Dear Reader:
To begin I would like to point out that one will notice the obvious lack of pictures, video or other such digital paraphernalia within the confines of my blog. I would never rule out the possibility of utilizing such tools, only if necessary. Yet, I cannot help but feel that such acts defeats the purpose of who I am and what it is I sincerely endeavor to do: I seek to give words. Ergo adjectives are my pictures, verbs are my film, nouns are my actors or subjects of the captured image and adverbs are the color; prepositions denote perspective and articles are simply what one never truly comes consciously aware of in any movie, t.v. show or picture. And there you have it: a digitally rendered image put either in still life or motion, depending on the usage of the chosen vocabulary. I created a philosophy long ago when I first began my path as a writer (many years ago when I was not even clinically sane): “If a picture is worth one thousand words, then I want to be the one who writes those words!” Simple, yes. Elementary, yes. Childish, yes. Subjectively motivational, most definitely. I thought it personally commendable for the soul in who possess the gift of turning anything he or she sees into a work of art comprised of naught but a strewn paroxysm of perfectly composed words. Oh, the endorphins upon my ruminating over this single thought.
On the subject matter for which this particular blog is titled, I would first and foremost like to say that I love movies; likely in a function of adoration exceeding what many other readers feel towards such an activity; past the point of obsession in which it was not surprising my aforementioned madness: movies were, only at one point in my past, my reality. Now, as you can likely derive, I needed to speak my mind about movie critics these days and even the lay-critic especially. I was reading in the calendar section of my local paper a few days prior concerning the movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Alas, I have not yet seen it. Although I say, “alas” merely connoting my avidity to J.R.R. Tolkien as well as the genius of Peter Jackson. The notion that the movie, even the Lord of the Rings, has any hopes of sitting en par with the actual written novels has nothing whatsoever to do with my eagerness to view the film. As I said, as I read through the article review of the second installation of the epic trilogy, the critic remarked the second film quite a step up from the “disappointing” part of the first film; with the inclusion of a dragon highlighting the second movie and giving its audience the excitement and thrills they wanted set apart from the dull and tedious journey of the first segment. To be true, I can say nothing in regards to how much I disagree with this critic without sounding too hypocritical, for I really know little about “good” filming, what “good” work yields in films such as The Shawshank Redemption, The Silence of the Lambs, or even good classics like Jaws, One Flew Over the Coo Coos Nest or The Right Stuff or why a critic would dislike the first Hobbit so ardently. However, as to what makes a film good or ever great, the politics behind the Academy Awards or even the mechanics behind why the very original proof of a reel should be burned has nothing to do with the message I am making herein. This is what I believe in regards to movies.
I loved the movie Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter! Yes, I am being serious. I could watch it over and over again. Now, before I lose your interest and have you disregard everything said forthwith, I exhort you to employ some patience and at least cogitate briefly why I consider what was a Hollywood flop (unless I am mistaken) as a movie I take great pleasure in viewing. Let us take pause, for a moment, and recall the actual plot of the movie: the sixteenth president of the United States who, via training through a vampire cohort, sets out upon a nocturnal quest to rid southern America of an infestation of vampires utilizing as his weapon a woodsman’s ax layered with a coating of silver. Well, yeah, of course it is going to be cheesy. Of course the story will be cliché, the acting mediocre and the plot itself grotesquely outlandish and farfetched. I suppose that a movie about a dream machine that puts you to sleep based off of a Duck Tales comic, a movie about aliens from outer space that invade earth incorporating a band of superheroes as our only hope or even a pirate raised in the swashbuckling world of pilfering, pillaging, plundering and looting–a severe case of alcoholism and a moderate case of dementia–yet speaking with the eloquence of a count, battling the supernatural forces of Davy Jones–who sails on a submersible sailing vessel–the entire British and East India Trading Company Navies and a necromantic pirate hell bent on the fountain of youth–seeking mermaids–are plots not as farfetched and not as outlandish as honest Abe hacking up vampires. Please, reader, I beg of you, take movies for what they are and what they should be regarded as: fantasy. Let them make you cry. Let them make you lol until it hurts. Let them make you hope. Let them make you dream. Let them make you love. The summation of all in which I take movies and all by which I scorn critics is in this: the more I hate or even dislike mildly, the unhappier I am. The more I love and the more I like, the happier I become. I can only say that if we condemn ourselves by seeking a flaw in everything we see, or taste or touch, then how can we ever find something pleasurable. Granted, I do not consider all things immaculately good. Concordantly, I do not find sincerely lame movies something that I cannot take even the tiniest joy in watching. And, naturally, I do not only speak on matters of movies but in all facets of life: marriage; children; music; food; sports; books; games; holidays; amusement parks; Captain Jack Sparrow…. Why must we carry such a burden of negativity everywhere we go, as I have observed. Has our mentality as humans–a species created by God (or however you wish to believe)–who is capable of such enormously glorious dreams, gorgeous thoughts, endless beauty and such fierceness of love become so deplorable that, when we see something wrong, we must hate it? Why is it that the only way we are to love is for someone to hold all we believe and nothing we do not? Why must we hate and fear those who believe something different; speak something different; do something different than what we would do or want? Are you going to hate me, reader, since I am dwelling on matters of great sensitivity? Are you going to hate or fear me because I like Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, Snow White and the Huntsman and Hulk (the flop with Eric Bana)? Are you going to hate me because I am different, or are you going to simply accept me because I am who I am? I do not know if you noticed, but, I am me because everyone else is taken. Thank you.
“Where’s your will to be weird?” -Jim Morrison
“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are.” -Kurt Cobain
“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.” -Rita Mae Brown
“If it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.” -Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“Whatever you are, be a good one.” -Abraham Lincoln
“No.” -Rosa Parks
-The Giver of Words.