The Trail(ers) Of Tears

Movie trailers are, in my humble opinion, the best part of going to the movies.  I have always loved getting to the theater early, especially when I was younger, so that I could find the best seat, get comfortable and watch the up coming movie previews.  Of course, when I was younger, the movie previews were things like Tron, Empire Strikes Back, Return Of The Jedi, All of the Indiana Jones movies, Jurassic Park, both Terminator movies, the Rambo and Rocky movies and others like Runaway (if you can remember that one), the Explorers, any James Bond film.  There weren't many "independent" movie trailers like AC/DC's Let There Be Rock or  The Rocky Horror Picture Show or any independent animation studio other than Disney at the time.  The trailers were fun, they didn't give much away and were generally just cheesy.  That is until the 90's hit and the studios realized that the more movies they could put out, the more money they could make (in theory) and we got drowned in a sea of shitty movies like My Mother The Car, Car 54, Where Are You? any MtV movie and anything with Dolph Lundgren in it.

The 90's brought us tons of movies like I said and that meant tons of trailers.  The problem is, the picture industry also decided at this point to let us know how great these movies were by basically giving us the whole movie condensed into a 3 minute montage.  Some studios decided that they weren't going to go that direction with their big budget movies (Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Titanic, even Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) because the directors attached to these bigger pics had control over what the trailers showed.  It's a teaser, it's supposed to tease and entice people into going to see the movie (see what I did there?).  

But it doesn't tease and entice.  It tells us the whole movie and the movie is garbage anyways.  This is a multi billion dollar business and they continue to make and remake and reboot and redo movies.  Michael Bay is responsible for at least 4 remakes 2 of them the Texas Chainsaw Massacre - what kind of crap is this? Every week there is news of a new movie coming out and the chances of that movie being a reboot has to be like 93.532 percent or so it seems.  There are multiple TV commercials for Iron Man (comes out Friday) including 4 trailers and the "special" Super Bowl (TM) segment and they've pretty much given the whole film away.  They just can't help themselves.  On the other side of the fence, there's the Star Trek movie trailers and they haven't given away shit and makes me want to go see the movie even more than Iron Man.  

The more information we're given from the movie trailers, the less faith the picture companies have in said movie - with few exceptions. It's also getting old.  If you don't have faith in the movie, then don't greenlight it in the first place.  It's not going to be good and it's not going to do anything but cost 50million to make.  It's time for a little change in the studio "system" as it is and I normally like to rant about that.  For the time being I'm just on about movie trailers.  The easiest way to fix this issue is 1 thing.  Learn from the past, watch the great movies from the distant and near past and see what made them great.  The secret is -it's a compelling story.  That's all it is.

Now - go make compelling stories and maybe I'll be less of an asshat when reviewing it... maybe.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Societal Contigency Plan

                                 I'm pretty sure Joe Cartoon didn't give me permission for this

My brother has a good theory about homeless people.
Here's the theory. If you give a homeless person some money, say 5 bucks, he will take it to his tribe of homeless and say "hey, 5 bucks!"  They will then scurry like cockroaches to where the rich homeless guy found his human ATM and try to extract money from others.  If they don't succeed Dirty Mike and The Boy's return back to the hobo camp and beat the shit out of the rich hobo and take his money.  So, the lesson is: give 1 hobo some money and you'll have 1 less hobo.
Here's a sentence.
Hey look, blue car!

I'm in a mood.  I was in a great mood all day, although tired, I was just cruising throughout the day, doing my job, trying to sell cars and help out where I can.  Also, it's my "Friday", the day before my 2 days off, which I am really looking forward to, so I can get a little bit of relax time in and little bit of my Podcast done and hang out with family, shit I like to do.

The last 20 days have been a grind for me.  I'm just getting back to work from almost a year off due to my psoriasis, so I'm tired, achy and probably a little bit of an asshole, but I'm trying to keep my attitude from affecting anyone and I just push all the attitude aside and just roll with things.  Again, I am trying to make it easy on myself and others.  However, I'm my own worse critic.  Also, I think that I'm fed up with one aspect of civilization.  The "homeless".

Now, I'm not talking about the REAL homeless, those that have had life shit on them and they are in desperate need of help and medical attention, I honestly feel no one cares about them because it's just easier to let them continue on their path of destruction than to actually lift a finger to help.  That's disgusting.  No, what I'm talking about is the piece of shit dregs of society that beg their way through life expecting us to assist them by asking for money or buying them alcohol or cigarettes or whatever and I'm done with that shit.  The Mike Charity is now closed.

I can see you reading this and saying, OK, whatever, but why?  Why, Mike, do you feel this way? Well, let me tell you why, my friend.

It all started innocently enough about 20 or so years ago, I'm driving from my place down to Carmichael, CA to meet some friends and I proceed to the off-ramp at Greenback lane, which is a 3 lane off ramp.  I'm heading to the movie theater just on the opposite side of the road, kitty corner to where I'm at (i.e. I take a left and then take a right and turn into the theater).  Standing on the side of the road is a "homeless" guy.  I'm already annoyed because these types of people have infected society and have taken advantage of hard working people by begging for money - fuck them.  Except this guy standing there on the corner of Greenback and the off ramp. He really looks beat up, dirty, disheveled, worn through shoes etc, etc.  He's either really playing the part or he needs help.  He's also holding a sign and again I'm thinking, great another "Will Work For Food" sign.  I move forward in the car as the light changes to green and I'm trying to get through the intersection, but apparently it's the lightning round and the light turns red before I can get through.  So there I am sitting in my car, 20 feet from homeless guy and I see his sign.  "Why Lie, NED A Beer"  and I roll down my window and call him over and give him 5 bucks.

Why?
He really needed a beer, the sign even told me he did.  But he misspelled "need", I believe, or his name was Ned and he couldn't really articulate and forgot basic sentence structure like "Why Lie, Buy Ned A Beer" or something like that.  He won.  5 bucks richer and I did feel good about myself.
So cut to months later and I'm in San Francisco with friends and now we're being harassed by a singing, dancing, comedian chatterbox that's continually asking for money, but in song form, as in he would take popular top 40 songs and make up lyrics to the beat about the people he was serenading, but I had enough, after about 3 minutes, I just told the guy to get bent or piss up a rope or something.  It was cute the first 30 seconds or a minute or so, but the gall and persistence of the man got under my skin, so enough is enough, and I stabbed him in the neck with a pen and took his wallet and keys and money and his shoes. I mean, they were nice shoes.  Really nice.

So it's gone on for years, once in a while, if I thought the person needed help, I'd throw a buck or two their way.  That is, until tonight.

I stopped at a store to get the basics for survival - beer and cigarettes.  I get out of my car and hear "hey, hey buddy, psssssst, over here" and I look to my right to see a guy, dressed relatively nicely, holding a half smoked cigarette that he picked off the ground, staring at me and he gives me his fucking sob story.  At this point, I just don't care, it all sounds like the sounds the adults make in the Charlie Brown cartoons WAAA WA WAA WA WA. 
"hey buddy, can ya spare a dollar, I need at least 1.91 to get out of this town" which I thought was odd that it only took 1.91 to actually leave Auburn, I mean you're not going to get far on that, but hey, if it gets him outta town, then I'm all for it.  Have a merry adventure, adieu.
So's I gives him the buck and pop inside to get my items I need to continue my healthy clean living.  I pay and walk out and hear the same guy say "hey, hey buddy, can I get one of those?"
The fucking gall.
Look, pal, you're a fucking piece of shit out of work homeless guy begging for money and picking cigarettes off the street to smoke.  Everyone has their little issues, but I bust my ass for my cash and frankly the last thing you should do is even think about begging for MORE stuff after I've already given you the dollar you asked for.
It's like the SNL sketch "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave", in which Belushi torments a couple " (played by Jane Curtin and Bill Murray).  Someone giving you something is just not good enough, I need to have them give more stuff to me.
Get a job you asshole. Go do something or get the fuck out of town like you said you were going to.  You don't get to have a beer, you don't get anything else from me... buddy. 

Frankly I'm done with this bullshit.  I give because I feel it's the right thing to do, or, at least I used to but these guys are just fucking relentless greedy little assholes.  So now the Mike Charity is closed.  Go find some chump that will let you hang around like a bad case of the crabs and soak off them until you've worn out your welcome.  As to that theory of a homeless guy.  Well, Dirty Mike and The Boys like to cluster about the shopping center near my house where they have also set up their "Drug Lounge/Gay Sex Shrubbery" right near the entrance to the shopping center.  Knowing where they hang out, you can now pick one lucky lotto winner on any given day and give him a 10 spot and watch the gladiatorial combat ensue when he shows his friends.  Hey, maybe you can bet on the fight and get your money back as well.

Dredd And The Fugitive Mike

                                                                       I AM THE LAW!

When I saw the trailer and posters for Dredd last year at about this time, I couldn't wait to see it, then all of a sudden it disappeared.  I think it was in theaters for a total of 2 weeks.  Total bullshit, as it wasn't "performing" as well as the studios had hoped. so I didn't get to watch the movie in theaters.  Oh poor me. The trailers I saw showed it to be a centralized action piece with Dredd and Anderson in a huge shoot out.  Perfect popcorn movie, even if it was like the Stallone crapfest Judge Dredd.

Now, I'm a fan of movies, but it has gotten to the point in the past few years where we have just accepted the shit that we're being force fed and it's getting old.  It's been written and talked about for years and I don't need to repeat what everyone else is saying, save for the fact that the idea factory is bankrupt.  With few exceptions.  Dredd being one of them.

This movie is excellent.  Everyone plays their part well and the action is fast paced and the story is good.  It's not drawn out, it keeps you interested and doesn't throw out schlocky slapsticky comedy like the previous Dredd movie. This movie delivers on a large scale and it's pathetic that it didn't do better.

From the setup to the final pay off, this movie should have gotten more recognition than it received in theaters.  Then it came out on DVD and performed as it should have.  I'm hoping that the DVD sales results in a sequel.

I guess what I'm getting at is this -
The studio system is just pounding us with reboots and remakes and little in the way of original movies.  We all know that "it's been done before" but stories are out there to be told.  I don't need to see another Spiderman origin story or Batman or whatever else is available out there for reboots (there are tons of them, I'm too lazy to research them right now...) or remakes.  I would like to see modern day updates to tons of movies - Bullit, The Detective (which is technically the first "Die Hard" story) Saturn 5 or even Arsenic and Old Lace.  It would be cool to see takes on those types of movies. How about an update on Smokey and the Bandit? But who would play Big Enos and Little Enos?

With the way that everything is established, studios go for the easy pay off.and little risk. It's a problem with the system in and of itself - independent movies are locked out where they could find an audience, good movies aren't given enough life in the theaters to build an audience and bad movies continually make money (Scary Movie 4/5, Epic Movie anyone).  I don't know if we're conditioned just to accept this stuff and laugh at the lame jokes or if we're so starved for something good we're willing to sit through the crap for the nuggets of gold.  I think it's the latter.