Bad Movie of the Week

A scene from Identity




'Identity' , which I saw on HBO this weekend, easily wins the Stephen King award for bad movie of the week.

Just to give you a flavor of what you missed, Amanda Peet plays an imaginary character named Paris who is hiding a stash of cash so that she can buy a field in Florida and grow oranges, her lifelong dream. Oh, and she is also an imaginary hooker, and as usual, the only reason for watching this movie from beginning to end.

The reason this film rates bad movie of the week is because it shamelessly bases its whole plot on the psychological illness of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), already panned by Charlie Kaufmann in 'Adaptation' and painfully misused by Stephen King and Johnny Depp in 'the Secret Window'.

In this movie, a sick killer is wheeled into what amounts to a midnight meeting of his psychologist and the parole board and Governor so they can witness him living through his painful murdering of all but one of his ELEVEN personalities.

In his ninety minute flashback, he becomes victim, killer, and pursuer of the killer, as we are clumsily and melodramatically taken in detail through every violent imaginary murder. However, we mustn't forget that he really DID kill all of these folks at an isolated motel out west. After all, that's what makes the whole movie so 'compelling'.

Imaginary or not, let's hear it for the actress' HEAD bumping around in the dryer in the motel laundromat. Then there is John Cusack, the actress' chauffeur, sewing up the severed artery of another woman who he just happened to run over on the dark and stormy night ('I wish we had beige thread. It would have looked so much better') . But did I mention that Ray Liotta was escorting a serial killer to prison on the same evening? Let's not forget the young just-married couple who are not pregnant, or the dysfunctional trio of Mom, Stepdad, and young Timmy(Or is it Tommy?), who lost his father and his voice in some other poorly constructed movie plot.

Who am I leaving out? Oh yes, the motel manager, a Hitchcockian misfit who just 'took over' when the real manager dropped dead in his soup years ago. I don't think we can count the real manager as a character, because he is dead in the walk in freezer for most of the movie. Since when does a deserted motel have a walk-in freezer?

Oh, but I forgot, the whole sordid plot is the fabrication of the sick mind of a killer, so all inconsistencies are not only forgiven, they add to the logic of the plot: the killer is not only a psycho, he is an incompetent screenwriter. And after all, how else can you get the victims out in the rain except by having them try to find a good cellular phone connection?

Of course, we are not supposed to know that the killer-victims-pursuers are all the same person. After all, that is a secret, only revealed until the middle of the movie. ('Wait, while we're being murdered, what do we have in common? We all have the same birthday. We all are named after places. Professor, what does it mean?') What genius.

If you want to enjoy dissociative personality disorder(DID) as I/We do, read Jose Luis Borges' works, or at least check out 'Adaptation', one of the best movies of all time. 'DID' , as it is affectionately acronymed by professionals, is just one of the multiple ways to slip between the linearity of Ordinary Time. Its a shame that it is misused in Hollywood, at a waste of so many serious actors.

Untitled

Untitled

This white page is so much cheesier than my mouse.
No balls, just lasered,
Sterile and cold. Blowing high
With the suffering clouds.

You have no idea
As I talk and the words fall
Like icicles
Before they can reach you.
Its me. Its me. You

You would rather hear about Hera, wouldn’t you?

Claws, red
With acetone blood,
Like the soft hole of her mouth

Wet red.

Again and again I could circle her painted eyes,
Hoping for an arrow to dart my way.

My life, my time, my young man days
Are dashed upon her stone hard beauty.
Sculpted in softness
Flowing rock, lava flow
Blazing.

Arrogant Bees

Arrogant Bees

Stinging my eyes and you laugh,
A sunset mourning for today’s flowers,

Tears caress, carelessly crying
Drowned, out by your cackling. Don’t stop
Remembering me. Render my fat, as you would make soap,
The kind that stings
Your eyes in the shower.

Long Live Wolf Kahn

My favorite living artist is German born Wolf Kahn. There should really be more accessible images of his best work online, but here is an interesting sample:




Wolf, wherever you are today, thanks for pushing the butter fat around. For those of you who want a better look at his work, see the book 'Wolf Kahn' by Justin Spring. See it at Amazon and buy it.

Evidence is deceiving

Evidently, evidence is not going to work in most arguments.

Today, inclusiveness is good, non-inclusiveness is bad, and any who disagree are not human beings but filthy animals.

Not that I have anything against animals. You're not an animal hater are you? Because if you are, then you are less than human.

Labels

We like to label everything and everybody. Liberal, conservative, Muslim, Jew, young, old, black, white, red, yellow.

But at the end of the day, all there is that we are talking to is a person. Someone with their own hopes and dreams, their own personal problems that transcend any traditional guidelines or labels. Someone that has feelings and needs.

Right Mom?

August 4, 2005

On that day, a year and three weeks hence, I easily imagine myself sitting in air conditioned splendor on the fifth floor of the Flagship Hotel in Galveston. I'm wearing a blue cotton shirt. My wife is out on the patio, throwing crackers to the swooping seagulls.

The point of this mental exercise is to understand that we are NOT bound by space and time, and that our minds ARE quantum organs capable of amazing acts that science cannot begin to comprehend, such as visiting the future or other places our bodies cannot get to.

Borges and Castaneda and Vermeer and Satie all touched on these issues. Asimov hints at it and of course, Hawking lives it every day in his wheelchair. I'm still reconciling the fact of quantum mind with the phenomenon of God, which seems to be related to it.

More on this at an earlier date.

You are not here

Today things happened.

Even Stephen

I think that Steven Hawking is a saint
At least a wizard,
As he chairs his way through time

Stopping now and then to exude genius
And incomprehensibility. The letter
That I wrote him, when he was in Spain,
Was never answered. How cruel.

They still call me heartless
For cursing the day I was born, under my breath.
The shades of drill steel yellow
Grip themselves around my waist.

Tomorrow I will have fallen
Off of the roof
By Two.

But today I am in Spain.

Equipment evaluation notes - Week 1

There is no justice. The weather is beautiful here in Koln, and we plan on driving over to Paris this weekend. I should be able to view my old apartment from the Hill. Last night we stayed out late drinking at one of the mini breweries and had quite a long walk back to the hotel on the Rhine. The white asparagus is in season, and we hope to get some tomorrow.

Last night Gary said that we may be here another two weeks because the testing isn't going as well as he had hoped. The Germans don't care too much for the programming that IBM did for us.

The funniest thing happened yesterday. I was shopping in the square around the Dom, getting souvenir toys for my sons, and found out my company issued American Express card had expired, even though I've been using it successfully for the last four days. Well, just like the silly Karl Malden commercials, I found an American Express office on the west side of the Dom, and they were able to get my card confirmed and renewed. There was another guy in there who was from L.A. and we started talking about the riots.

Anyway, in about ten minutes they had me fixed up with another card, so I guess I can hold onto all the German Marks and paper money that I got at the exchange.

Rick called from work and said that when we get back the company has bought personal computers for all of us, part of the deal with IBM. They're supposed to run something called Windows, and we won't have to use multimate anymore to write reports. There's a class next month that Wes is going to teach.

More tomorrow.

Narrow escape

Hormones were never meant to be used in the presence of 8 track tapes. My Pioneer unit almost caused a disaster with the dimmer lights on low in my room last night. Fortunately, my complexion once again saved me, replacing self-loathing with self-loathing.

Ayn Rand won't care if I don't believe in her anymore, because she's hiding behind her russian accent in the corner. What I'm feeling has no words, but it goes with looking in a mirror and wondering who this is. It also goes with looking back at the past few days and wondering why the hell I did and said so many stupid things.

I need to get some more bags for my comic books.