Category: 2020

Selected Scenes: M

A spoiler-heavy single-scene film review & analysis.

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In the last “Selected Scenes”, I noted that The Canterbury Tales the Book was a staple of modern courses in English. To set the stage for today’s edition (and it’s a doozy), here is the exact quote presented pedantically and unsarcastically:

“…the final shot of the crowd paying tribute could be interpreted as the common public, approving of Chaucer’s work as much as the artist himself. And they did: The Canterbury Tales the Book has been a staple of Middle English literature in Universities everywhere, obscenity-be-damned.”

I don’t think anyone will debate me on this but it did have me thinking. One of the first things you learn as an essay writer is to cite your sources: produce a bibliography to that academic specification we all remember from high school (start with the last name of the author and follow the format, tabbing the second line, etcetera) and make sure that you can prove something before you say something. I never cited any “official” sources that said Canterbury Tales was taught in English courses: it’s just something I know. Isn’t that why quote-unquote “classics” are given that designation? Because they have risen above anonymity and in to the social pantheon of common parlance?

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the middle ground

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The second entry in the “Shotgun Room” trilogy. For mature readers.

“A family with a tragic history tries to survive during a global food crisis.”

The world is a hard place: hard ground; hard life. We are all tethered by gravity. When the government officially announced the start of a new phase of food production, some people wished they could defy it and simply float away. No one was prepared for the food shortages, other than the Preppers; but they had bugged-out long ago, holed-up in their compounds with whoever they had decided to allow entry. Climate change had permanently affected crop growth and no new wheat was being produced. No flour; no bread. Milk was a premium reserved for those who still owned viable cattle and even then, reproduction levels had severely decreased and no owner was sure their herd had been affected. It was simply too soon to tell. That was the consensus from the Men In Suits: “We are still working on a solution to the problem, and we assure you that we are doing everything in our power to ensure the future survival of mankind.” The broadcast from one of Virgin Galactic’s completed shuttlecraft took a week to breach the atmosphere and by then, the chaos had already run its course. Crime in the major metropolitan areas was at an all-time high. Seniors and the weak either starved-to-death from isolation or were home-invaded for supplies, or worse. The titular shotgun was stolen from the hospital and used in a shooting spree. There were even reports that some had resorted to cannibalism, as more-and-more half-mangled bodies with teeth marks and handkerchief-thin slices carved out had been popping up all over the city. An alternative had to be found, and it wasn’t Soylent Green.

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Jay’s Take: The Call of the Wild Double Feature

Two movie reviews.

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I hate CGI. I know it, you know it. I love animals, especially doggos. I hate CGI animals. What is it about animal movies these days where you can get an experienced wrangler and real animals but instead they cheap-out and generate everything in a computer? Has it gotten to the point where we need to be making movies where cute animals are subjected to such unimaginable hardships that the only way to film it is to fake it? Are we scared for the animals themselves? The actors? THE PRODUCERS’ INVESTMENT? We all know Lindsay Lohan is expensive to insure: what if you made a movie where Lindsay Lohan played Jane Goodall and went into the middle of the wood with a bunch of living apes to shoot one of those handheld iPhone movies? FORGET IT. You would have better luck posting your movie to YouTube to watch for free let alone wide distribution in the slowest audience-attendance period of the theatrical year. Hollywood is cheap and stingy, and if something works then they will do that thing into the foreseeable future until a cheaper alternative is found. They found their alternative in CGI. Soon you won’t even need mo-cap actors because there will be cyborgs who do a better job of imitating Carrie Fisher than her own daughter. SOON YOU WON’T NEED ACTORS AT ALL. It’ll all be dead people, vomited-up from the grave and reconstituted on IBMs. Plus side: you could then get the dead animal actors such as ALL THE DOGS from ALL THE PREVIOUS FILMED ADAPTATIONS of Jack London’s book and reanimate them and have an unscripted reunion special on HBO. Invite the holograms of the original Benji and Old Yeller while you’re at it. Live animal wrangling for film is looked-down on in today’s world the same as those who perform in the circus and it looks like it may completely go the way of the dodo, like puppetry (if the dour and pointless Dark Crystal prequel on Netflix right now is anything to go by. LOW DIG).

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another day in paradise

A poem for Proxy Paige.

beneath a muted dutch overcast,
the blackout curtains over the studio window are drawn.
she leans on her side, naked,
flanked by messy cream sheets,
her hard brown eyes fixed toward the maze of streets.
he could ask her anything.
he wanted to know how she wanted to get fucked.

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doubledown

A poem.

when i shut my eyes at night
and allow my mind to wander,
sometimes
if the mood is right
i can still make out the space between his eyes,
their shape
their size
hes all but forgotten, otherwise.
the fleeting moments of love still remain
but theres nothing else to gain
by recalling his frame and the bones in his waist.
ive willed myself to forget his lips,
but their smokey taste still sits.
the way he ignored me through sleepless nights
the fights
the light that grew in his solitude
the tears that drew in his bleakest gloom.

the bedroom is an empty void with a new lover by my side.
but yours is the ghost that looms,
so in the earliest mornings when i wake and see his face,
if he looks back too
through the haze i see you.

//jf 5.6.2020

 

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