disney Disney like movie I've seen in quite sometime and it did in a lot of ways what Shrek did to Disney Movies. It played off our pre-conceptions of romance and happy endings. I know someone who can finish my duet. And in a lot of ways she is a fantasy. I've never met in her is person but can count on her the most. Everytime we speak the hope and belief that we were meant to be is conveyed. There is no one I can compare that to. I don't think most people would wanna even take that on. I haven't be able to not wear my heart on my sleeve like this with everyone, believing the best in people.
I've thought forever I need inspiration, acceptance, compassion. I've thought other people are the only true conveyers of these. Today and now I think it is all in me. If I can ward off my feelings towards things, games, rhetoric, the past, if I can see them for what they are, then maybe anything is possible. Especially forgiveness. Me included.At one point gizelle says is no the only word you know. And in a subtle way makes you think how impossible so many things that we may think that are fantastical are actually in fact improbable instead.
On one hand I'm excepting my fate and saying I don't need anyone again but on the other hand I think the direction I'm moving in presently is present. Like now, with some self assessment I think I can see what is at hand at what exactly is old baggage that has no business in now. I think I can keep my hope, virtrue, and beliefs. Just stop expressing them so much and often I might add when I've expressed them it's been expressed as the opposite.
At one point in enchanted Nathaniel turns to prince edward and asks him does he love himself and he's like what's not to love. I've been holding on to things that are not to love. It's about time to let them go and push forward.
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