The most persuasive voices have dogged me, dear reader, and implored me to see Batman Begins before it leaves theaters, never mind what the critics have said or not said. Really, if you had to paint the spectrum, you’ve got one camp raving about it, framing it as a dark addition that expands the canon to fertile new boundaries, and you’ve got the other camp deploying unfavorable comparisons to Memento.
So, basically it’s like other movies, right? The source material dear to me, however, cobbled from various cartoons and older movies, holds a certain charm, so the question is this: how does the latest episode treat that charm? Presumably it could encourage a standing ovation, maybe even fan fiction or some nonsense. It could just as easily lure me into a sinister alleyway and Episode III me to tears. In the end? I want to have an abortion on Naboo, Anipoo, given I’m content with the original story arc.
Because the Three Blind Mice should stay blind, the Little Red Hen shouldn’t eat the bread, nor should Cinderella stay locked in the woodshed while her ugly stepsister bangs the prince. I’m not in the market for such reimaginings. You don’t cradle the Last Supper in your hand and go, “Huh! I really need to amp this.”
INT – UPSTAIRS – NIGHT
“Judas, I’d like to introduce you to a little friend I call 1 Corinthians,” says Jesus Christ, procuring matching Desert Eagles from his robe, “along with its buddy 2 Corinthians. Do this in remembrance of me.”
He caps Judas twice in the noggin.
Judas dies. (Slo-mo w/bullet time.)
Never mind this isn’t proper screenplay format. It’s simply not proper. Period. While Batman by no means approaches divinity, the sentiment remains. Will I find eight bucks worth of sound reinvention or gross perversion?
You’re speaking with a man who committed the cardinal error of falling asleep immediately after dinner, dear reader, and boy do I feel awesome. It was disorienting, those first five minutes of regained consciousness, but I haven’t been this awake at 9:44 PM in months.
What would be more exciting for you, launching an ad campaign with lukewarm results or killing a humongous fly? You chose correctly. I looked up from my screen this afternoon and, in the continuing tradition of attracting insects to my skull, saw a portly shitsucker headed straight for me. The nerve! I’ve never heard so loud a bug. This was sufficient cause for me to roll up some scrap paper to demonstrate the niceties of high impact advertising.
I missed more then a dozen times, dispensing justice to innocents such as the filing cabinets, the LaserJet 1000, and the router. It was shameful–someone had a good laugh when I swatted my window blinds–and I’m convinced I dishonored my ancestors. I had a great-grandfather who could execute flies with a pair of chopsticks, usually only one chopstick. If you believe that, well, I’d like to sell you a rather large rickshaw made of soy sauce packets and fortune cookie fortunes.
But real fortune smiled in a violent second, an eminently gratifying thok, when I caught the fly in one smooth backhand. Talk about job satisfaction. Got him from below, I did, which means it’s time to update the ol’ resume.
We’ve reached a crucial point in our history, dear reader, in that a unique structure descended upon our discussions when no one was looking. I can’t say when it happened, or how long it will continue to happen, I simply know I opened my front door one morning and found it sitting on my stoop, like the ugly mutt you enjoy losing regularly.
One day usually fuels the hatred for our jobs. The day after that casts shimmering rays of clarification on some useless piece of technology. Wednesdays, so tenderly situated between 16-hour stretches of work, encourage drive-by resolutions, the likes of which would transform me into a High Renaissance Man on a weekly basis if taken to fruition. I mean, who wouldn’t want to beat the shit out of people while making crème brûlée, using nothing but a black belt in jujitsu and a wooden spoon? Precisely.
A week absolutely cannot close without hosting, Blogger, hosting and Blogger, or hosting and Blogger and the goddamn Elf King of the Forty-Tree Forest bending our happy home over a desk and advertising eight brands of grody to us, catch my drift? “Push-Button Publishing,” reads Blogger’s tagline, and as soon as I pushed that button Thursday night, our conversations were republished in gigantic Times New Romans font. It may be my imagination, but shouldn’t Blogger circumvent the need to dig through lines of HTML? Well, guess who opened Notepad for 60-something minutes of expletives and troubleshooting? And then of course I reserve a special day for ignoring you. But every day? Every day is underscored with ebullient cynicism.
Mondays are brutal, let me tell you. Sometimes they hit you so hard, you just want to go straight to bed. Let’s hope Tuesdays are better. Or not, either way, whatever works best or something.