About a year ago Sergio Leone’s children, Andrea and Raffaella, announced that they would be working with the renowned Bologna Cinematheque to digitally restore Once Upon a Time in America. Tonight, that restored version is being shown at the Cannes Film Festival, almost 28 years to the day after it was first shown there in 1984. It’s all very exciting for us Leone fans, but I remain as ambivalent now as I was a year ago about the decision to insert 26 minutes of previously unedited footage into Leone’s 229-minute masterpiece and re-release it as the so-called “director’s cut.” Make no mistake, I’ll shove little old ladies to the ground, kick puppy dogs through the air, and push the wheelchair-bound out of my way to be the first in line to see this, but unless Leone’s ghost instructed his children to reinstate that footage, I don’t see how this can legitimately be considered Leone’s “director’s cut.”

Once upon a time, in 1984 to be exact, Leone said he reluctantly excised between forty-five and fifty minutes worth of “significant footage” from Once Upon a Time in America. But sometime between then and 1988 he underwent a change a heart. Here’s what he said about the legendary longer version in a 1988 interview with Oreste De Fornari:

“Then there is the very long one that has never been edited and which lasts fifty minutes longer. Four and a half hours. But we rejected the idea of two parts on TV. It is so intricate that it has to be done in one evening. And besides, let’s be honest: this one is my version. The other perhaps explained things more clearly and it could have been done on TV in two or three parts. But the version that I prefer is this one, that bit of reclusiveness is just what I like about it.”

There you have it, straight from the lion’s mouth, so to speak. Leone preferred the 229-minute cut. He considered it his version. That should be the last word on the subject of the director’s cut.

Also note that the additional footage “has never been edited.” The common perception among fans that Leone assembled a 270-minute cut back in 1984 is a myth. He wanted to make a longer version in 1984, but didn’t; later, he could have, but no longer wanted to. This has serious implications concerning whether this restoration constitutes the director’s cut. After all, restoring the footage isn’t just a matter of reinserting previously edited material back into an already existing longer version; it means taking raw footage and making decisions about how best to use it. Who made these decisions? Not Leone. And if Leone ain’t making the decisions, it ain’t the director’s cut. It’s not the director’s cut because the director is no longer around to cut it. It doesn’t get more axiomatic than that, my friends.

Nor was Nino Baragli, the film’s original editor, involved in the decision-making process. In other words, the two men responsible for cutting Once Upon a Time in America as we know it today, Leone and Baragli, had absolutely nothing to do with this restoration project. Baragli, a world-class editor whose credits include The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West, said this about editing with Leone:

“I call Sergio “the Pulveriser” because he reduces you to a pulp when the editing starts. But working with him is more exciting than with others. When I edit a film of his I don’t think about it only when I am in front of the Moviola, but also when I’m watching television at night. There is never a sequence that you can shoot in a couple of hours. You need at least a day, and then the next day when you take another look at it, three other solutions present themselves. With him “duplicates” do not exist. You may take one line from one take and one from another which you thought was going to be discarded. Sergio shoots a lot of footage because he has a taste for the shot, because he wants to get the maximum out of the actors, because he wants to cover himself. There are a thousand ways to edit a film of his; certain scenes can become dramatic or ironic according to the editing.”

Which of the thousand ways to edit these 26 minutes will we get? I guarantee one thing: it won’t be the way Leone and Baragli would have done it. Who was the Pulveriser? Not Leone. Who got pulverized? Not Baragli.

I’m glad Ennio Morricone scored the missing scenes, but let’s not forget that it was always Leone who ultimately decided how the music would be used. Who decided how to use the music this time? Whoever it was, it wasn’t Leone. Even though all the music for Once Upon a Time in America was scored before filming began, Morricone emphasized:

“Sergio and I always think through our work to the very end, without ever declaring ourselves satisfied. “

Who thought it through to the end with Morricone this time? Sadly, not Leone.

Unless I hear that Leone’s ghost took charge of the project, I will never consider this restoration the “director’s cut.” At best it’s an approximation of the director’s cut Leone envisioned once upon a time.

Nevertheless, little old ladies, puppy dogs, and the handicapped have been warned.

Here are the reinstated scenes:

1) At the mausoleum in 1968 Noodles talks to the director of the cemetery, played by Louise Fletcher. As they emerge from the mausoleum, Noodles notices a suspicious looking black Cadillac parked nearby, which according to the script “catches the funereal atmosphere to perfection.” (3 minutes and 49 seconds)

Note: According to Adrian Martin “this extended dialogue has the woman speak of tombs as ‘havens’ and explain the Egyptian ‘cult of death,’ references that resonate with many elements, including Noodles’ opium taking and Deborah’s on-stage role as Cleopatra.”

2a) The 1933 scene where Noodles drives a car into the water has been extended. We now see, per the script, “Cockeye, then Patsy, emerge, sputtering and spitting. Then Max, who looks around much the way Noodles looked for him some years ago. No sign of Noodles.” (1 minute and 17 seconds)

Note: This addition may not seem particularly “significant,” but it accomplishes two things. First, as alluded to above, it creates a parallel with the childhood salt weight scene in which Max fakes drowning. Second, it improves how the film transitions from 1933 to 1968 at this point in the story. In the 229-minute version, we cut from the car plunging into the water to Noodles watching a TV news story about a car bomb explosion at the Bailey estate, easily the film’s weakest transition. But now the film will cut to…

2b) …Noodles seeing that mysterious black Cadillac explode at the Bailey estate. (1 minutes and 56 seconds)

Then we’ll cut to Noodles watching the television newscast, which will make for a smoother and more resonant transition.

3) In 1933 Noodles talks to the chauffeur (producer Arnon Milchan) outside the theater before his fateful date with Deborah. (2 minutes and 6 seconds)

Note: According to Christopher Frayling, “Leone reluctantly had to sacrifice this scene” due to running time concerns.

Co-writer Stuart Kaminsky thought the scene was “crucial.”

On the other hand, Leone’s business advisor, Luca Morsella, claimed Leone cut this scene for reasons other than the running time: “Sergio had promised the part of the chauffeur to Arnon Milchan, but…he lost his nerve about this. He was worried that having taken so much trouble over casting everyone else, this might not work. So he said no. Milchan was offended and asked De Niro to intercede. There was a row with Sergio, who finally agreed to shoot it. He shot it and cut it, then told interviewers Milchan had made him cut it!”

4a) After raping Deborah, Noodles gets drunk at a speakeasy, where he meets Eve, a prostitute, and agrees to pay her on the condition that she call him Deborah during sex. (2 minutes and  25 seconds)

4b) Noodles and Eve get a hotel room, but Noodles passes out after reciting a few lines from the ‘Song of Songs.’ (2 minutes and 30 seconds)

4c)  The next day, he wakes up and finds a thank you note from Eve signed “Deborah.” (30 seconds)

Note: Eve’s appearance will no longer go unexplained.

Also, as Adrian Martin points out, “the scene contains several of the film’s key motifs and themes, such as Noodles’ ‘dead sleep’ and his willful, desperate forgetfulness.”

5) The night after the rape, Deborah, looking “elegant and pale,” is sitting at a table in the train station restaurant. A porter comes for her luggage and they “cross the great hall of the station towards the platform from which her train leaves. Noodles just catches sight of her as she leaves the hall and hurries after her.” (35 seconds)

Then, of course, she “draws the shade” on their relationship.

Note: Leone held this part of the sequence in high regard, even though it runs only 35 seconds.

6) In 1968 Deborah performs the death scene of Cleopatra on stage as Noodles watches from the front row. (2 minutes and 18 seconds)

Note: Elizabeth McGovern said, “Sergio shot the scene but thankfully cut it out because it stopped all the action at a point where you couldn’t afford to take the time suddenly to get used to the Shakespearean language…it was very strange to have a death scene Kabuki-style at that point in the movie.”

McGovern makes a good point. I’ll reserve judgment until I see the scene, but it does seem like it would halt the film’s momentum. Still, I love the idea of Noodles watching her perform - just like he used to spy on her through the peephole when they were children. You can be sure there’s going to be a powerful close-up of Noodles as Morricone’s melancholy ‘Deborah’s Theme’ swells on the soundtrack.

7) As guests arrive to the party at the Bailey estate, Max/Bailey has a heated exchange with union leader Jimmy O’Donnell (Treat Williams). (5 minutes and 8 seconds)

Note: In 1922, after being pummeled by Bugsy, Max says he doesn’t like bosses. In 1933 he reconsiders his position when he meets syndicate bigwig Frankie Minaldi, prompting Noodles to say, “I thought you were the guy who didn’t like bosses.” The 1968 scene with O’Donnell shows that Max’s “bosses” prove to be his downfall after all.

As Adrian Martin writes, “the ironies of political history are spelt out by Jimmy: ‘I’ve avoided mistakes and you haven’t. You’re stupid, and, unfortunately, you’re also in the way.’ This leads to Jimmy’s unsubtle suggestion to Max that he kill himself - ‘I’d be very happy for you if tonight, during all the noise of the party, I heard a shot.’

Click here if you’re interested in reading how these scenes play in the shooting script.

Here’s what Davide Pozzi, Director of L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, says about the restoration:

The main challenge faced was represented by the desire to re-insert the scenes cut by Sergio Leone. A team of film scholars worked for months researching all available information and testimonies. Ever aware of the delicacy of the intervention, these scenes, previously considered lost, were inserted in an extended version in the most harmonious way possible.

Technically, the homogeneity of the unedited scenes was the biggest problem, as unfortunately the negatives for these scenes no longer exist. The only materials available were discarded strips of working positives which had been badly preserved.

Making this task even more difficult was the fact that the working positives had been printed without particular care, as originally they were part of the working copies which circulated between the assistant editors and sound editors as a work reference. The images in these sequences were ruined, not just by their poor state of preservation, but also through their use as working copies.

Posted on May 18th, 2012 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Miscellaneous | 4 Comments »

This post is part of the For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon III. Click the button to donate.

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“There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope stars Farley Granger and John Dall as thinly disguised versions of Leopold and Loeb, the brilliant students and self-described Übermensch who considered themselves exempt from the morality of “ordinary” men, and put their philosophy into action by murdering a young boy for kicks. For them, murder was just another experience, scarcely distinguishable, morally speaking, from any other action - like, say, squashing an ant. In Rope the names have been changed to Phillip (Granger) and Brandon (Dall), but the attitudes are the same.

“Good and evil, right and wrong, were invented for the ordinary, average man, the inferior man, because he needs them.”

Thus spake Brandon.

Needless to say, the film doesn’t endorse this view. After Brandon and Phillip murder a mutual acquaintance, James Stewart shows up and delivers an impassioned argument against the duo’s dastardly deed, the gist of which is as obvious as it is predictable: murder is wrong! But is it? Stewart’s character, Rupert, says the murder was wrong. Brandon says it was right. Who’s correct? We cannot logically decide between these competing moral claims unless there is an objective standard to which we can repair for adjudication. Only such a standard would provide us the means to resolve disputes between people whose notions of right and wrong differ. The question is, though, does an objective standard of morality actually exist?

First, a few definitions:

Subjective:

• 1) Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.
• 2) Existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought.
• 3) Proceeding from or taking place in a person’s mind rather than the external world.

My favorite color is green. That is a subjective sentiment. That green is my favorite color need not imply that green is or should be everyone’s favorite color. It is not the “right” color, in any objective sense. Nature has not, after all, indicated a color preference.

Objective:

• 1) Not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
• 2) Not dependent on the mind for existence; actual.
• 3) Anything which actually exists, as distinguished from something thought or felt to exist.

2+2=4. That is an objective fact. Take two objects from here, two objects from there, put them together, and you have four objects. There’s no room for individual interpretation or preference. It is not right for some and wrong for others. There is only one valid answer. 2+2= 5 may be identified as an error, notwithstanding the ramblings of Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man, because math is not a subjective matter.

Morality

• 1) Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.
• 2) Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character.

Murder is wrong. That is a moral claim. To which category do moral claims belong: subjective or objective? Is asserting that “murder is wrong” an objective fact like “2+2=4,” or is it a subjective sentiment like “my favorite color is green?” I would argue that, whether we like it or not, moral claims belong squarely in the latter category. 2+2=4 is necessarily true; moral claims like murder is wrong are not. Mathematical laws are universally applicable; moral claims are not. Mathematical laws inhere in reality; moral rules do not. Humans discovered mathematical laws; they didn’t invent them. Humans invented moral rules; they didn’t discover them.

Last year the Self-Styled Siren, a popular classic movie bloggerette, posted a tribute to the late Farley Granger, which consisted mostly of a defense of the “severely underrated Rope.” In the comments section no one bothered to mention anything about the weighty philosophical issues at the film’s core, and so I decided to liven up the conversation by posting the following:

“There’s nothing wrong, objectively speaking, with snuffing out a human life, notwithstanding Stewart’s histrionic protestations to the contrary.”

I had to chuckle at the Siren’s response:

“Mat, I would address your objections to Rope, but the last line of your first comment has, frankly, scared me to death.”

Apparently, for the Siren, a proposition qualifies as worthy of dispute only if it preserves her cozy feelings of security and well-being. But saying “there’s nothing wrong, objectively speaking, with snuffing out a human life” is, of course, not the same as saying, “there’s nothing wrong with snuffing out a human life.” The operative phrase here is “objectively speaking.” I don’t personally like murder. I’m happy to see this prejudice of mine codified as the law of the land. I cannot provide a reason, however, why murder is objectively wrong. But there’s no shortage of folks who try to provide such a reason. I’ll now examine some of the more common arguments, and explain why I find them wanting:

The Self-Evident Argument

Some people respond with incredulity to the suggestion that there’s nothing objectively wrong with murder. For them, the immorality of murder is a self-evident truth. Such deep thinkers say things like, “if you don’t know why murder is wrong I really don’t know what to say to you.” Of course, this is no argument at all. Here’s one thing they might say: “murder is objectively wrong because…”

If one doesn’t need a reason to justify his belief that murder is morally wrong, then neither does a murderer need a reason to justify his belief that murder is morally right. After all, murderers have their own “self-evident truths.” We’re no closer to resolving the dispute with which we started. If one person says “murder is wrong” and another says “murder is right,” how do we decide who’s correct unless we have recourse to an objective standard of morality?

The Golden Rule - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Why should anyone necessarily adopt this rule? A sadistic murderer, for example, derives pleasure from inflicting pain on others. If he believes that his pleasure is the greatest good, then whatever he does to maximize his pleasure, which would entail torturing his victim to death, is, for him, the right thing to do. That it doesn’t maximize his victim’s pleasure is irrelevant. Why should he care about the victim? What obligates him to care for her?

Most of us find the behavior of a sadistic murderer nauseating. That is true. But unless an objective source of moral obligation exists, we have no grounds to say that his sadistic behavior is morally wrong. In the absence of an objective standard we have to forfeit altogether our cherished notions of morally right or wrong behavior. Good and bad, right and wrong, become vacant categories. Assertions like “murder is wrong” mean nothing more than “I don’t like murder.”

Survival of the species

All animal species possess characteristics which have historically contributed to the perpetuation of their species. Humans are no different. Some attempt to infer a moral imperative from this fact. The argument goes something like this: that which preserves life, such as empathy, is good, and that which destroys life, such as murder, is bad.

This commits the fallacy of trying to derive an “ought” from an “is.” That certain behaviors tend to preserve life is a fact. That we ought to behave in ways that tend to preserve life is not. The first is a truth-statement, the second a value-statement, and never the twain shall meet. You cannot logically derive a value from a fact.

It also commits the naturalistic fallacy. Allow me to quote G.E. Moore:

“The survival of the fittest does not mean, as one might suppose, the survival of what is fittest to fulfill a good purpose - best adapted to a good end: at the last, it means merely the survival of the fittest to survive: and the value of the scientific theory just consists in showing what are the causes which produce certain biological effects. Whether these effects are good or bad, it cannot pretend to judge.”

Just because something is “natural” doesn’t make it “good” or “bad.” Aggression, no less than empathy, is a characteristic that has facilitated human survival. Vanquishing entire tribes of people has generally been successful throughout history; just ask the former inhabitants of North America - if you can find any. The point is that one has to be awfully selective when attempting to base his morality on what evolution has wrought. After all, the “better angels of our nature” evolved alongside the “fallen” ones.

God

There’s no way around it: the implications of atheism lead inevitably to moral nihilism. God just might qualify as an objective source of moral values (even this is debatable), since, being omniscient, he would presumably know infallibly what’s good and what’s bad. But first his existence would need to be demonstrated. Good luck.

So let’s take this full circle back to Rope. Here’s the complete text of Rupert’s concluding monologue:

“You’ve given my words a meaning I’ve never dreamed of. And you’ve tried to twist them into a cold, logical excuse for your ugly murder. Well, they never were that, Brandon. You can’t make them that. There must have been something deep inside of you from the very start that let you do this thing. But there’s always been something deep inside me that would never let me do it. Tonight you’ve made me ashamed of every concept I ever had of superior or inferior beings. And I thank you for that shame. Because now I know that we’re each of us a separate human being, Brandon, with the right to live and work and think as individuals, but with an obligation to the society we live in. By what right do you dare say that there’s a superior few to which you belong? By what right did you dare decide that that boy in there was inferior and therefore could be killed? Did you think you were God, Brandon? Is that what you thought when you choked the life out of him? Is that what you thought when you served food from his grave? Well, I don’t know what you thought or what you are but I know what you’ve done. You’ve murdered! You’ve strangled the life out of a fellow human being who could live and love as you never could…”

He delivers the entire monologue uninterrupted, because Brandon and Phillip, the two supposed Übermensch, just stand around like dimwits as Rupert rants. I thought it might be fun to imagine what Brandon might have said and done, were he not such a Boobermensch, in response to Rupert’s diatribe. The following, then, is my re-write of this scene:

Rupert Cadell
You’ve given my words a meaning I’ve never dreamed of. And you’ve tried to twist them into a cold, logical excuse for your ugly murder.

Brandon
I don’t need an excuse to commit murder. I did it for the same reason I do anything: I wanted to. I felt like doing it and I did it. And it wasn’t ugly. It was a thing of beauty. You haven’t lived until you’ve strangled the life out of someone, my friend. It’s a fucking rush. You oughta try it some time.

Rupert
There must have been something deep inside of you from the very start that let you do this thing. But there’s always been something deep inside of me that would never let me do it.

Brandon
Ok, so we’ve established that we both have something deep inside of us. That’s a sure sign that what we’re discussing is a purely subjective matter. The something deep inside of me says that murder is good. The something deep inside of you says that murder is bad. I like murder. You don’t. So what? I like chocolate. You don’t. What’s your point?

Brandon delivers a punishing right hook to the side of Rupert’s head and Rupert crumples to the floor.

Brandon
I repeat: what’s your goddamn point?

Rupert struggles back to his feet.

Rupert
We’re each of us a separate human being, Brandon, with the right to live and work and think as individuals, but with an obligation to the society we live in.

Brandon delivers a crushing haymaker straight to Rupert’s nose.

Brandon
Sorry, Roopy, but the impulse to stay alive is not a “right.” “Rights” don’t exist in nature. “Human rights” is a purely man-made concept with no basis in reality. If you want to pretend you have a “right” to live go right ahead, but don’t expect me to. That boy in there had no more inherent right to live than anyone or anything else does. I didn’t violate his “right” to live because he didn’t have one.

Rupert (struggling to get up on one knee)
By what right do you dare…?

Brandon
Let me cut you off right there.

Brandon wallops him with a devastating uppercut to the chin, knocking Rupert flat on his back. Barely conscious now, Rupert moans in pain, his head spinning.

Brandon
I just got done saying that rights are fictitious. And then you start your next sentence with, “By what right…”? Have you not been listening? Quit sticking so slavishly to the crummy script. It doesn’t apply anymore.

Brandon takes his pistol out of his pocket and kneels down to show it to Rupert.

Brandon
See this? The script says I’m supposed to hand it over to you like some fucking moron. But that ain’t gonna happen. See, that’s the difference between us, Roopy. You mindlessly obey whatever authority tells you. I don’t. The screenwriter wants you to be a mouthpiece for “society” and so you play along like some unthinking automaton emitting preprogrammed drivel. Well, this is my script now, and so you’d better come up with something more persuasive. You want the gun? Here, have it.

Brandon slams the butt of the gun down on Rupert’s skull, knocking him into merciful unconsciousness.

Brandon then looks over at Phillip, who has been silently watching the whole time from his piano.

Brandon
Well, what have you got to say for yourself?

Phillip
You frighten me. You always have. From the very first day in prep school.

Brandon
Can’t you say anything that isn’t in the script either?

Phillip
That’s a lie. There isn’t a word of truth in the whole story. I never strangled a chicken in my life. I never strangled a chicken and you know it!”

Brandon conks Phillip over the head and drags him over next to Rupert. He then tosses a glass of water in Rupert’s face, sits back in a reclining chair, lights up his pipe, and waits for him to regain consciousness. Rupert stirs, then sits up and rubs his beleaguered head.

Phillip mumbles something.

Brandon
What’s he saying now?

Rupert
He said, “He’s got it. He’s got it. He knows, he knows, he knows…”

Brandon
That’s what I thought. More gibberish from the script. Remember? That’s what he said when you took the rope out of your pocket.

Rupert
Yeah, that’s right.

Brandon
Guess who has the rope now?

Brandon produces the rope from his pocket and shows Rupert.

Brandon (puffing on his pipe)
But let’s get back to our little discussion, shall we? I believe you were saying that we have an obligation to the society we live in or some such nonsense.

Rupert
That’s right, we do.

Brandon
Still sticking to the script, eh? I was hoping I had knocked some sense into you, but no, you’re still shackled to the illogical ideas of your creators. Look, Roopy, nothing obligates me to care for society. I have an obligation to myself and myself alone. What is good for me is the only good I recognize. I don’t care a whit about society.

Rupert
Did you think you were God, Brandon? Is that what you thought when you choked the life out of him? Is that what you thought when you served food from his grave?

Brandon
Actually, I was thinking bon appétit. As for God, I can’t very well think of myself as something I don’t believe in, now can I? I’ll leave the murdering in the name of God to your precious “society.”

Rupert
Well, I don’t know what you thought or what you are but I know what you’ve done. You’ve murdered! You’ve strangled the life out of a fellow human being who could live and love as you never could…”

Brandon looks at the morally indignant Rupert with amusement and takes a long drag on his pipe.

Brandon
Look, Roopy, that boy over there was just a random collection of atoms with no more inherent value or worth than any other lump of matter. You think his life had value. I don’t. I considered him unworthy of living and took the necessary steps to snuff him out of existence. So go ahead and bellow till your blue in the face that what I did was wrong. Knock yourself out. While you’re doing that, I’ll be over here asking you, calmly and rationally, why murder is wrong. What is it exactly about murder that makes it wrong?

Rupert
You’re insane, Brandon! Insane and crazy and sick and twisted and cruel and demented and perverse and warped and abnormal and inhuman and loathsome and vicious and mean and perverted and nasty and brutal and pitiless and malicious and cruel…

Brandon
You already said cruel.

Rupert
…and unwholesome and ruthless and heartless and merciless and cold-blooded and hateful and despicable and disgusting and repugnant and detestable and abhorrent and noxious and sadistic and malevolent and evil and odious and contemptible and iniquitous…

Brandon
Oooh, iniquitous. Good one!

Rupert
… and repulsive and sickening and ghastly and nauseating and revolting and foul and abominable and wicked and monstrous and repellent and depraved…

Finally, Rupert starts hyperventilating from the strain of emitting so many consecutive insults.

Brandon chuckles, gets up from his recliner, and walks over to Rupert. He takes a long drag on his pipe and blows the smoke directly in Rupert’s face.

Brandon
By my count, that’s 47 insults you’ve hurled in my direction in lieu of an argument. Ad hominem attacks are very unbecoming of you, Roopy. Notwithstanding your invective, the question remains: why was it wrong to snuff out that boy’s life?

Phillip regains consciousness.

Phillip
I’ve been praying I’d wake up and find out we hadn’t done it yet. I’m scared to death, Brandon. I think we’re going to get caught.

Brandon
Go on, Phillip, utter one more line from that script. Go on, give me a reason.

Phillip
Have you ever bothered for just one minute to understand how someone else might feel?

Brandon
I wonder how this feels.

Brandon puts the rope around Phillip’s neck and tugs on it. Phillip gasps for breath, his eyes bulge out of their sockets.

Rupert
Please, Brandon, stop!

Brandon releases his grip on the rope, allowing Phillip to catch his breath.

Brandon (to Phillip)
Not another word from that script. Got it?

Phillip
What the devil are you doing?

Brandon retightens the rope around Phillip’s neck, then hands it to Rupert and points the gun at him.

Brandon (to Rupert)
I’ll give you one chance to save yourself. Finish off this Boobermensch and I’ll let you live. What was it you said earlier this evening? That you’d like to have a “Strangulation Day?” Well, today is that day, Rupert.

Rupert
I was only joking, for Christ’s sake!

Brandon cocks the gun.

Brandon
Whose life do you value more, Rupert? Yours or his? Do it and you walk out of here alive. Don’t do it and you’ll end up in that chest with the other dead meat.

Rupert
No! I can’t! I won’t!

Brandon
He’s going to die whether you do it or not. If you don’t do it you’re going to die too. At least save yourself, Rupert.

Rupert
May God forgive me.

Brandon
Wait! Before you do it, let’s see if Phillip has any last words.

Phillip
I had a rotten evening.

Brandon
Yep, quoting from the script to the last. Do it!

Rupert yanks the rope and chokes the life out of Phillip the Boobermensch. He lets the rope slip from his fingers and Phillip’s lifeless body slumps to the floor. Brandon drags the corpse over to the chest and tosses Phillip into it with the other body. He then walks back over to Rupert and puts his arm around him.

Brandon
How did it feel?

Rupert
I take back everything I said, Brandon. That was incredible! You’re so right, you haven’t lived until you’ve choked the life out of someone. What a fucking rush that was!

Brandon pats Rupert on the shoulder and then walks over to the phone and dials.

Brandon
Hey, Mrs. Cadell, this is Brandon Shaw speaking. I’m doing well, and you? Listen, it’s getting late and so I’ve invited Rupert to stay for the night. I hope you don’t mind. Good! I would be honored if you’d join us for breakfast. Great! Say, around 8:00? I look forward to seeing you, Mrs. Cadell.

Brandon hangs up.

Brandon
Charming lady, Roopy.

Rupert
What the devil are you up to?

Brandon
Well, Roopy, yesterday was “Strangulation Day,” today is “Bullet in the Head Day.”

Brandon fires a bullet into Rupert’s head and tosses him into the chest with the other two bodies.

Then Brandon breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly.

Brandon
Ladies and gentlemen, if my actions this evening have disgusted you, so be it. I don’t give a fuck. But you’re quite mistaken if you think that you can infer from your disgust a moral imperative. You cannot. You’re quite mistaken if you think that murder wrong. It is not. You’re quite mistaken if you think that your moral outrage toward me amounts to something more than your own paltry knot of predilections. It does not. You’re quite mistaken if you think there’s a higher standard to which I can be held. There is not. Morality, as you understand it, is a myth, a fantasy, a fairy-tale. Murder is neither good nor bad, neither right nor wrong. Morality inheres not in reality. Nature is utterly amoral. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is right. Nothing is bad. Nothing is good. It is simply not possible to do something morally wrong. It is only possible to call something “wrong.” But no matter how passionately you shout, it doesn’t make it so.

Human life has no intrinsic value. The value you assign to yourself and others is subjective and arbitrary. Perhaps you feel that the people I killed tonight had value. Well, bully for you. I don’t feel that way. Your feelings are no more authoritative than mine. They’re just different. Why should I feel that you or anyone else has value? You’re nothing more than a chance collocation of atoms with no more inherent worth than any other chunk of matter. If this upsets you, it’s because you have an innate, deep-rooted dread of nihilism, of the almost certain possibility that your most cherished concerns constitute nothing more than brute stupidities wrought in you according to the blind whim of nature, that ultimately nothing has value, nothing has meaning and nothing matters, that all of your effort is futile and absurd, and that just around the corner only annihilation and oblivion await you.

Good evening.

Posted on May 13th, 2012 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Miscellaneous | 14 Comments »

Recap: When last we left our hero he was tripping with a hippie and talking to the ghost of Sergio Leone.
________________________________________________________________

There once was a happy and peaceful people called the Diminutivites
Singing and dancing, laughing and romancing they spent their days and nights
They lived in harmony with nature and worked for the common good
Theirs was a message of fellowship and universal brotherhood
They tore down every barrier, every fence, and every wall
And practiced tolerance, compassion, and equality for all
No need they had for law enforcement, government, or legislature
for only love and kindness inhered in their benevolent nature
Life, liberty, and happiness they took as their unalienable rights
They were a good people, these happy and peaceful Diminutivites

But beware! Look out! Here come the bloodthirsty Temujinites
They’re on the march, their sights set on the poor Diminutivites
To these cruel and murderous savages only might makes right
So out they set with axes, spears and swords to hack, stab and smite
They had not a chance, the Diminutivites, so peace-loving and naïve
Oh! how the merciless Temujinites made them wail, suffer and bleed
Throats were slit and skulls were split
Limbs were chopped and heads were lopped
Could this wholesale slaughter not be stopped?
Guts were strewn and blood was spilled
until every last man, woman, and child were killed
Gone now are the Diminutivites, stripped of their unalienable rights
by those fierce and lethal homunculi called the Temujinites

Who shall inherit the Earth? Surely not the meek
The strong shall plant their heel on the bleating weak

Let it here be said that genocide is neither good nor bad
that moral rules are neither etched in stone nor ironclad
For those who believe the Holocaust was wrong I’ve got news
It is not wrong, it is not bad, to slaughter 6 million Jews
Hear again what I say, then consider yourself disabused
It is not wrong, it is not bad, to slaughter 6 million Jews
The Nazi’s disgust you, you’d like to see them suffer and rot
But from your disgust you may infer a moral imperative not
Hitler invaded Europe and 6 million Jews were felled
But to no objective standard can the Nazi’s be held
You find them loathsome, vile, heartless, and cruel
But don’t mistake your indignation for a universal rule

Morality is but a figment of the human mind
Right and wrong cannot in reality be divined
Good and bad was not by a Creator designed
No standard exists higher than that created by mankind

Nothing is right or wrong, bad or good
There is no must, ought, or should
no mustn’t, oughtn’t or shouldn’t
There is only is and isn’t, was and wasn’t
did and didn’t, does and doesn’t

Onto the world your cherished beliefs you project
Against reality a rickety bulwark you fervently erect
After all, you have your comforting illusions to protect
But only lies you embrace, while the truth you reject

Desperately you cling to your conception of morality
Falsehoods with which you slip the chains of rationality
You are a fugitive from the truth, a reality escapee
But nihilism is no less true for failing to set you free

Your life bears no moral significance grounded in reality
To believe otherwise is sheer nonsense, utter illogicality
Your moral sentiments masquerade in you as truth
Resolutely you hold them with nary a shred of proof

Your right to life, liberty, and happiness inhere not in reality
These ideals are but manmade constructs in their totality
Do you really think you matter, do you really think you count
Sorry, my friend, but in the end to nothing does your paltry little life amount
You have no spirit, you have no soul
To your life there is no ultimate purpose, no ultimate goal
If you believe you have value, this illusion I’ll shatter
You’re but a chance collocation of atoms, a worthless lump of matter

You are your body and nothing more
a material creature to the very core
created by Mother Nature
a blind and unfeeling whore

No moral rules exist higher than those created by me
A given behavior is just so good or bad as I perceive it to be
I tell you this: if your interests happen to conflict with mine
to oblivion you and yours will unceremoniously be consigned

Is that inequitable, unjust, and unfair?
As long as I get what I want, why the fuck should I care?
So be it if my actions cause you and yours distress
For nothing or nobody will I my desires suppress
Am I bad? Does my ilk put the survival of the species at stake?
Ha! The naturalistic fallacy, my friend, is a grave mistake
‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’
is a maxim I willfully and enthusiastically eschew
I will change not one iota my attitude or my behavior
for you, your neighbor, or your personal Lord and Savoir

Fuck you, your gratuitous God, and your myths of creation
your spiritual redemption and your threats of damnation
your Constitution and your seventeen seventy-six declaration
your spurious argumentation and your moral indignation
your groundless moralizations and your arbitrary valuations
your egalitarian simplifications and your objectivist prevarications
your social obligations and your ethical codifications
your vacant proclamations and your blatant fabrications
your patent equivocations and your deliberate obfuscations
your mystical reincarnations and your logical gyrations
your religious denominations and your devout congregations
your immaculate conceptions and your messianic resurrections
your body/mind/soul trifurcations and your transubstantiations
your useless invocations and your pointless incantations
your baseless speculations and your utilitarian affectations
Hark ye, I care not a whit for the fate of civilization
My only concern is for me and my personal gratification

Suddenly there came a pounding on my bedroom door.

Dad: What the hell did you do to your brother’s car?

Brother: And why the hell did you park it in the vegetable garden?

I looked out my bedroom window. There it was, in the middle of the vegetable garden, covered in dirt, with flat tires, crunched bumpers and shattered windows. Whoops! How did that happen? Let’s see, I was at the video store talking to Sergio Leone…

Me: You’re Sergio Leone, eh? Okay…you’re dead…but okay…

Sergio: I’m-a da ghost of-a Sergio Leone.

Well, he was hovering off the ground - quite miraculous given his ample girth. Also, he was enshrouded in a shimmering mist, which made his features blurry and indistinct like an out of focus photograph. And he was…flashing…like a light bulb not screwed in tightly enough, no doubt because he was straddling the thin line between the corporeal and spiritual realms.

Me: Dude, you know you’re just a figment of my bemushroomed imagination, right?

Sergio: Stai zitto! I’m-a real ghost. And I tink I’m in-a hell!

Me: Why do you tink dat?

He rubbed his belly.

Sergio: io sono affamato! I’m-a hungry but dere’s-a nothing to eat-a. I crave da spaghetti and da meat-a ball.

I offered him some shrooms.

Sergio: I don’t want-a no mushrooms. I want-a spaghetti and da meat-a ball. Capisci?

Me: Then why are you haunting an obscure video store? If you want-a spaghetti and the meat-a ball, why aren’t you hangin’ out at Osteria Francescana’s?

Sergio: I no like what-a you say about C’era una volta in America.

He bunched his fingers together, with the tips touching and pointing upward, and shook his hands at me.

Sergio: Che cavolo dici? Eeets-a good film-a.

I imitated his gesture.

Me: No, eeets-a not a good film-a. Eeets-a piece of sheet-a.

He clenched his right fist and jerked his forearm up while slapping his right bicep with his left palm.

Sergio: Vaffanculo!

I got the distinct impression this appassionato ghost was insulting me, so I took a swing at him, but my fist went straight through his translucent body. I plumb forgot he wasn’t really there.

Sergio: What-a you no like about eeet?

Me: I no like-a the ringing phone-a.

Sergio: Why you no like-a the ringin’ phone-a?

Me: Eeet-a drive me up-a the wall-a.

Sergio: Eeets-a ringin’ for theme. Eeets a ringin’ forever in-a the Noodles head. Eeet represent his-a…how you say?…guilt-a stricken conscience.

Me: I no like-a the cupcake scene.

Sergio: Why you no like-a the cupcake?

Me: Eeet-a take too long. Get to the fuckin’-a point.

His tapped his right index finger against his head.

Sergio: Sei pazzo! Eeets-a bella…how you say?…beautiful scene. The boy, he-a grow up-a too fast, and he-a poor and-a hungry, so he-a choose da cupcake over da girl-a. He no have his-a cupcake and-a eat it too!

Me: Why doesn’t Noodles know that Deborah became a big star? Why doesn’t he know that Max is a corrupt politician involved in a public scandal?

Sergio: What name is-a da movie?

Me: Once Upon a Time in America.

Sergio: Dat’s-a right. Eeets-a fairy-tale for adults-a. Time has-a stood-a still for Noodles. He brings-a the key to Moe’s clock-a back, and it-a re-starts. Time has-a started anew for Noodles. He’s-a like…how you say?…Jack da Rip Van Winkle.

Me: Rip Van Winkle.

Sergio: Ripper Van Winkle.

Me: Rip, Rip - Rip Van Winkle.

Sergio: Dat’s-a what I said. Rip-a Van Winkle. You watch eeet again, no?

Me: I watch eeet again, no.

Sergio: I geeve you a hundred dollars. You watch eeet again-a.

Me: Okay.

He handed me a hundred dollar bill.

Sergio: You gotta fistful of dollars.

He chuckled. I didn’t get it.

Sergio: You like eeet this-a time.

And with that Sergio dematerialized, blubber and all. I turned back to the hippie, who was still gagging from the dollar bills I stuffed down his throat, and held up the hundred dollars.

Me: Do you see this?

Hippie: Yeah, man, just don’t shove it down my throat.

Me: A hallucination gave it to me to watch Once Upon a Time in America again. Ring me up.

Let me tell you about tripping and driving.

Whereas it took me five minutes to get from my house to the video store, it took me half the morning to get from the video store to my house. The trouble started when I dropped my keys on the Firebird’s floorboard, which was covered with Persian carpeting whose design consisted of lobed, multihued concentric medallions radiating to flowery borders. The key disappeared into the carpet, which was bubbling and swirling like a whirlpool, and when I reached down to feel for it my hand disappeared too, as though it had passed through the gateway to an alternate universe. I jerked my hand back lest my entire body be sucked into it. Okay, just relax. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and tried to calm myself, only to realize that my seat was quicksand and I was sinking into it. My brother’s malevolent car was about to swallow me whole and expel me out through the fucking exhaust pipe.

Me: Ah!!!!

A concerned citizen heard me screaming and rushed to my aid.

Concerned Citizen: Do you need help?

Me: I can’t find my keys. I lost my keys.

Concerned Citizen: There they are. On the carpet.

I looked down, but all I saw was an evil vortex threatening to suck me into eternal darkness.

Me: Ah!!!!

Concerned Citizen: Do you need a doctor?

Me: Could you start the car for me?

I slid to the passenger seat and the concerned citizen got in and started the car.

Concerned Citizen: Do you want me to drive you somewhere?

I leaned over and hugged this beautiful concerned citizen. He or she - did it matter? - had restored my faith in humanity.

Me: I love you. Do you know that? I’m okay now. Thank you concerned citizen.

Without a word, the concerned citizen patted my shoulder and took leave of me. I looked around: the car was just my brother’s silly Firebird, the Diminutivites and the Temujinites were making sweet love, and all was right with the universe.

I hopped into the driver’s seat and headed for the exit. But I plumb forgot which way was home. Do I turn right or left? I eeny-meeny-miny-moe’d it and turned left. The road, which stretched before me to infinity, was a vast body of undulating water, my car a boat floating atop it, the traffic lights distant beacons beckoning me home. One problem: I couldn’t quite figure out how the gas and brake pedals worked; they were mysterious mechanisms which seemed to push down forever. So my car moved in fits and starts down the road, slowly lurching along one moment, then suddenly propelling forward at great speed the next. I might be going 10 mph in a 50 mph zone or 90 mph in a 25 mph zone, narrowly missing rear ending cars in front of me and getting rear ended by cars in back of me. But I was feeling so happy and gay that when enraged drivers passed by screaming and giving me the finger, I would smile pleasantly and flash them the peace sign.

My depth perception also was seriously awry, making it impossible for me to accurately judge distances, and so I frequently found myself either stopping 20 feet in front of a red light or in the middle of a busy intersection. Horns blared, mouths yelled, middle fingers extended - but through it all I carried on my merry way. The problem was that I had no idea where I was. Places looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t quite grasp where they were in relation to my house. I’d have to ask for directions home. Yippee! A Dunkin’ Donuts! I bounced over a curb and swerved into the parking lot, then skipped inside and ordered a baker’s dozen.

I showed the donut man my driver’s license.

Me: Can you tell me how to get to this address?

Donut Man: Um, isn’t that your home address?

Me: Yes, yes it is - where is it?

Donut Man: Okay, well, um, you take a left on John R…

Me: Where’s John R?

Donut Man: The street you just came off.

Me: Right, then where?

Donut Man: Then go about a mile to Long Lake and take a right, then go about a quarter mile and take a left onto Crowfoot. That’s your street.

Me: Thanks, Donut Man.

I took a bite of cream filled donut and turned to leave…

Copper: Why if it isn’t The Boy with Bloodshot Eyes.

It was Officer I’ve Got My Eyes on You. Fascist donut-eating fuck.

Me: Top of the morning to you, Officer Sir, so nice to see you again.

Copper: Still got the munchies I see.

He looked probingly into my eyes.

Copper: Son, why are your pupils the size of flying saucers?

Me: Well, Officer Sir, that’s because I just came in from the glaring sun and my eyes are adjusting to these darker conditions. You see, Officer Sir, pupils constrict to reduce the amount of strong light that could be harmful to retina cells and they dilate to allow more light into the eye when the environment is darker. Sensation and perception 101, Officer Sir…

Copper: Are you condescending to me, college boy?

Stupid fuck.

Me: Oh, no Sir, Officer Sir. I’m merely cooperating with your interrogation.

Copper: I think you’ve been tripping this morning. Have you been tripping, boy?

Me: I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Officer Sir. I did, of course, take a trip to this here donut shop… slash… crime-fighter hangout.

Uh-oh, methinks I’ve got livid swine on my hands - his face was flushed, his brow furrowed, his nostrils flared, his jaw clenched. He got in my face and grunted and oinked with displeasure.

Copper: I don’t like your attitude, boy.

I wasn’t intimidated by his bullying or flustered by his fascist grilling, but my bemushroomed mind freaked out when I realized I could see the inner workings of this oinker’s body - his rapidly beating heart pumped boiling blood to his hands, preparing them to strike me; his hypothalamus spat testosterone, his adrenal gland spewed adrenaline, mobilizing his body for action against me; every muscle in his body was tightly coiled and ready to spring at me; his neural pathways lit up with an urgent message to his seething forebrain - attack!

This is when my syntax got all jumbled. I wanted to say “I didn’t mean to get you angry,” but that’s not how it came out.

Me: Angry you didn’t I mean to.

Copper: Come again?

I wanted to say “I have to go home now.”

Me: Home to go now I have.

Copper: Boy, are you cracking wise with me again?

I wanted to say “Have a nice day, officer.”

Me: A nice officer have day.

I bolted for the door.

Copper: Hope you find your way home, punk.

Me: Concern thank you for your. Home will find I my way.

Copper: I’ve got my eyes on you.

Me: Too you on eyes my I’ve got.

He laughed as I bumbled out the door. The fool thought he had me intimidated.

Needless to say my encounter with the pig turned my trip from good to bad. A quick glance at my arm confirmed it: the Temujinites were on the warpath again. I’d completely forgotten the directions Donut Man had given me, so I eeny-meeny-miny-moe’d it and hit the road. That’s when I saw a mother duck and her ducklings crossing the road in front me. I slammed on the brakes and got out to chastise this haughty duck.

Me: Hey duck, do you think you own the road or something?

It didn’t strike me at all strange that the duck could talk.

Mother Duck: We’re just crossing the road to get to the other side.

Me: What, I’m just supposed to stop everything because you ducks have such urgent business on the other side of the road?

Mother Duck: Sorry if we inconvenienced you, Mr. Human Man, but we were just going to the pond.

And so there I was, on a beautiful Saturday morning, standing in the middle of the road arguing with a duck.

Me: You were jaywalking. From now on use the crosswalk at the intersection like everyone else.

Mother Duck: Don’t be so self-righteous. You humans are so silly. There’s no morality out here. Go back to your cozy house and shut up.

This was one wise duck. I had to concede her point. Humans are silly. It is as silly to think that morality exists for humans as it is to think it exists for ducks. She opened her mouth to say something else, but only loud honking came out. Then I realized it wasn’t coming from her: motorists were honking at me to get out of the middle of the road.

I remember only one thing more about my bemushroomed journey homeward - and it will haunt me for the rest of my life. A hearse drove up next to me at a red light. The driver looked at me. I held his stare. Then his mouth contorted into a grotesque Cheshire grin which stretched impossibly from ear to ear.

Hearse Driver: Need a lift? Hop in the back.

I floored the car through the red light. It’s all a blank after that. But somehow I ended up in the vegetable garden.

Dad: I asked you what happened to your brother’s car.

Me: Hold on, give me a few minutes.

What did it all mean? Was any of it real? Sergio Leone? The Diminutivites? The concerned citizen? The copper? The duck? The hearse?

I sparked up a bowl and breathed the cleansing smoke into my lungs, letting the primo weed work its calming magic. Ah, that’s better. After convincing myself that it was all a hallucination, I lied down and rested my weary head on the pillow…and heard a crumpling sound. It was a handwritten note:

Eeets-a me. Sergio. I very much enjoy-a meeting you. I deedn’t get your-a name. You must-a be the boy with-a no name. Eeets a joke. Dis-a note prove I’m-a ghost, no? How else I-a get in-a your room? C’era una volta in America eees-a good film. You watch eeet again and like eeet dis-a time. I visit you tonight at-a the stroke of-a midnight.

Sincerely,

Sergio Leone

P.S. Get a job

To be continued…

Posted on May 5th, 2012 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Miscellaneous | No Comments »

Recap: When last we left our hero he had just wrested control of the family room from his family so that he could watch Once Upon a Time in America. He ended up hating the movie and went to sleep cursing everyone involved in the film and vowing revenge on QT, the video store clerk who’d recommended the film to him.

________________________________________________________________

Although it was my custom to sleep late into the afternoon, I got up early the next morning, which was a Saturday, because I wanted to go to the video store and chastise QT. But first: breakfast. After an evening so fraught with drama, I was ravenous. Goddammit, there they were, all five of ‘em, sitting around the kitchen table looking at me as if I were some anonymous smell-feast who’d just wondered in off the streets. What the fuck ever.

My gullet desires all it can handle
and so to my seat I wordlessly ambled
to partake of fluffy eggs so delightfully scrambled

But not yet satisfied, my mouth opened wide
and in went eggs fried with a golden sunny side

With lips soaked with yolk, not one word I spoke
to the brother, or the sisters, or the olden folk

A stack of pancakes I syruped and buttered
my oh my was my plate getting cluttered

Yet still I had room for food to consume
with my fork, my knife, and also my spoon

The feeding frenzy had only just started
from these gastronomic delights I’d not be parted

Soon I was overtaken by a yen for crispy bacon
so get your ass up Mom and don your fuckin’ apron

Now let’s see what else into my mouth I can cram
gimme gimme gimme those thick and juicy slices of ham

I was getting thirsty, it was time for drinks
but first methinks I’ll eat a few sausage links

My family watched me, on their faces were frowns
Fuck you all, and just pass the hash browns

Dad: Don’t forget to save some for those starving children you’re so concerned about.

Not a moment’s reflection I give to famine
for I fervently worship at the altar of Mammon

I pay no heed to hungry children in need
Let them plead, let them bleed
There’s only one mouth I want to feed

Let the chillun starve, while my food I merrily carve
It’s not wrong, it’s not unfair
About them, I do not care
With them, I will not share
Let them weep, let them despair
I’ve food to eat, and none to spare

I chew my sausage and munch my bacon
in blissful disregard for children godforsaken
For them, I give not a damn
To them, I extend not a hand
I’m not on a mission to improve their condition
Let the mortician deal with their malnutrition

Dad: Can’t you at least say good morning? Or can’t you chew food and talk at the same time?

Me: Morning. Sleep well?

Dad: You know, your mother and I were just saying we don’t remember the last time we slept so soundly.

Mom: I must be getting old. I don’t even remember getting into bed!

Dad: Me neither! The last thing I remember was our fine son rushing downstairs to pour us cokes.

Mom: Yeah, it’s all a blur after that.

Brother: Hmmmm…I wonder if Coke added a new ingredient with soporific qualities.

Me: The soporific qualities were in the sitcoms, not the cokes.

Brother: Did you notice anything different about the taste?

Mom: Now that you mention it, it did taste a little bitter.

Brother: Hmmmm…it tasted bitter, you don’t remember a thing after you drank it, and…who poured it, again? That’s…odd.

Me: No, that’s not odd. But you know what is odd. That pathetic excuse for a haircut of yours. And you know what’s even odder than that? Just how fond you are of it. It would be a shame to lose it, wouldn’t it?

I starred my brother down and simulated a snipping motion with my index and middle fingers.

He recoiled in fear.

Me: Now…Coke didn’t add a new ingredient, did they?

Brother: No.

Me: Say it.

Brother: Coke didn’t add a new ingredient.

Me: You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?

Brother: No.

Me: Say it.

Brother: I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Me: There was nothing unusual about their Coke last night, was there?

Brother: No

Me: Say it.

Brother: There was nothing unusual about their Coke last night.

Me: See, Mom and Dad? Your Coke was fine. Nothing strange about it, nothing added to it. Okay, are we done here? Good. Glad we got that straightened out. I gotta go. I’m taking the Firebird.

I starred at my brother, daring him to protest.

Me: Any objections?

Brother: No.

Me: I can use your Firebird any time I want, can’t I?

Brother: Yes.

Me: Say it.

Brother: You can use my Firebird any time you want.

Me: Your mullet’s gotta go, doesn’t it?

Brother: No

Me: Say it!

Brother: No!

Mom: Your brother’s right, you should get rid of that…what is it - a mutton?

Brother: It’s a mullet and nobody’s cutting it.

Me: I’m outta here.

The video store opened at 10 a.m. I peeled out of the driveway in my brother’s Firebird at 9:55. Speed limits were broken. Red lights were run. Pedestrians were hurt. Did they not realize that my way is the right of way? It takes 15 minutes to get there. I got there in 5.

I grumbled my way into the store, flung the cassettes into the return bin, and looked for QT. He wasn’t behind the counter. Only the owner was - an aging hippie with a receding hairline and pony tail, a graying beard, a pot belly, and a raggedy tie-dyed Grateful Dead T-shirt that looked like it hadn’t been washed or ironed since Woodstock.

Me: Where’s QT?

Hippie: That cat split the scene, man. He booked to Hollywood with an outta sight screenplay. Somethin’ about dogs on a reservation.

Me: Yeah, good luck with that. Ya know, his taste in movies sucks. He recommended Once Upon a Time in America, which was terrible. Luckily, his ilk will soon be replaced by data-aggregating recommendation algorithms.

Hippie: Whoa, that’s some heavy shit, man.

Me: Listen, I want you to institute a new policy effective immediately.

Hippie: Lay it on me, brother.

Me: Customers get a full refund if they don’t like a film recommended to them by an employee. In my case, that would be $1.50 plus the 50 cents gratuity I paid QT. You owe me $2. Hand it over.

Hippie: It’s a bummer you didn’t like it. But it was your decision to rent it, man.

Me: But I wouldn’t have rented it if he hadn’t recommended it to me in the first place.

Hippie: I dig what you’re saying, but I can’t refund your bread, man.

Me: You mean you won’t refund it. Right, man? You greedy capitalist hippie.

Hippie: What’s your bag, man? Just hang loose. Peace, brother.

Me: Don’t give me that peace and love flower child bullshit. Look at yourself, man. You blew it. You’re just a slave to the Establishment.

Hippie: We had the Establishment up against the wall, man. But the generations after us got lazy and let it all slip away. We didn’t blow it. You blew it, man.

Me: All you hippies did was drop out, drop acid, get stoned, listen to groovy music, love the one you were with, wear flowers in your hair, flash the peace sign, and protest a war because the draft had you quaking in your bell bottoms.

Hippie: You’re a drag, man. It was all about peace and love.

Me: No…it was about a utopian fantasy based on a naïvely optimistic conception of human nature. Did you really think you were gonna live in warm and cuddly communes with other groovy peace-loving people?

Hippie: All we were saying was give peace a chance.

Me: There’s only one problem with that - the species as it exists, with all of its horror and violence intact, is the species that has survived. That’s us.

Hippie: But we can be peaceful too, man.

Me: Our willingness to kill each other has been just as valuable historically as our desire for peace. Just look how great the annihilation of the North American Indian turned out.

Hippie: Peace is better than war.

Me: Is it?

Hippie: Yeah, man. War’s a drag. It’s just plain wrong, man.

Me: No, it’s not. War is neither right nor wrong. Nothing is. What we call morality is nothing more than a species of desire. Ultimately, one may be said to prefer bloodshed to peace for the same reason he happens to prefer green to blue. I like bloodshed. You like peace. I like green. You like blue.  There’s nothing right or wrong, or good or bad about it.

Hippie: There never was a good war, or a bad peace. Benjamin Franklin.

Me: It is not bad.  Let them play. Let the guns bark and the bombing-plane speak his prodigious blasphemies. It is not bad. It is high time. Stark violence is still the sire of all the world’s values. Robinson Jeffers.

Hippie: Never heard of the cat. And thank Buddha for that. Make love, not war.

Me: Drop napalm, not acid.

Hippie: Burn bras, not villages

Me: Throw grenades, not parties.

Hippie: Expand consciousness, not territory

Me: Plant mines, not flowers

Hippie: Roll joints, not tanks

Well, he’s got a point there. Still…

Me: Give me $2, not slogans.

He extended his hand to me.

Hippie: Brother, give me some skin, don’t skin me…

I was on the verge of hopping over the counter and teaching this peace-loving hippie the meaning of another slogan - might makes right - when he reached into his pocket and pulled out a brownish red mushroom with white spots.

Me: Is that what I think it is?

Hippie: Psychoactive fungi have gone by many names throughout human history. The Aztecs called them teonanácatl, or flesh of the gods. Mazatec shamans called them nti si tho, or that which springs forth. Great prophets and sages, such as Timothy Leary, called them magic mushrooms, shrooms, blue meanies, and liberty caps. Whatever you call them, one thing is certain: they’re the fungal pathway to Ultimate Truth. Brother, I invite you to partake of this divine mushroom and journey with me to the Clear Light of Reality. There we will find eternity in a yoctosecond, infinity in a quark. We will see sound, hear silence, smell color, taste shape, and touch God.

Me: Yes, aging hippie video store owner, I will accompany you on this mystical journey to the other side.

Hippie: Very well, brother. And if at the end of our trip you still desire your $2, I shall give it to you gladly.

He locked the front doors, put up the closed sign, and burned some incense, which filled the store with the aroma of patchouli. Then together we ingested a handful of mushrooms. A few minutes later - or was it an hour, who knows? - I was ready to declare the mushrooms unmagical and demand my $2… when suddenly…

…my hands and arms started rippling like running water. I looked closer and noticed something really far out: tiny multicolored organisms were swimming inside my watery arms. Groovy, man! I wasn’t freaked out, though, because I knew they were benevolent creatures. They weren’t just swimming; they were…frolicking - moving together in perfect unison, forming kaleidoscopic, flower-like patterns and beautiful geometric shapes, like harmonious chorines in a miniature Busby Berkeley number.

Me: Dude, look at my arms. Do you see this?

Hippie: What is it, man?

Me: I don’t know, man. Colorful little critters are putting on a lightshow.

Hippie: Whoa, those are Diminutivites. They’re a merry, festive little people.

Me: They’re people?

Hippie: Yeah, man. And all they do is sing, dance, and laugh all the live long day. You can hear them partying if you listen to the happy bubbles.

Me: Happy bubbles?

Hippie: Yeah, man. Look!

And there they were, emanating from my arms - tiny iridescent happy bubbles floating toward me. I reached out and touched one. When it popped I heard the cheery Diminutivites whopping it up. Soon hundreds of happy bubbles were floating all around me, and I gaily hopped around popping as many as I could, surrounding myself with the sounds of Diminutivite merrymaking.

Me: I hear them. I hear the happy little people.

Hippie: Groovy, man. You’re in touch with your inner Diminutivites.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any groovier, I looked into the hippie’s eyes, and things got even groovier. His eyes weren’t eyes. They were twin spiral galaxies. I stood before him, transfixed, watching his variegated irises swirl and wrap around the pupilar nucleus, feeling irresistibly drawn to the center of the ocular vortex, as if I’d entered the event horizon of a groovy black hole and was moving inexorably toward the hippie’s outta sight singularity. As I journeyed through the hippie’s eyes and into his brain, past his brain into his mind, and past his mind into his soul, I was not afraid, for I intuitively understood that I was entering a far out realm of never-ending light, all-encompassing serenity, and infinite compassion. Surrounding the hemispheres of his brain was a radiant halo of pure golden light, which began to pulse and bubble and morph into something with discernible features, something comfortingly familiar and instantly recognizable - a perfect sunshiny circle with two oval black eyes and an upturned semi-circular black mouth. It was a smiley face!

Me: Are you the hippie’s soul?

Smiley: I am he as you are he as you are me.

Me: Who am I?

Smiley: You are me as you are he as I am he.

Me: Who then is the hippie?

Smiley: He is you as he is me as I am you.

Me: And we are…all together?

Smiley: We are you as you are we as he is we as I am you.

Me: Yes, yes…I think I understand now.

Smiley: Also…

Me: Oh, there’s more…

Smiley: I am not I as you are not you as he is not he.

Me: So, basically, we’re each other but we’re not ourselves.

Smiley: I am no one because I am everyone. I am nothing because I am everything. I am nowhere because I am everywhere.

Me: Why are you?

Smiley: I am because I am not.

Me: So, then, Descartes had it all wrong. I am not, therefore I can’t think.

Smiley: I think I can’t think, therefore I am and am not.

Me: Thank you for imparting these words of wisdom, but I really have to get back to my body now. It’s been real.

Smiley: Has it?

Me: I don’t know.

Smiley: Peace out, brother.

Me: Peace out, Smiley Face.

And just like that I was back in my own body. Or was I? Was I even me anymore? All I knew for sure was that this hippie, this beautiful unwashed hippie, was a being of pure Goodness. Just look at him - he leaves rainbow trails behind him when he walks.

Me: I love you, man.

Hippie: I love you too, man.

We embraced. Damn. I love the guy and all, but he reeks of mildewy clothes, fetid sweat, stale cigarette smoke, and various herbs and spices.

Me: I talked to your soul.

Hippie: Far out, man. What did he say?

Me: He said I am you as he is me as you are he as you are me as I am he as he is you.

Hippie: Right on!

Me: He really opened my mind, man. I’m one with the universe now.

Hippie: Cool, man. Do you still want your $2?

Something about the question rubbed me the wrong way. Here I was speaking from the heart, telling him that I was one with the universe…and all he can do is ask if I want my money back? It seemed so…petty. Still, my love for him overcame this momentary annoyance.

Me: No, it’s yours. It’s just money, man.

Hippie: Are you sure? Because you can have it, man.

Why won’t he drop the issue?

Hippie: I’m bummed you didn’t like the movie. Take the bread, man.

I was getting pissed. I needed happy bubbles. What were the Diminutivites up to? I was stunned by what I saw next: the Diminutivites were being raped and slaughtered by bloodthirsty homunculi. No more happy bubbles. The only things floating toward me now were black and misshapen horrible bubbles, which when popped released a cacophony of Diminutivite screaming and wailing.

Me: They’re killing the Diminutivites.

Hippie: Oh my God, those are the Temujinites. Your trip has gone bad. If you don’t mellow out, man, those savages will exterminate the Diminutivites. Here…take your $2.

I grabbed him by the collar of his soiled tie-dyed T-shirt and shook him to and fro with such ferocity that his dandruff rained down upon me. I looked into his eyes. No galaxies. Just droopy, bloodshot hippie eyes.

Hippie: Brother, be one with the universe.

Me: I am one with the universe. And guess what? The universe is a violent and deadly place, and very, very pissed off right now.

Hippie: But I am you as you are me as we are all together.

Me: Shut up with that mystical mumbo-jumbo. I’ve got a message for you and that grinning idiot of a soul of yours: You are full of shit as shit is full of you as he is full of shit as shit is full of him as he is full of you as you are full of him.

Hippie: But I love you, man.

To shut this fuckin’ hippie up I stuffed two dollar bills down his throat and made him swallow them.

Me: There, now the bread is officially yours. But I won’t be this generous in the future, so listen closely: tell your infrahuman, monosynaptic clerks to stop recommending shitty films.

I was about to knock him into unconsciousness when I heard some guy say something behind me.

Man: scuse-a…scuse-a

The dude materialized out of nowhere. The front doors were locked and nobody had come in before me. This guy must be a hallucination. He was short and balding with a bushy, unkempt gray beard, comically large horn-rimmed glasses, and a Buddha-like paunch. And he spoke broken English in a thick Italian accent.

Me: Who the fuck are you?

Man: I’m-a Sergio Leone

To be continued…

Posted on April 14th, 2012 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

Recap: When last we left our hero he wanted to watch Once Upon a Time in America on the family room television, but couldn’t because his parents were in there watching inane primetime sitcoms. Our hero lives by a simple code: whatever he wants is good and whatever he does to get what he wants is right. So, to get what he wanted he did the right thing: he spiked his parents’ drinks and put them to bed so that he could watch Once Upon a Time in America in the family room. But he hadn’t counted on his meddlesome brother catching him in the act. Will the brother stop our hero from getting what he wants?

________________________________________________________________

My brother was pounding on the locked double doors.

Brother: Open the door!

Me: Shut the mouth!

Brother: I swear I’ll break this down if you don’t open up!

Me: I swear you’ll be playing Abel to my Cain if you don’t shut up!

A man can only be pushed so far. Was fratricide in the offing? Maybe, maybe not, but one thing was for sure: my brother had to be stopped. But I had a problem: that muscle-bound gadfly outweighed me by 25 pounds. I needed a weapon. I turned on the lights as the pounding continued. I wasn’t concerned about my parents waking up - there wasn’t a megaton bomb explosion loud enough or a gamma ray burst bright enough to disturb their slumber. My only concern was the 200 pounds of roid rage standing between me and Once Upon a Time in America.

Brother: You little prick - let me in!

Me: Not by the hair on my skinny shin shin.

There had to be something in this 40 x 60 master suite I could weaponize. But what? A hairbrush from the his and her vanities? a hanger from the walk-in closets? a shard of glass from the chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling? the Bible on the nightstand? a pillow from the king-sized four-poster canopy bed? the plunger by the designer toilet? A razor blade? No, too easily dropped. Maybe I could sculpt a piece of soap from the Jacuzzi steam shower into the shape of a gun, like Woody Allen in Take the Money and Run. Wait - I’ve got it! I bounded over to the closet and took a pair of tiny scissors from Mom’s sewing kit. Say hello to my little friend.

Clutching the miniature scissors, I flung open the double doors…

Me: Say hello to…

He was gone. I heard his beefy ass rumbling down the spiral staircase. If that fucker thinks he’s gonna control the family room… I blew Mom and Dad a kiss, gently closed the doors, and then tore down the stairs. I found him in the family room snooping around the bowl of popcorn.

Brother: What’s this?

It was the misdirected sleeping pill.

Me: I don’t know. Probably Dad’s heart pressure pill. Maybe you should take it. You seem a bit…tense.

He looked suspiciously at the suspiciously half-empty cups.

Brother: You little creep. You spiked their drinks, didn’t you?

Before I could answer he pushed past me toward the stairs, bent on tattling to Mom and Dad. I jumped on his back and attempted the Vulcan nerve pinch, but to no avail. He flung me on my ass. But as I sat there watching him move away from me, I had a moment of clarity, an aha! moment, what psychologists call the Eureka Effect. A good fighter identifies and exploits his opponent’s weak spots, and my brother’s weak spot was an unholy blot on the landscape: his mullet. If I could get a hold of that thing, I could use it to control my brother the way an equestrian uses reins to control a horse. It wouldn’t be easy, though, because as he ran the mullet bobbed and weaved up and down and all around like a pond duck on speed. I had one chance to grab it before he got up the stairs. I bolted after him and leapt headfirst through the air, zeroing in on my target like a mullet-seeking missile, my eyes fixed on the bouncing eyesore, my outstretched left hand reaching for it, my right hand gripping the tiny scissors, poised to start hacking. It was a direct hit! I grasped the mullet and tackled him at the foot of the stairs, then yanked his head back and held the scissors up to that tonsorial nightmare like an enraged barber, threatening to chop it off.

Brother: Not the mullet!

Me: Say oncle.

Brother: What?

Me: Say oncle. I wanna hear you speak French.

Brother: Alright, okay…oncle. I’ll say anything, just don’t harm the mullet.

Me: Anything? Okay, let’s see…say mullets are hairdos for procto-invading turd burglars who make love to cocks with their uvulas.

Brother: In French?

I tightened my grip on the mullet and smashed his head face first into the hardwood stairs.

Me: You wanna play Samson to my Delilah, smartass?

Brother: Alright, alright…but what’s with all the Biblical references?

Me: I’m about two seconds from performing a mulletectomy. Say it! In English!

Brother: Mullets are hairdos for procto-invading turd burglars who make love to cocks with their uvulas.

I yanked his mullet-head closer to me and spoke directly into his ear.

Me: Okay, now, you listen and you listen good. If you rat me out to the folks I’ll make it my life’s purpose to separate you from your mullet. Understand? Say one word about this and you and your mullet will never walk the streets safely again. You’ll always be looking over your shoulder, wondering if I’m sneaking up behind you with these…

I stuck the tiny scissors in front of his face.

Brother: No!

Me: Oh, yeah. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I’ll be there, right behind you. When you go to the movies…I’ll be there. When you drive your car…I’ll be there. When you lift weights…I’ll be there. When you make sweet love to your boyfriend, I’ll be there. When you get your mullet trimmed…I’ll be there. When you go to sleep…oh yeah…I’ll be there, too. Got me?

Brother: Okay, listen…I swear I won’t talk. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. I know nothing. Please, just let the mullet go.

I smashed his face into the hardwood stairs again.

Me: I’ll let go of the mullet when I decide to let go of the mullet and not before.

My sister walked in the front door.

Sister: What the hell are you doing?

Brother: Sis, he spiked Mom and Dad’s drinks. They’re upstairs, unconscious.

Sister: What?

Brother: Yeah, now he’s threatening to cut off my mullet if I talk.

Sister: No, not his mullet!

I tightened my grip and showed her the tiny scissors.

Me: That’s right. One word from either of you and dear old brother here gets de-mulleted. Looks like you could use a trim yourself, sis. I mean, c’mon, birds would happily nest in there if it weren’t for that impenetrable layer of Aqua Net hairspray. It’s 1989, ya know? The eighties are all but over. Isn’t it time for you two to update your fashions?

Brother: The mullet will never go out of style.

Me: Yeah, that’s what the longhairs said about their hippie-dos in the ‘60s and what the blacks said about their afros in the ‘70s. The mullet’s end draws nigh…

Brother: Shut up!

Me: …and if you don’t keep quiet I’ll hasten its demise starting with you.

Sister: We won’t talk.

I released the mullet and my brother wobbled to his feet. My sister helped him up and wiped his bloodied face with a tissue.

Baby Sister walked in the front door.

Me: For fuck sake.

She whimpered when she saw my brother’s face and rushed to him. The three of them embraced and looked at me.

Sister: Look what you did to him. Look what you’ve done to this family. Why are you doing this? Why did you spike Mom and Dad’s drinks?

Baby Sister blubbered something unintelligible.

They were trying to make me feel guilty, but it wouldn’t work.

Me: Not that I have to answer to you, but I did it because I wanted to watch a movie in the family room…and what I want I take.

Sister: Are you insane? You spiked Mom and Dad’s drinks and beat up your brother because you wanted to watch a movie?

Me: That’s right. Anything wrong with that?

Sister: How can you even ask that? Of course, there’s something wrong with that!

Me: Enlighten me.

Brother: Forget it, sis. He thinks because he reads Nietzsche he’s a Superman. Morality doesn’t apply to him. He’s above it.

Me: Actually, dear brother, I’m not above morality. Nor am I below it. Nor am I even with it. Nor am I inside of it or outside of it. I am not above it, below it, even with it, inside of it, or outside of it because morality doesn’t exist.

Sister: How can you think that?

Me: There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

Brother: Look, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a Nietzschean Superman!

Me: It is not possible to do something wrong. It is only possible to call something wrong. Watch, I’ll demonstrate…

I punched my brother in the face, knocking him to the ground.

Me: See? Nothing wrong with that.

Sister: Yes…it is wrong!

Me: You can call it wrong all you like, but no matter how passionately you shout, it won’t make it so.

Sister: Some things are wrong! It’s wrong what you’re doing here tonight for starters! You don’t think molesting children is wrong? You don’t think rape is wrong? Murder?

Me: No, I don’t. It’s only wrong in your head and in the heads of those who think likewise. It’s not wrong outside of your head, in the physical world, in reality. The universe, my dear siblings, is utterly amoral. Were I to rape and murder a small child, I’d be doing nothing wrong. I’d merely be raping and murdering a small child. Reality cares not for little children. And that includes you, Baby Sister.

Baby Sister shuddered and clung to her siblings.

Brother: You godless, evil monster. I can’t believe you’re my brother.

Me: Why? Because I don’t believe in fairy tales?

Brother: Because you’re evil.

Me: Cart squarely before horse. I can’t be evil if evil doesn’t exist. Instead of hurling insults at me, why don’t you explain to me why raping and murdering a small child is evil?

Brother: I won’t dignify that with a response. What you’re saying is nuts, it’s absurd.

Me: It would be absurd if there were such a thing as morality, as good and evil. But since there isn’t, it is your position, my brother, that’s absurd. You’re mistaking your own moral indignation for a universal truth. Morality is the fable you long to withhold from reason.

Brother: I see no reason to adopt your appalling worldview.

Me: You don’t need a reason to adopt it. You need a reason not to. Give me a reason. Enlighten me, brother.

Sister: I’ll give you a reason. Because hurting people is wrong. Because human life has worth. Because taking someone’s life is robbing them of something extremely valuable.

Me: Valuable to the victim. Not the murderer. Why should the murderer consider his victim valuable? There’s nothing inherently valuable about a human being. Allow me to wax pedantic for a moment. 99% of the human body is composed of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorous. The remainder is mostly trace elements of other chemicals. What’s valuable about that? My dear siblings, you’re just a chance arrangement of atoms with no more inherent value than any other piece of matter. You may consider yourself and those you love valuable. But why should anyone else?

Sister: There’s more to us than that. We have minds and souls. We have value because God created us in his image and because we belong to Him and He loves us. No one has the right to harm what belongs to, and is loved by, God.

Me: Sunday school fairy tales. You’re projecting your own sense of worth out into the world and up into the heavens. But it’s not out there, sister. It only exists inside of you.

Sister: You don’t know that.

Me: Tell me, dear sister, what happens when we die? Can you give an accounting of it?

Sister: No, I don’t know for sure and either do you.

Me: I can tell you exactly what happens. Your brain functions cease. Your heart stops. Your lifeless body turns cold and stiff. Your skin turns from pale to green to purple to black. Your hair, nails, and teeth loosen and fall out. Bacteria that aided digestion when you were alive start feasting on your corpse. Your body fills up with foul-smelling gas…

Brother: Shut up!

Me: …your tongue protrudes from your mouth. Your eyes bulge from their sockets. Your rotting intestines ooze out of your rectum. Bloody fluid seeps out of your nose and mouth…

Baby Sister: Make him stop!

Me: …your abdomen swells to twice its normal size. Your internal organs rupture and liquefy. Finally, your distended belly bursts open with a hissing sound, spilling the reeking contents in a final loathsome purge.

Brother: Happy now? What does that prove?

Me: Those are the facts.

Sister: That’s what happens to the body, not the soul.

Me: Yeah, right, I forgot…you’re not really your body, are you? Death isn’t really death, is it? What really happens is that your soul flutters up to heaven and spends eternity with your all-loving, omnibenevolent God, right?

Sister: Some of us. Not you.

Me: You’ve concocted a feel-good fantasy to escape the brute reality of your inevitable finitude.

Sister: I’ve had enough of your insanity. You’re upsetting Baby Sister.

Baby Sister: Mommy and Daddy say my soul will go to heaven.

I knelt down for a heart to heart talk with Baby Sister.

Me: Listen, sweetie, Mommy and Daddy have been lying to you, okay. God doesn’t exist and you have no soul. There’s no heaven, and when you die, that’s it. No more Baby Sister. You’re just a cute little collection of molecules. Your body will rot and decay and get all stinky and maggots and worms will eat you all up. And the atoms of which you were composed will scatter to the wind and seep back into the ground from whence you came, okay pumpkin? It will be as if you had never existed at all. It’ll be like it was before you were born - complete and utter nothingness for eternity.

Baby Sister: No, I want my Mommy!

Me: Mommy can’t hear you, doodlebug.

Baby Sister: Is she okay? Is she dead?

Me: No, she’s not dead, cutie. Not yet anyway. But she will die, if not today or tomorrow, then someday soon. And the same thing will happen to her. She’ll be eaten by maggots and worms and you’ll never, ever see her again, okay sweetheart?

Baby Sister: Daddy, too?

Me: Daddy, too. And your brother and sister and your friends and everyone else you know and love - they’ll all be sucked into an immense black void forever. You see, snookums, we live in a godless, amoral universe bereft of meaning and purpose. Nothing matters at all. Nothing has any real value or worth. Not Mommy. Not Daddy. Not your brother and sister. Not even you, cupcake. If I slit your throat right now with these tiny scissors, guess what? It wouldn’t mean a thing. There’s no such thing as right and wrong or good and bad, okay dumpling? Those are just vacant concepts made up by silly people with a deep-seated dread of nihilism.

Brother: Stop it!

Me: Just one more thing, sweet pea. You know what else Mommy and Daddy have been lying to you about?

Baby Sister: What?

Me: Santa Clause

Baby Sister: Santa, too?

Me: That’s right, peanut, there’s no Santa either. Think about it: how can he possibly deliver toys to children all over the world in one night? It can’t be done. He just doesn’t exist. It’s all a big fat lie. But do you know who does exist?

Baby Sister: Who?

Me: The Boogeyman. And if you say anything to Mommy and Daddy about what you’ve seen or heard tonight, the big, bad boogeyman will get you while you sleep, okay honey bunny?

I gently pinched her cheek, playfully poked her bellybutton, and stood up.

Sister: Don’t listen to him, honey. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Me: Okay, I’ve had enough of you people. You’ re a real buzz kill, you know that?

I grabbed my pipe, took a monster hit, and blew the smoke in their faces.

Me: Now, listen… all of you are to go to your rooms and stay there for the rest of the night. Downstairs is off-limits. Verboten! Got me? I’m going to watch a movie in the family room and under no circumstances am I to be disturbed. Now go! They obediently walked upstairs and I headed to the family room, marveling at the intimidating power of my tiny scissors.

It was after midnight when finally I popped the cassette into my trusty Zenith VHS VCR Model VR 1830 and settled into my comfy couch to watch what was sure to be a riveting gangster saga.  Let’s just say that my love affair with Once Upon a Time in America did not begin the first time I saw it. Love at first sight it wasn’t. I spent the next four hours in a state of complete befuddlement, which was only partially due to the weed. Why is a phone ringing 100 times? Answer it! Why is a street urchin taking 15 minutes to eat a cupcake? Eat it! Why is De Niro stirring coffee for half an hour? Drink it! Why is a Chinaman taking forever to load De Niro’s opium pipe? Smoke it! What’s with the garbage truck? Where did Pesci go? Where did Eve come from? Why hasn’t Deborah aged? Why is De Niro smiling at me?

The film bore only a superficial resemblance to The Godfather, which had a classical narrative structure, a straightforward storyline, and coherent characterizations. Once Upon a Time in America, with its elliptical, time-jumping narrative, had more in common with European art cinema - though I wouldn’t have put it in those terms at the time. All I knew is that it sucked. I fell asleep that night cursing everyone involved with the film. And QT? Tomorrow he’s a dead man.

To be continued…

Posted on March 31st, 2012 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

Recap: No. No recap. Fuck that. Want a damn recap? Go read the post below this one. I will say this: when last we left our hero he was contemplating ax murdering his parents so that he could watch Once Upon a Time in America on the family room television. But although logic dictated that butchering his parents was the right thing to do, he rejected the idea because he was feeling mellow from the weed he’d smoked and just didn’t have the energy needed to carry out a double homicide.

________________________________________________________________

The idea occurred to me ten interminable minutes into Who’s the Boss?: I would spike their nightly cappuccino with sleeping pills. But, wait, doing so would require money, and only my parents had that. Damn catch-22s! Happily, the dilemma was easily resolved. I told Mom I needed a dress shirt for job interviews. I asked her for $50. She gave me $100. I love my Mom. So into our black Bentley I hopped and off I sped to the local pharmacy. Once there, I decided it was foolish to buy the pills when I could just unscrew the cap and pour them into my pocket. In they went, next to my pipe. I’d use the cash to buy munchies instead:

Into my cart I threw not a few
creamy Suzy Q’s and chewy Charleston chews
Then bag after bag after bag
of Doritos and Cheetos and Fritos I grabbed
Then in a row I did throw
a Hoho, cookie dough, and an Oreo
Next I did take a Little Debbie cake
and some ice cream for a chocolaty milk shake
Then off I did zip at a rapid clip
for the potato chips and onion dip
Then in I did stuff two bags of Cheese Puffs
‘cause one was not nearly enough
When upon my eyes laid Pringles, I did get the tingles
and oh my stars it’s a Snickers bar from Mars
And last but not least to complete my feast
I moved my two feet for a Twinkie to eat
Oh, ain’t it sweet?

Ah, fuck. A copper was standing at the checkout counter. I tiptoed up behind him as quietly as possible with my cart, but the pills clickity-clacking against my pipe gave me away. He turned and looked at me, nodded, then did a double take. You see, at this point my eyes resembled those of a nocturnal animal photographed with an infrared camera. He looked at my eyes, then at my cart o’ munchies, then back at my eyes.

Copper: Have you been toking tonight, son?

Fascist fuck.

Me: Oh, no sir, officer sir. Why would you think such a thing?

Copper: Why are your eyes so bloodshot?

Me: Well, officer sir, I’ve been swimming all day and the chlorine irritated them.

Copper: Uh-huh, and why is your cart full of munchies?

Me: Stocking up for Halloween, officer sir.

Copper: In June?

Me: Well, officer sir, you’ve heard of Christmas in July? This is Halloween in June.

Copper: I’ve got my eyes on you, son.

Me: Thanks for protecting and serving me, officer sir.

I extended him my heartiest dactylion as he went out the door, and then put my munchies on the counter. The cashier was a cute high school girl, maybe 17, with a new wave hairdo, one of those asymmetrical numbers where the hair was clipped short on one side, long and flowing on the other, as though she couldn’t decide if she were a rebel punk or a glamour girl. She must have been impressed by the way I handled the pig because she smiled coyly at me.

Girl: You’re, like, totally stoned aren’t you?

Me: Are you kidding - fuckin’ blazed.

She covered her mouth with pink press-on nails and giggled.

Me: Want some? Primo shit.

Girl: Like…here? Not even!

Me: C’mon, the oinker’s gone.

Girl: I’m so sure! What if, like, someone comes in?

Me: They’ll get a contact buzz. C’mon. Let’s party.

Girl: As if!

Not taking “as if” for an answer, I loaded my pipe, handed it to her, and swiped a Bic lighter from a display case.

Girl: Oh my God. This is, like, so totally radical.

She put the pipe between her bright fuchsia lips. I leaned in and fired it up. She inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in her lungs for a few seconds before slowly releasing it, her face the picture of serenity as the smoke spiraled up toward the ceiling.

Girl: Ahhh, that’s, like, totally mellow.

Me: Take another hit.

My loins stirred as she placed the pipe back in her Revlon mouth. I had to have her - right now. Yeah, I have a girlfriend, but that doesn’t mean shit. No woman has a claim on me. And I have a claim on no woman. I belong to womankind. And womankind belongs to me. Monogamy is for emasculated pussy-whipped conformist fools. Evolution equipped me with a desire to deposit my seed in as many fertile young devotchka’s as possible, and that’s precisely what I was going to do. I hopped over the counter, nudged her backward, and put my arms on each side of her, trapping her against the wall. She looked up at me with her cerulean-shadowed emerald eyes and we kissed, our tongues hungrily probing each other’s mouths, our hands eagerly exploring each other’s bodies. She sighed as I hickey’d her smooth, lily-slender neck and unhooked her satin lace bullet bra and caressed her creamy, still-blossoming breasts. Enraptured, I buried my head in her silken hot pink hair, letting the alluring fragrance of Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific shampoo, Obsession perfume, and primo marijuana wash over me.

Me: Now I want you to smoke my other pipe. Will you do that for me?

Girl: Yes, yes…

She went down on me behind the counter. I ate a Suzy Q while she brought me to full tumescence. Then I flung her on the counter, ripped off her designer jeans, and took her right there, between the cash register and the tabloid magazines. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I quickly induced multiple orgasms in her with my prodigious cocksmanship. Fifteen minutes later three hundred million of my sperm were frantically swimming toward her fallopian tube. We lay there spent and satisfied, oblivious to what was happening around us. Then a man cleared his throat. We looked up and saw a balding, middle-aged guy standing at the counter. Caught in flagrante delicto by a bourgeois perv.

Girl: May I help you?

Man: I’ll have what he’s having…

We got When Harry Met Sally’d.

Suddenly screeches came from near the front doors. No fucking way - it was the little girl and her mother from the video store. The little girl, her fragile psyche now irreparably shattered, clung to her mother, whimpering and muttering incoherently. I pulled out of the cashier and got dressed behind the counter. She said the munchies were on the house, so I tossed them in the cart and started wheeling toward the exit. I blew a kiss to the cashier, patted the bald guy on the head, tipped my imaginary hat to the mother and little girl, and rolled out the door.

No sign of the copper. I couldn’t wait to get in the car; the sex, not to mention the pot, had made me ravenous. The ensuing feeding frenzy lasted from the parking lot to my driveway, punctuated by monster bowl hits at red lights. Mothers Against Baked Drivers can blow me. So can Officer I’ve Got My Eyes on You. I just hope the old man doesn’t notice the Twinkie cream stains on the Bentley’s tan leather seats.

The Golden Girls was on when I got in. Things were going perfectly according to plan. The night was still young…the cappuccino was brewing…and I had the pills. Soon I’d have control of the family room and be watching Once Upon a Time in America. I was sure the old folks would get their cappuccino during the commercial break, but to my surprise they didn’t budge from their seats.

Mom: Did you get the shirt?

Me: The shirt? Oh, the shirt. Yeah…no…they were all out.

Mom: Out? Where did you go?

Me: Never mind that. Mmmm, the cappuccino sure smells yummy. Stay right there, I’ll get it for you.

Mom: That’s sweet of you, honey, but we already had ours. When you were out.

Me: What? That’s impossible. I smell it brewing, for Christ’s sake.

Mom: We left some for you, sweetie.

Me: I don’t want any. You finish it. Both of you. I’ll get it.

Dad: Another cup? No way - we’d be up all night.

Not with the cup you’d drink, old man.

Me: You’re just gonna let it go to waste? Children are starving in…Biafra…or wherever…and you’re wasting good cappuccino?

Dad: You drink it if you’re so concerned. Or send it to Biafra - though you’d be about 20 years too late.

Ah, fuck. Now what? Betty White and the girls were sitting around the kitchen table eating cheesecake. My parents were laughing, having a grand old time. The worthless cappuccino was getting cold. Children were starving somewhere. And I still had the munchies. I repaired to my room with a bag of Doritos and brainstormed ways to gain control of the family room. I crunched a Dorito. I crunched another Dorito. I crunched a third Dorito. The brainstorming wasn’t working. I had nothing. Amid the haze of my marijuana high, all I could do was fantasize about Avery Schreiber-izing them out of the room with deafening Dorito crunches.

That’s when the answer came wafting up to my room in a buttery aroma. Could it be? I perked up my ears and heard the sweet popping melody. Yes, my parents were making popcorn. Where there was popcorn there were sure to be drinks and where there were drinks…

I grabbed the sleeping pills and sprinted to the kitchen.

Dad: Too bad you don’t move that fast when you hear about a job opening.

Too bad you won’t be moving at all in ten minutes.

Me: I’ll get the drinks. What’re you having?

Dad: Coke. Decaf.

Me: Right, we wouldn’t want you up all night. Mom?

Mom: Same, sweetie.

Me: Two decaffeinated cokes coming up.

I poured the drinks and was ready to spike them when I sensed the old folks hovering over me. I looked up and there they were with their bowls of popcorn, watching me, waiting for their drinks. I couldn’t slip in the pills without them seeing me do it.

Me: Just pouring the drinks. Go on ahead. I’ll be there in a few seconds.

Dad: Aren’t you having any?

Me: No.

Dad: Popcorn?

Me: Nope.

Dad: What are you up to?

Me: What?

Dad: Are we to believe that you dashed down here just to pour us drinks out of the goodness of your heart?

Me: Can’t a guy do something nice for his parents without having some ulterior motive? Jeez!

Dad: Honey, is it me or is he up to something?

Mom: Oh, he’s definitely up to something.

Me: Would you just go sit down and let me finish pouring the drinks?

Dad: What is taking you so long? Give me that.

Dad yanked the bottle of Coke away from me, handed me the bowls of popcorn, and grabbed the drinks himself.

Dad: Let’s go.

We walked to the family room together - I with the popcorn, Dad with the unspiked drinks.

Baked to mellowy perfection, I plopped into our downy sofa and felt as though I were sitting on a piece of cotton floating through a fluffy cumulus cloud. For a moment there I was actually enjoying myself. I was almost resigned to the idea that I’d just have to wait it out when canned laughter from Empty Nest, an inane spinoff of The Golden Girls, penetrated my happy zone. I must put a stop to this. But how was I going to spike their drinks? Our sofa was a sectional, and as a rule I sat at least one cushion removed from my parents, which meant I couldn’t reach their drinks on the coffee table without making an obvious lunge in that direction. I had two options: 1) Get closer to their cups by moving to the cushion next to Dad, or 2) Toss the pills into the cups from where I was.

I figured the odds of success were better with Option 1. But how would Dad react to my sitting next to him? It was a risky move, but worth a try. So the next time they lost themselves in laughter I furtively slipped into the cushion next to Dad, feigning laughter alongside him. Dad looked at me with suspicion. I looked at Dad with apprehension. We stared at each other for a few seconds. Please make it stop.

Dad: What. Are. You. Doing.

Me: Sitting here.

Dad: Don’t.

Me:  Okay.

I moved back to where I was. Option 2 was my only hope. I was about to attempt what they call in basketball parlance a three-point bomb. I calculated that the minimum launch speed angle of the pill should be 47.4 degrees and that the optimum entry angle to the cup should be 43.8 degrees. Obviously, to pull this off requires exceptional hand-eye coordination and exquisite fingertip control. Brimming with confidence, I squared my body to the cup, locked my eyes on the target, positioned my elbow at a 90 degree angle, and gently held the pill between my right index finger and thumb.

Okay, here we go: 1…2…3

With a slight, tightly controlled backward-and-forward flick of my wrist I let the pill fly, slightly separating index finger and thumb at the point of release and finishing with a smooth, continuous follow-through. And there it went, arcing through the air at the perfect trajectory, maintaining minimum flight velocity, and zeroing in on its target with precision accuracy. And then…

….it clanged off the front of the rim, careened past Dad, and went straight into the bowl of popcorn.

Son of a bitch. Luckily, my oblivious parents were too busy laughing to notice the misguided projectile. A slight modification to my release point should do the trick.

1…2…3

Swish!

Then I got the hot hand and couldn’t miss - hook shots, fadeaways, bank shots off one cup and into the other. I was on fire! My parents remained blissfully unaware of what was happening under their noses. I buried five pills in each cup and let the corrosive effects of Coke do the rest. Now all I had to do was wait. I smiled with satisfaction, clasped my fingers together, rested my head against a downy pillow, and…

…fell asleep.

I woke up at the end of Johnny Carson’s monologue. The old folks, who’d gotten half way through their drinks, were zonked out. I carried Mom up to bed without incident. But when I reached the foot of the stairs with Dad, my brother unexpectedly walked in the front door and saw me carrying him. It looked bad, what with Dad’s head hanging over my left forearm, his calves and feet hanging over my right forearm.

Brother: What the hell is going on?

Me: Shhhhh! He fell asleep watching TV and I’m putting him to bed.

Brother: You’re putting Dad to bed? What is he, an infant?

Me: Keep your voice down, dickwad. He had a trying day at the office and I didn’t want to wake him.

Brother: Jesus, he’s drooling all over the place.

It was true. A string of drool hung from his mouth to the floor. Even worse, he started muttering.

Dad: …he…is…up… to something…up…to…no good…

Brother: What did he say?

When my brother stepped closer I swung Dad out of the way and banged his head on the banister. He stopped muttering after that.

Brother: Jesus Christ, he’s not sleeping, he’s unconscious. What the hell did you do to him?

Me: This man is exhausted. Understand, shithead? So excuse me while I tuck him in.

With that, I bolted up the stairs, ran down the hall to my parents’ room, flung Dad on the bed next to Mom, and shut and locked the door just before my brother got there. As I tucked Dad in for the night it dawned on me that this is when they usually go to bed anyway. All my efforts were pointless. But that’s okay, for I was suddenly overcome with deep love for my folks. Just look at ‘em - snug and secure, sleeping peacefully, blessedly quiet. Gee whiz, they’re swell. I’m so glad I didn’t massacre them.

But enough of this sentimental mush. It was time to watch Once Upon a Time in America!

To be continued…

Posted on March 24th, 2012 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Miscellaneous | No Comments »

I fell in love for the first time when I was 21. Sure, I’d had flings before - superficial, passing infatuations. But this was the real thing: deep and everlasting love. She was The One, my True Love, perfect in every way. My world revolved around her. I couldn’t get enough of her. I wanted her and only her. Her name was Once Upon a Time in America. This is our story…

It was the summer of ‘89. School was out. I was young, white, and free. I was young, white, and not nearly as free as I used to be. Gone were the carefree summer days of yore spent playing baseball, going to amusement parks, chasing the ice cream man, tooling around on my 10-speed, shooting animals with my slingshot, molesting neighborhood girls, and committing acts of petty larceny. Now I was expected to be a responsible adult, a productive member of society. Whatever. If being an adult meant having less free time, well, then adulthood would just have to wait. If being productive meant getting a job, well, then productivity would just have to suffer. That summer I resolved to be as immature, irresponsible, and unproductive as possible; I refused to suppress my desires for the “good” of society. My motto: Fuck society. My maxim: Whatever I want is good and whatever gets in the way of what I want is bad.

Putting my maxim into practice wasn’t easy. I was under constant pressure to get a job. My meddling parents hounded me daily. All my friends were working, which made me look bad. “Now Hiring” signs taunted me everywhere; I couldn’t even go to the goddamn liquor store without seeing one. Even my drug dealer said I wasn’t pulling my weight. But I held firm to my principles and rejected all opportunities to contribute to society or improve myself in any way:

• I could have gotten a job as a house painter or a landscaper or a factory machinist or something. After all, my friends had. Manual labor, I was told, is good for you. My friends were bettering themselves, learning the value of hard work, and making money to boot. Well, bully for them. Bettering yourself was boring. Hard work was for suckers. And who needed money? I had parents with money.

• I could have done volunteer work, like some goody-goody churchgoer or bleeding-heart liberal. Helping underprivileged and disadvantaged kids is a great way to give back to the community; plus, it would foster my moral development. So the story went. But nah, those poor fuckers would just have to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps without my assistance. I had more important things to do - like play the new version of Donkey Kong.

• I could have made my parents proud by helping out around the house. My siblings had chores aplenty that summer: they painted our 7500 sq. ft. house; cleaned out our 4-car garage; mowed and landscaped our 2 acre property; planted and maintained the vegetable garden; washed the cars; vacuumed the pool, etc. But who had time for that shit? After all, by the time I got out of bed in the afternoon, showered, ate, tanned by the pool, and played Donkey Kong, the day was almost over. Besides, mastering Donkey Kong was no easy task, ya know? It took skill, persistence and, above all, time, to complete level 4. Couldn’t my parents be proud of that accomplishment?

But it wasn’t sleeping or showering or eating or tanning or even Donkey Konging that occupied most of my time that summer. No, my friends, that was the summer of Once Upon a Time in America. I had just seen the first two Godfather films and was looking for another gangster epic. But I had a problem: videos rented for $1.50 in those days. I was a dollar short. I needed cash and I needed it fast. Where’s Mom? I asked her for a dollar. She gave me fifty. I love my Mom. So into our red Rolls convertible I hopped and off I sped to the local video store on my epic quest. It was a gorgeous summer day, the sun a radiant golden orb affixed to a watery azure sky, and as I was cruisin’ down the road with my top down, shades on, radio blastin’, and long hair blowin’ in the warm breeze, I noticed one of my buddies sweating his ass off at his landscaping job. Chump - it’ll take him five hours to earn what I just made, tax-free, in less than a minute. I tooted as I drove by.

I don’t remember the name of the video store - it’s long gone now - but I can still see the storefront windows adorned with posters of the latest releases: Rain Man, Working Girl, Dangerous Liaisons. I entered the store and vaguely heard the clerk, no doubt a pimply-faced, know-nothing high schooler with Guns ‘N’ Roses posters on his bedroom walls, utter some empty greeting like “Hello” or “Welcome”, but having no time for such meaningless niceties I walked past the front desk without acknowledging the annoying little twerp.

From the hanging TV monitors above me I heard Dustin Hoffman say, “I’m an excellent driver.” But I had no interest in Wapner-watching retards. I knew exactly what I wanted and where I was going. While the other patrons browsed indecisively, moving slowly from row to row, I strode swiftly, purposefully, across the store’s faded, well-worn carpeting, past the display racks overstuffed with blockbusters, past the refreshment stands of popcorn and Jujubes, past the video game section and the children’s section, past the romances, westerns and comedies, past the documentaries, fantasies and musicals, pausing only briefly at the entrance to a dingy, dimly-lit backroom forbidden to children, before refocusing on the task at hand  and continuing on to the aisle I sought: thrillers/crime.

The shelves were jammed with empty videocassette boxes. Scanning the titles for a gangster film like The Godfather, I worked my way from A to…O. There it was! Something called Once Upon a Time in America. The “once upon a time” part sounded a little gay, but it was a 4-hour period gangster movie starring Robert De Niro, with a box big enough to contain two VHS cassettes - just like The Godfather. Success!

I then ducked into the aforementioned backroom, grabbed Rear Entry 7, and proceeded to the front counter. But after taking a closer look at the back cover I decided against it: the women were ugsome skanks with scabby asses littered with crusty dingleberries. Blech! I didn’t feel like walking back to the room, so I left the box where I was standing: next to Disney’s Snow White in the children’s section.

The pimply, know-nothing clerk heartily commended my selection.

Clerk: I heartily commend your selection!

Like this mooncalf knows shit. Why don’t you heartily do your job and ring me up. I’m busy.

Me: Oh, yeah?

Clerk: Great film, dude. Sergio Leone rocks, man.

Why is he talking about a country in West Africa?

Me: Who?

Clerk: Duh! Sergio Leone. The father of the Spaghetti Western?

Why is he talking about chefs?

Me: The what?

Clerk: Dude, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad, and the fucking Ugly. You’ve, like, heard of Clint Eastwood, right?

Me: Of course.

Clerk: Leone totally made Eastwood a star, man. The guy’s a fucking legend, alright? Did you know he wanted to make Once Upon a Time in America after The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?

Me: Oh, yeah?

Clerk: Yeah, man, but, like, the fucking suits wouldn’t let him. And besides, Dan “Dark Shadows” Curtis held the rights to ‘The Hoods’ and, like, wouldn’t give them up.

What a know-it-all know-nothing.

Me: ‘The…Hoods’?

Clerk: Dude, “The Hoods” is the book upon which, like, the film is based. Anyway, the fucking suits wanted Leone to make another Western instead, so he got together with Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci and made Once Upon a Time in the West! …Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Once Upon a Time in the West.

Me: Ah…no.

Clerk: Dude, it’s, like, the most bodacious Western ever, alright? It totally flopped here in the States because the fucking suits cut out 25 minutes, but it played for two straight years at a theatre in Paris near the river Seine…

I tuned out the motor-mouthed geek. It occurred to me that he must be an idiot savant, like that moron in Rain Man, with an encyclopedic knowledge of film. He completely lost me when he started waxing lyrical about the virtues of a forgotten film about ducks and suckers or some such thing. I tuned back in when the lecture finally returned to Once Upon a Time in America.

Clerk: …and so he couldn’t get funding for Once Upon a Time in America for, like, 16 years until he met Arnon Milchan at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980. Finally, he got to make his dream project…and then you know what happened, dude?

Let me guess: the fucking suits struck again.

Me: What?

Clerk: The fucking suits butchered his masterpiece, that’s what! They eliminated the flashback structure, ripped out 90 minutes, and yanked the narrative into chronological order.

Me: Oh, yeah?

Clerk: Fuck yeah, man. They destroyed it, dude. The fucking suits. Leone was never the same after that. The whole debacle took a toll on his health and he, like, died a few months ago. They say it was a heart attack. Fuck that noise. It was a broken heart. The fucking suits not only killed the film, they killed the man, man.

I glanced at the nerd’s nametag: Quentin. What kind of name is Quentin?

Me: Hey, Quentin…

Quentin: Call me QT.

Me: QT, how much is it?

QT: $1.50

I took out my Mom’s crisp twenty dollar bill, pulled on the ends of it, and presented it to QT. I took back $18 in change and told him to keep the rest as a token of my appreciation for his informative lecture. I’m a firm believer in tipping the riffraff. He seemed grateful. Before leaving I grabbed a job application. Not that I had any intention of working there, mind you. It was a tactic designed to give my parents the impression that I was actively seeking work; the plan was to strategically leave applications in spots around the house where the old folks were sure to see them - like on the refrigerator, on toilet seats, next to the remote control, in the medicine cabinet, and under their pillows.

On the way out I heard ungodly screeches coming from the children’s section. I turned and saw a little girl clutching Snow White run sobbing into her mother’s arms. The mother asked what was wrong and the traumatized girl pointed hysterically to where she got Snow White. Aghast, the mother rushed toward the front counter. Uh-oh, QT was about to get an earful. I scampered out the door.

On the way home I bought a 12-pack of Heineken and shot-gunned a beer at every red light. Fact: On average, Americans spend 6 months of their lives waiting at red lights. That’s unacceptable. Given the chance I’ll run a red light without a moment’s hesitation - my way is the only right of way - but sometimes doing so isn’t possible and I’m forced to wait just like everyone else, as if I were a commoner. I detest waiting. It’s undignified and stressful. So, I indulge in a libation or two to take the edge off. I’ve granted myself that right. MADD can blow me. So can the coppers.

I tossed a can to my parched landscaping buddy as I drove by. He seemed grateful.

I swerved into my driveway around dinnertime. Despite having a bellyful of beer, I was famished. I hadn’t eaten solid food since, like, I don’t know, four o’clock that afternoon. Judging from the enticing aroma that greeted me at the front door, Mom was preparing something scrumptious. Ambrosial vapors from caramelized onions and sautéed mushrooms sizzling in a buttery garlic sauce introduced themselves to my nose. I breathed in deeply, greedily. The aromatic goodness permeated my nasal cavity and gently caressed my sensitive smell receptors before fragrantly stroking off my olfactory bulb. My salivary glands came hard, the gushing Pavlovian secretions wetting my mouth in eager anticipation of Mom’s home-cooking. My nose led me to the kitchen. And…

…there they were - Mom, Dad, brother, sister, baby sister, all sitting around the table giving me the evil eye. Dinner was served and I was late. What a buzz kill these people were. Dad: the wealthy capitalist with the Puritan work ethic. Mom: the dutiful homemaker. Brother: the weightlifting, mullet-headed, Polo-cologne-scented, Firebird-driving dick. Sister: the aerobic-dancing, gargantuan-haired, Jordache-jean-wearing, Camaro-driving cunt. Baby Sister: the annoyingly cute, bitch-in-the-making, spoiled little brat.

Dad: Sit down. We were just about to start without you.

Me: Smells great.

Dad: Really, because after you came in all I can smell is beer.

Me: Beer? Huh, that’s odd.

I sliced my steak, stabbed a piece of it with a fork, and brought it up to my mouth…

Dad: Wait! We haven’t said grace.

Jesus fucking Christ!

Dad: Our Father who art in heaven…

Our derelict Father who aren’t in heaven…

Dad: hallowed be thy name…

hollow be thy name…

Dad: Thy kingdom come…

Thy kingdom undone…

Dad: Thy will be done…

Thy will be mum…

Dad: on earth as it is in heaven…

on earth with a dearth of worth as it is at 7-11…

Dad: Give us this day our daily bread…

Give us this day our daily bread with the crust cut off…

Dad: and forgive us our trespasses…

and forgive not those who trespass against us…

Dad: as we forgive those who trespass against us…

as you forgive not those who trespass against you…

Dad: and lead us not into temptation…

and surround us now with temptation…

Dad: but deliver us from evil.

but punish us forever if we give in to sin…

Dad: Forever and ever, Amen.

Whatever and ever, Amen.

I was chomping steak before the believers finished blessing themselves.

Baby Sister: How come you said that prayer, Daddy? That’s not grace.

Dad: Honey, you can say Our Father anytime. And there’s someone at this table who needs to hear it.

Baby Sister giggled and pointed at me. My mouth was too full of steak to respond.

Dad: Did you look for a job today?

I presented him with the application from the video store.

Dad: Is that it?

Me: I got a late start.

Dad: Really? What time did you get up today? I was up at 4 o’clock.

Me: Same here.

Dad: You got up at 4 a.m.?

Me: Well, not…a.m.

Dad: Idleness is the root of all evil. Dickens.

Me: Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good. Kierkegaard.

Take that old man.

Dad: Try this proverb on for size: Idleness is that which means no car, no money, no pool, no video games, and no television for you. How good will that be?

Score one for the old man. Get more applications tomorrow.

Sister: All he does is sleep late, lay out, and play video games.

Me: And all you do is sleep around, lay guys, and play with yourself, twat.

Dad: Hey, I won’t have that language at my table! What makes you so special, mister? Your parents work. Your friends work. Your girlfriend works. Your siblings work. Even your baby sister works. Why don’t you work? Don’t you have any pride in yourself?

Yeah, old man, I have pride - in my golden brown tan, in my Donkey Kong prowess, in the primo weed I smoke, in the amount of liquor I can hold, in my rock hard 8-inch cock.

Me: Of course I have pride in myself, Dad. I share your sense of responsibility to the community and your strong work ethic. I just haven’t found a job yet is all.

Brother: What a crock! You won’t find a job by the pool, ya know? And your only sense of responsibility is to Donkey Kong.

Me: Prick, you’re just jealous because you suck. Can’t even get past level 3 because you sadly lack the necessary hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity.

Brother: Because I don’t play it 12 hours a day.

Me: Because you don’t have what it takes. And because you’re a pussy. What do you do when I challenge you to game of Kong? Huh? You flee in fear like a nun from a dildo factory.

Dad: Enough!

Mom: How’s the filet?

Good ole Mom, deflecting the conversation into a less touchy area.

Dad: It’s delicious, honey.

Me: Um, yeah, it’s pretty good, if a bit overcooked and a mite… bland. It needs salt and pepper.

Damn! The shakers were by Dad.

Me: Dad, would you please pass me the salt and pepper?

No answer. I recoiled in horror when I saw his face - it resembled an angry carbuncle ready to explode. He paused for a moment - I think he was counting to ten - and then passed me the shakers, hands trembling with pent-up rage.

Me: Thanks.

I peppered my food without looking up. I didn’t need to. I could feel the stare. Dad was glowering at me over a twitching forkful of overcooked steak.

After dinner I repaired to my room, fired up a bowl, and listened to The Smiths’ “Meat is Murder” while my steak digested. What else was I gonna do? My friends couldn’t go out because they had to be at work at the crack of dawn. I was sick of my girlfriend. My siblings were out for the evening. I’d mastered Donkey Kong. I had nothing to do. I wanted to watch Once Upon a Time in America on our giant 26″ Sony in the family room, but my parents had a monopoly on that set during primetime hours. They had TV to watch. Lots of it. Here’s the nightmare lineup I’d have to endure before gaining control of the remote: Who’s the Boss at 8, Roseanne at 8:30, The Golden Girls at 9, Empty Nest at 9:30, Knots Landing at 10, followed by the local 11 o’clock news, and, finally, Johnny Carson’s opening monologue.

Asking them to watch the movie was out of the question. You see, watching movies with my parents is like trying to sleep with a mosquito buzzing in your ear. It can’t be done. They’re nothing but impediments to my viewing enjoyment:

• If the phone rings in the middle of an important scene, which it invariably does, they answer it - without bothering to pause the tape.

• Nor are they averse to talking during movies; in fact, they become quite chatty: “Who’s that actress?” “What else has he been in?” “How old is this movie?” “What did he say?” “Why did she do that?” “What’s going on?” “How long is this?” “Oh, honey, I forgot to tell you, cousin Bob called today, said Louise is going to have surgery on her hemorrhoids.”

• Then there are the refreshments: while Mom crinkles candy wrappers and slurps tea, Dad crunches Doritos and chomps apples. And no matter what’s happening on screen, be it the chariot race in Ben-Hur or the crop-dusting scene in North by Northwest, at the half-way point they head to the kitchen to make popcorn. And the infernal popping commences.

• This heavy consumption of food explains why my Dad falls asleep during every movie. The man has never seen an entire film in his life. Invariably, his snoring disrupts a crucial scene, prompting Mom to nudge him awake and bring him up to speed. Of course, he never admits to falling asleep; he’s just “resting his eyes.”

Interruptions of this sort would not stand, and so I resolved to watch the film alone, after dark, when the old folks were securely tucked away in bed. But I was a long way from that point. There must be a way to unglue them from that TV screen. Think, man, think. I could blow pot smoke into the family room and yell “Fire!”, then lock them out of the house when they ran outside. Nah, they’d just start annoying me by pounding on the door. I could make a phone call pretending to be from the hospital and say that my sister OD’d on crack while getting gangbanged by a group of inner city black dudes and was rushed to the emergency room. Nope, the movie’s four hours long and they’d be back before it ended. I could get an ax and go all Lizzie Borden on their asses. Hmmmm? Sure, it would be a pain to clean up, but the finality of it appealed to me.

Remember my maxim: Whatever I want is good and whatever gets in the way of what I want is bad. Let’s make that the first premise of a syllogism:

1: Whatever I want is good and whatever gets in the way of what I want is bad.

2: I want to watch Once Upon a Time in America on the family room television.

3. Therefore, my watching Once Upon a Time in America on the family room television is good.

4. My parents are in the way of what I want.

5. Therefore, my parents are bad.

6. Anything I do to remove whatever gets in the way of what I want is good.

7. Therefore, ax murdering my parents is good.

Logic clearly dictates that I ought to slaughter my parents. But can you imagine what that would entail? I’d have to get money from Mom, drive all the way to the hardware store for an ax, drive all the way back home, chop up Mom and Dad, clean up the blood, and dispose of the body parts. That’s a lot of work. And I was feeling pretty mellow from the weed. There must be an easier way…

To be continued…

Posted on March 17th, 2012 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

At the risk of upstaging tonight’s Oscar ceremony, today I am announcing the winners of the 5th Annual NOFF Awards. I usually write commentary for each category, but for several reasons, chief among them sheer laziness, this year I only got around to scribbling about the first three: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. I’m afraid I hastily threw most of the post together today.

No rule changes: for a film to be eligible it must have appeared, either theatrically, on video, or On Demand, in the U.S. for the first time during the 2011 calendar year.

I’ve seen the following 145 eligible films:

13 Assassins
50/50
Adjustment Bureau, The
Adventures of Tintin, The
Albert Nobbs
American: The Bill Hicks Story
Arbor, The
Armadillo
Arthur Christmas
Artist, The
Attack the Block
Bad Teacher
Beginners
Bellflower
Better Life, A
Bill Cunningham New York
Black Death
Bobby Fischer Against the World
Bridesmaids
Brotherhood
Buck
Caller, The
Captain America: The First Avenger
Carnage
Cars
Cave of Forgottern Dreams
Cedar Rapids
Certified Copy
City of Life and Death
Cold Fish
Cold Weather
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
Contagion
Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Dangerous Method, A
Descendants, The
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
Dirty Girl
Drive
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Film socialisme
Fish Story
Fly Away
Future, The
George Harrison: Living in the Material World
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The
Gnomeo & Juliet
Guard, The
Hanna
Happy Feet Two
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Help, The
Hobo with a Shotgun
Horrible Bosses
House of Tolerance
Housemaid, The
How I Ended This Summer
How to Die in Oregon
Hugo
I Saw the Devil
Ides of March, The
Innkeepers, The
Insidious
Interrupters, The
Into the Abyss
Iron Lady, The
J. Edgar
Jane Eyre
Kaboom
Kung Fu Panda 2
Last Lions, The
Last Night
Le quattro volte
Leap Year
Like Crazy
Lonely Place to Die, A
Man Who Collected Food, The
Margaret
Margin Call
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Meek’s Cutoff
Melancholia
Midnight in Paris
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Moneyball
Muppets, The
My Week with Marilyn
Mysteries of Lisbon
Myth of the American Sleepover, The
Neds
Nostalgia for the Light
Of Gods and Men
Page One: Inside the New York Times
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Paranormal Activity 3
Paul
Perfect Host, The
Poetry
Priest
Project Nim
Puss in Boots
Putty Hill
Rango
Rapt
Real Steel
Red State
Rio
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Rite, The
Robber, The
Rubber
Senna
Separation, A
Shame
Silent House, The
Skin I Live In, The
Sleeping Beauty
Small Town Murder Songs
Soul Surfer
Source Code
Stake Land
Submarine
Super
Super 8
Tabloid
Take Shelter
Terri
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
To Die Like a Man
Tree of Life, The
Trip, The
Troll Hunter, The
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
Tuesday, After Christmas
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Vanishing on 7th Street
Ward, The
Warrior
We Are What We Are
Weekend
Win Win
Winnie the Pooh
Woman, The
Young Adult

BEST PICTURE
Drive	Hanna	Margaret	Rango	A Separation
And the Noffscar goes to: Drive

The protagonist of Drive, an enigmatic, taciturn antihero named Driver, is descended from a long line of cine-mythical figures. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to swipe the inside of Driver’s cheek and extract a DNA sample for analysis. The results, shown below in a family tree, were startling:

Shane – Driver’s great grandfather
Ethan Edwards and Joe Bradley – Driver’s great granduncles
The Man with No Name and Harmonica – Driver’s granduncles
Bullitt – Driver’s grandfather
The Driver – Driver’s father

(Note: the female side of Driver’s family is largely unknown, no doubt consisting of anonymous whores, saloon singers, honky-tonk waitresses, etc, though rumor has it that his mother is Ms. 45.)

He’s called Driver. Why? Because he drives. He drives by day as a Hollywood stunt driver, by night as an ultra-slick getaway driver. In the opening getaway scene, in which he plays a game of vehicular cat and mouse with police, Driver displays two essential character traits inherited from his cinematic forebears: 1) the unparalleled driving skill of his grandfather, Bullitt, and 2) the laconic cool of his granduncle, The Man With No Name (whose famous poncho got handed down and refashioned into Driver’s scorpion jacket). Notice how he remains preternaturally calm behind the wheel, like a machine himself, an unemotional extension of his car, knowing exactly when to pull to the curb and when to make his move, when to slow to a crawl and when to floor it, outsmarting and outmaneuvering the cops at every turn.

But Driver cannot be defined by his driving alone. Other character traits emerge, including an unexpected romanticism, which finds unspoken expression when he and girl-next-door Irene meet cute and fall in love. Driver woos Irene into his passenger seat and, like a knight on shining chrome, whisks her off on romantic driving excursions set to catchy “neon-pop” love songs like College’s “Real Hero.” Refn likens their relationship to one from Sixteen Candles, and for a while the film threatens to turn into a storybook romance – until, that is, Irene and Driver run afoul of vicious gangsters and the story veers into territory dark and unsettling. Refn, it turns out, isn’t John Hughes. And Driver sure ain’t The Geek.

Driver strives to protect the imperiled Irene, like his gallant great grandfather Shane would have done, but although his motives are pure, his methods are anything but. He may have the nobility of Shane and the sweet romanticism of a John Hughes character, but he’s also got something to do with death like his granduncle Harmonica, not to mention the psychotic tendencies of his first cousin twice removed, Travis Bickle.

Driver’s alarming capacity for ultra-violence manifests before Irene’s eyes when they find themselves sharing an elevator with a hit man sent to kill them. By the time the elevator reaches the ground floor, Driver will have stomped the man’s head to mush Tommy DeVito-style and effectively destroyed any chance he had with Irene in the process. But before doing that, before transforming into a skull-crushing angel of death, Driver shows his softer side in the most tenderly romantic moment of the year. He gently guides Irene to the corner of the elevator, the lighting softens, the music swells, and time stands still as they gaze into each other’s eyes and kiss for the first and last time. Refn emphasizes the significance of the moment for good reason: it is a farewell kiss, for Driver knows their romance is doomed after what she’s about to see him do. The scene, an instant classic, invites a complex emotional response, not only because it has hopeless romantics sighing in delight one moment, hard-boiled toughies recoiling in shock the next, but also because it underscores Driver’s tragic dilemma: he must act to save Irene, but doing so inevitably means losing her.

And so…

…like his forebears, Shane and Harmonica, who did what they had to do and then rode off into the sunset, Driver does what he has to do and then drives off into the neon-lit night…

…and straight into cinematic folklore.

BEST DIRECTOR
Asghar Farhadi for A Separation	Kenneth Lonergan for Margaret	Gore Verbinski for Rango	Lars von Trier for Melancholia	Nicolas Winding Refn for Drive
And the Noffscar goes to: Nicolas Winding Refn

The consensus is in. Terrence Malick was the best director of 2011. Fuck the consensus. If NOFFscars were handed out based on ambition alone, Malick would deserve it. His film, after all, aims for the heavens – literally. Standing in for The Almighty, Malick creates the universe, endows it with meaning, and shepherds us to eternity, all within 139 miraculous minutes. Ambitious, yes. Heartfelt, yes. Philosophically sound, no. The Twig of Life, whose concluding “shores of eternity” sequence ranks as one of the most embarrassingly schmaltzy sequences ever shot by a so-called master director, is about as deep and meaningful as a delusional clergyman’s Sunday sermon, but that didn’t stop Malick’s worshipful flock of critics from rapturously singing the film’s praises. Not all of us are converts.

Nicolas Winding Refn, on the other hand, made a believer out of me. I’d seen and liked Valhalla Rising, which garnered two NOFF award nominations last year, but Drive leaves his previous work in the dust and establishes him as one of the best pure genre filmmakers working today. Drive was originally intended to be a big-budget, high-octane Hollywood action movie à la The Fast and the Furious, but Refn, who came to the project at Gosling’s request, completely re-conceptualized the film, as auteurs are wont to do, and turned it into a stylish, existential thriller closer in spirit to Point Blank or Bullitt. Refn is a practitioner of pure cinema, a bold stylist who achieves his effects visually and aurally rather than verbally, which is why film critics still clinging to literary standards of artistic merit thought Drive “shallow” or “trivial”. Pay no heed to the detractors, for they can’t recognize great genre filmmaking  even when it drives over them and leaves tread marks on their faces.

BEST ACTOR
Michael Fassbender in Shame	Brendan Gleeson in The Guard	Choi Min-sik in I Saw the Devil	Peyman Moadi in A Separation	Michael Shannon in Take Shelter
And the Noffscar goes to: Choi Min-sik in I Saw the Devil

Joo-yun, a sweet-faced young woman with a dulcet-toned voice, is stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire in the middle of nowhere during a heavy snowstorm. She’s in the car waiting for a tow truck that will never come, talking to her husband for the last time about a future that will never be. A hooded figure approaches the car. The face that appears at her window is a doughy oval dotted with two beady black eyes. This man, this…thing, is not there to lend a helping hand. When Joo-yun looks down for a moment the man’s eyes scan the car’s interior looking for an entry point, identifying possible escape routes. When she looks back up those two unblinking black pools of nothingness are staring back at her. She gazes into the abyss and the abyss grins.

He is Kyunk-chun. The world is his abattoir. Watch him dispossess Joo-yun of her head.

Choi Min-sik is not the first to play the “personification of evil”, but few have done so with such head-bashing, limb-hacking gusto. He doesn’t just eat the scenery - he rapes it, slaughters it, and eats it, then regurgitates it in your face. And I lapped up every deliciously repellant morsel.

But the tables (or should I say butcher-blocks?) are turned on Kyunk-chun by Joo-yun’s husband, a cop named Soo-hyun who dedicates his life to inflicting as much pain and suffering on Kyunk-chun as Kyunk-chun inflicted on Joo-yun. Soo-hyun subjects Kyunk-chun to a sadistic game of catch-torture-and-release, in the process of which he breaks Kyunk-chun’s left wrist, slices his right Achilles tendon, and pummels his head, back and chest, turning the predator into the prey, the maimer into the maimed, the butcher into the butchered, the victimizer into the victim. Soo-hyun does unto Kyunk-chun what Kyunk-chun did unto Joo-yun. Eventually Soo-hyun reduces Kyunk-chun to a limping, semi-immobilized mess - and this is when Min-sik, who’s called upon to act with his entire beaten, battered and bloodied body, is at his best. The highlight of his performance comes near the end, after his character has endured yet another thrashing: as he limps toward the camera, chuckling over the irony of his situation even as he cringes in agony from his injuries, conflicting expressions of pain and amusement cross his face at the same time. That’s when he sealed the NOFF award.

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BEST ACTRESS
Juliette Binoche in Certified Copy	Mónica del Carmen in Leap Year	Yun Jeong-hie in Poetry	Anna Paquin in Margaret	Saoirse Ronan in Hanna
And the Noffscar goes to: Anna Paquin in Margaret

The trailer below doesn’t do justice to Paquin’s magnificent performance, but it’s better than nothing.

Click here for the lowdown on the film’s troubled production history.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Albert Brooks in Drive	Bruce Greenwood in Meek’s Cutoff	Tom Hardy in Warrior	James Hong in Kung Fu Panda	John C. Reilly in Terri
And the Noffscar goes to: Albert Brooks in Drive

The clip doesn’t show the highlight of Brooks’ performance - when he slices Cranston’s wrist and reassuringly says, “Don’t worry, that’s it. It’s done. There’s no pain. It’s over, it’s over.” To hear that voice say those words in the same cadence that has made us laugh so many times in the past is more unsettling than seeing him commit the dastardly deed itself.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jeannie Berlin in Margaret	J-Smith Cameron in Margaret	Carey Mulligan in Shame	Charlotte Gainsbourg in Melancholia	Juno Temple in Kaboom
And the Noffscar goes to: J-Smith Cameron in Margaret

Cameron plays Paquin’s mother in the film. Wanna see great acting? Watch the vicious mother-daughter spats. Alas, clips from the film appear to be nonexistent on the Web.

BEST SCREENPLAY
Certified Copy	The Guard	Margaret	Rango	A Separation
And the Noffscar goes to: A Separation

Farhadi’s complex, multi-layered screenplay beautifully develops the escalating antagonisms among the characters.

Click here to watch a couple of clips.

BEST EDITING
Drive	Martha Marcy May Marlene	Rango	The Tree of Life	Warrior
And the Noffscar goes to: The Tree of Life

God only knows why the Academy snubbed The Tree of Life in this category.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Drive	Hanna	Meek’s Cutoff	Melancholia	The Tree of Life
And the Noffscar goes to: The Tree of Life

I enjoy bashing The Tree of Life, but there’s no denying its visual beauty. Below is my favorite shot, which last all of 2 seconds. Lubezki captures the film’s essence in one haunting image – shadows dancing on the ground, the transient nature of life.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Drive by Cliff Martinez Listen	Hanna by The Chemical Brothers Listen	Hugo by Howard Shore Listen	Rango by Hans Zimmer  Listen	The Skin I Live In by Alberto Iglesias  Listen
And the Noffscar goes to: Hanna by The Chemical Brothers

Director Joe Wright briefly discusses the memorable score at the 1:20 minute point:

BEST ART DIRECTION/SET DESIGN
Hugo	Jane Eyre	Rango	The Skin I Live In	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
And the Noffscar goes to: Hugo

Dante Ferretti’s art direction, which includes a painstaking recreation of George Méliès’ fifty-five by twenty foot glass-enclosed studio set, is as crucial to the visual world of Hugo as the 3D. It’s fitting that such accomplished art direction was put in the service of a film about Méliès, arguably cinema’s first art director.

BEST SOUND
Drive	Hanna	Melancholia	Rango	The Tree of Life
And the Noffscar goes to: Hanna

Director Joe Wright intentionally blurred the distinction between sound and music so that “the sound effects become ordered into rhythm and harmony.” Indeed, it’s often difficult to tell where the sound effects stop and the music begins, and vice versa – e.g., when the helicopter rotor blades function as the rhythm section during the raid on the cabin.

BEST FOREIGN FILM
Certified Copy	Fish Story	Poetry	A Separation	13 Assassins
And the Noffscar goes to: A Separation

Easily one of the best films of the year. Just saw this two nights ago. Still processing it.

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Bobby Fischer Against the World	Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop	How to Die in Oregon	Senna	Tabloid
And the Noffscar goes to: Senna

Eschewing the usual talking head approach, Senna rivets the attention by examining the life and death of Formula One racer Ayrton Senna entirely through archival footage.

 

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Rango	Winnie the Pooh
And the Noffscar goes to: Rango

Director Gore Verbinski discusses his inventive, richly detailed animated homage to the Spaghetti Western (and Chinatown):

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Fish Story” from Fish Story by Kazuyoshi Saitô	“Hanna’s Theme” from Hanna by The Chemical Brothers Listen	“Man or Muppet” from The Muppets by Bret McKenzie Listen	“Rango Theme Song” from Rango by John & David Thum Listen	“Star Spangled Man” from Captain America: The First Avenger by Alan Menken Listen
And the Noffscar goes to: Fish Story

Here’s a rarity: a film song that’s integral to the film’s story. It also stands alone as a pretty good (and in the film’s world, long forgotten) punk rock song.

BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS
Melancholia	Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	Real Steel	Rise of the Planet of the Apes	The Tree of Life
And the Noffscar goes to: The Tree of Life

Despite the unfortunate appearance of that merciful Malickosaurus, the “creation of life” sequence boasts the year’s best visual effects, courtesy of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s effects wizard Douglas Trumbull.

BEST SCENES
Arthur Christmas: The age-old question is finally answered: How can Santa possibly deliver gifts to children all over the world in one night? Watch how he and his ninja-like elves manage it in the opening scene. (It’s all downhill from there, but the opening is wonderful.)  Watch	Drive: Vehicular cat and mouse chase: the opening getaway. Watch	Drive: Kissing and killing in an elevator.	Drive: Vehicular homicide set to Riz Ortolani’s “Oh My Love.” Watch	Hanna: Hanna escapes from underground compound, with assistance from The Chemical Brothers’ propulsive music. Watch Continue to watch

I Saw the Devil: Psycho-killer mayhem in a moving taxi. (Scene features amazing camerawork in a confined space). Watch	Kaboom: “Dude, that’s a vagina, not a bowl of spaghetti.”	Margaret: Pointless death on the streets of NYC	Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: With his suction device malfunctioning and a giant dust storm heading his way, Tom Cruise scales Burj Khalifa. He’s really up there, folks.	Rango: Best action scene of the year: Bad guys on bats chase Rango’s stagecoach through the desert - set to “Ride of the Valkyries” arranged for fingerpicking banjo!

Rubber: “No reason.” Watch	Super: 60s TV Batman meets Taxi Driver: the concluding massacre.	The Trip: Whatever Michael Caine impression you can do, I can do better. Watch	Tucker and Dale vs. Evil: When bigoted teenagers attack: mistakenly thinking Tucker and Dale are Deliverance-like hillbillies who’ve kidnapped one of their friends, a group of teens organize an attack and rescue operation, with disastrous (and hilarious) results - through no fault of Tucker and Dale, one teen ends up headfirst in a wood chipper, another chest-first into a spear, etc. Watch	Warrior: Macho emotionalism at its most irresistible: brothers Tom Hardy and Jeff Edgerton go mano a mano. Watch
And the Noffscar goes to: Drive - kissing and killing in an elevator

What else?

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Posted on February 26th, 2012 by Mat Viola
Filed under: NOFF Awards | No Comments »

“Honey, I hate to tell you this, but swim or not, we’re going where the current decides.”

From cradle to grave, chance exerts a dramatic influence over our lives, however much we pretend to have control of our own destiny. It’s frightening to think that just a moment of dumb luck can, without warning, irrevocably derail a lifetime’s worth of striving. Such thoughts are best put in the back of the mind, but some films bring them front and center and force us to dwell upon them. Psycho is one such film. If not for the ill-timed appearance of a heavy rainstorm, Marion would not have turned off the wrong exit and ended up in the shower of room #1 of the Bates motel. Irreversible is another. If Alex had not left the party unexpectedly early without her boyfriend she would not have met her sadistic rapist in the alleyway. Open Water is a third. If the married couple, Susan and Daniel, hadn’t made last-minute changes to their vacation plans due to circumstances beyond their control (or, for that matter, if the crew of their expedition boat hadn’t botched the headcount) they would not have found themselves stranded without food or water in the middle of shark-infested waters. Marion, Alex, and Susan and Daniel were victimized by the vagaries of chance – just as any one of us could be at any moment. “Swim or not, we’re going where the current decides,” Daniel rightly tells Susan, not appreciating that his words carry a deeper meaning beyond the current situation.

Open Water begins uneventfully, with Susan and David going about their banal, everyday activities before embarking on that ill-fated scuba diving expedition. They drive their car, talk on their cell phones, work on their laptops, brush their teeth, snuggle in bed, etc, blissfully unaware that they will shortly come face to face with the callous indifference of nature. This contrast between their ordinary day-to-day existence and the unimaginable horror that befalls them shrinks the gulf between “civilization” and “nature”, reminding us that no matter how insulated we think we are from nature, in truth, we are, always have been, and always will be merely a part of nature, and its potential victim. From the relatively secure vantage point of “civilization” we sometimes forget that the natural world is brutal, dangerous, deadly and utterly unconcerned with human well-being. Susan and Daniel are about to be reminded.

Shot entirely on the open sea using hand-held digital photography, natural lighting, and actual backdrops, Open Water drips with authenticity. Nothing in the film is computer generated, including the sharks - real wild sharks in their natural habitat pressed into moviemaking service with strategically tossed chum, much to the unease of the actors who were performing without the protection of a cage. None of the sharks, it’s probably safe to say, was nicknamed “Bruce.”

The film’s visual realism is matched by its behavioral plausibility. Credible dialogue, believable situations, and convincing performances by unknowns Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis ensure there’s never a moment that doesn’t ring completely true, never a moment when we doubt that this is precisely how these people would behave as their ordeal steadily progresses from mild annoyance to abject terror.

At first, Susan and Daniel aren’t too concerned about getting left behind. A bit perturbed, sure, but they’re confident that the boat will eventually turn around and pick them up. It’s too early to think the unthinkable, and so the conversation is mundane, even a little lighthearted.

Susan: Daniel, did you just pee?
Daniel: Yep
Susan: You’re so disgusting!
Daniel: You said you were a little cold.

But as morning turns to early afternoon their situation grows more worrisome, especially after the first shark sighting – a glimpse of what looks like a fin pops up out of the undulating waterline. But it disappears back under the water again so quickly they aren’t sure what it was.

Susan: Daniel, was that a shark?
Daniel: I don’t know. I think it was a dolphin.
Susan: No, it wasn’t a dolphin, because if it was you’d be over there playing with it.

As the hours pass the grim reality of their situation sinks in. There’s no sign of help. They have nothing to eat or drink. They’re getting colder by the minute. The ocean, which just a few hours earlier had seemed like a harmless source of fun and adventure, turns against them, becoming a vast and unforgiving death trap utterly indifferent to their fate. Worst of all, the shark sightings get frequent and decidedly unambiguous.

Susan: What kind [of sharks] are they?
Daniel: Big ones.
Susan (clinging to Daniel): Are they gone? Oh God, I don’t know what’s worse, seeing them or not seeing them.
Daniel: Seeing them.

Emotions soon get the better of them. Feeling frustrated and helpless, Daniel lets loose with a primal scream, cursing not the fates but “those incompetent fuckers” who left them in the middle of nowhere. Susan, meanwhile, retreats into an incommunicative shell and gives Daniel the “silent treatment.”

Daniel: So, now we’ve entered the no talking phase, huh? Could you maybe answer one last question: has this somehow over the hours become my fault?
Susan: Let’s just drop it.

Of course, Daniel can’t drop it and before long they start casting blame on each other, proving that petty husband and wife spats persist even in life-and-death situations:

Daniel: You believe what you wanna believe, but I know for certain that we were in the right spot.
Susan : It’s not just a matter of being in the right spot, it’s being there on time.
Daniel : We were on time!
Susan: Do we always have to cut it so close. For God’s sake, would it kill us for just once to stay with the group? We always have to do everything differently than everyone else. God, we shouldn’t have spent so much time with that goddamn eel!

Daniel: Do you have any idea how idiotic that sounds?
Susan: Oh, so now I’m an idiot?

Susan: We are where we are, aren’t we?
Daniel : Yes, because of me.

Susan: You refused to swim. My God, there were boats all around us and you refused. And, now look around us, we’re stuck in the middle of the ocean with nobody!

Daniel: The only reason we are even out here in the first place is because of your fucking job. If it were not for your job, we would not have thrown our plans out the window, rushed around at the last minute and settled on this fucking trip!

Susan gets the last word, as is her woman’s prerogative.

Susan: I wanted to go skiing!

Nature doesn’t give a fuck whose fault it was, which is why the tiff doesn’t last long. Soon Susan and Daniel are clinging to each other again. They can’t afford to drift apart, literally or figuratively. On land they’d be having makeup sex. Here they can only offer declarations of love and empty reassurances:

Susan: I love you
Daniel: I love you. We’re gonna be fine.

The sharks are unmoved by these touching sentiments, and when one of them takes a big chunk out of Daniel’s leg it’s clear that the loving couple is a long way from being fine. The situation, in fact, turns dire. Daniel used to watch “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel, but learning about shark attacks from the comfort and security of his living room hasn’t prepared him for this firsthand experience, and not surprisingly he reacts with horrified disbelief.

Daniel: This can’t be happening. How can this be happening? I think I’m bitten by a shark! [The overhead shot of blood pooling around the couple removes all doubt]. We can actually be eaten alive by sharks out here. My God!!

Now it’s Susan’s turn to offer false reassurances.

Susan: It’s not that bad. You’re gonna be fine, okay? Shhhhh. You’re gonna have a nice scar to show your friends and that’s it.

Reality begs to differ. And reality is never wrong. Reality never lies.

There’s no hope for Susan and David. Blind chance brought them here; pitiless nature finishes them off.

As Daniel’s lifeblood drains out of him the conditions are set for one of the most horrifying scenes of modern cinema:

The sun disappears behind the horizon. A storm gathers. Thunder rumbles. Intermittent flashes of lightning supply the only illumination in the pitch black night. Exhausted and cold, bleeding and alone, the terrified couple drifts aimlessly in the vast, unforgiving ocean with nowhere safe to turn, ravenous sharks circling them. In a last, futile bid for deliverance, Daniel recites the Lord’s Prayer:

Daniel: Our Father, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done…

As if mocking his pleas, the heavens respond with an ear-splitting crash of thunder. A flash of lighting reveals the monsters of the deep. Hell below them, above them only sky.

Susan: Oh, God, please.

Not even Jaws reaches such sheer existential dread. By morning it’s all over. Traumatized beyond repair, Susan clings to Daniel’s corpse, then gently kisses him and lets him go. In seconds his body is consumed by sharks in a feeding freezing. Resigned to her fate Susan submerges herself - she prefers drowning to being eaten alive. The ocean swallows her and she’s gone, joining Daniel in a watery grave. The beautiful blue sea keeps rolling along as if nothing horrific has happened. The heavens peer down mutely. The sun shines on indifferently. It is, after all, just another insignificant episode in the never-ending story of earthly suffering.

Posted on December 5th, 2011 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Reviews | 2 Comments »

It’s 11/11/11 - Happy Nigel Tufnel Day! Celebrate by watching This Is Spinal Tap, one of the all-time great comedies.

Posted on November 11th, 2011 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Miscellaneous | 3 Comments »