You may mock, but I think almost all books, music and films are good. Without even appealing to the notion of Perfect Human Imperative - that every person on Earth always does the best possible thing, for them, as far as they can know and perform - I am lucky enough to be able to appreciate and enjoy almost any film, book or piece of music from any time or place; provided the books are in English, the music is vaguely original, and movies have a half-decent pace or suitable action or, failing that, a bit of female nudity.
Chuck a couple of topless shots into a film with a title like The Toxic Avenger VII: Toxopathic Beach Terror and I will probably be in it for the duration, as much for amusement at what `actors` and effects technies can get away as as for the odd bit of female chest-jiggling. I can even enjoy foreign language films totally devoid of subtitles, even ones without nudity. Yes, I really am that lucky, and irritatingly pleased with just about everything.
Books are the best example: I often hear the phrase "Must be a good book!" from passers by, because I often read paperbacks while walking around town. I can be observed in pubs and bars reading a book as well, especially standng at the bar after ordering, captured for ten minutes by a particularly good chapter or scene, and get as many similar comments again from fellow patrons who, it seems, have no-one to talk to either and but don't have a contingency plan or decent reason to be there. Well of course it's a good book, I feel like yelling; why else would I be reading it anywhere let alone in the bloody pub? Do you read only bad books yourself?
Really? Maybe you're going about this `literacy` thing the wrong way, if so. There are no points awarded for trying, and you're not doing yourself any favours.
I have found out that if I find the odd tome that actually pisses me off, chances are that a) it's still a good book because I learn just how contrary my and the author's views really are (and they often become particularly good resources for understanding one's enemy) or b) I do have the sense to return/replace/immolate the damn thing before too much of my life is wasted.
Personally, while I do love walking, I refuse to waste the time it takes trotting between most familiar places or to aimlessly trek long distances through bland terrain, not being especially keen on whiling away precious seconds and minutes staring at nothing, gaining nothing, absorbing nothing interesting. I just wish other people could get their minds around the idea without pointing and staring.
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Now. While I genuinely enjoy most things in most mediums there are occasional glaring exceptions that I still, probably for reasons of testing my own endurance levels, force myself to sit through to the bitter, wretched end. The film Alexander is one.
God almighty what an awful piece of shit that is. Oliver Stone? What are you doing to us, are you trying to make us hate you forever??! Once was a time he was good; Platoon was excellent, Wall Street, excellent, Natural Born Killers pretty damned good even if Tarantino (who created the story before he achieved serious fame) would have made it a lot more more coherent and punchy and geeky cool.
Even that lame duck JFK was at least well-acted and strangely absorbing; a film that set out to reveal the truth behind the `big-whoop` story of the century (c'mon, he was just another politician) but basically went right back to where we started before watching the thing, thereby nullifying the purpose of its existence but hey, who's really paying attention after 3 hours and 8 minutes? I believe one particular couple met, married, and birthed their first child during a screening.
But the celluloid abortion that is Alexander needs to be taken outside, shot, hung, nailed to a pair of crossed timbers and left out in the merciless desert sun for three days, whence it can be cut down, ground into a paste, smeared on the gums of plague victims and be left to go through their tortuous death alongside them - and then the whole sorry mess to be buried at a crossroads at midnight inside a sarcophagus made of garlic.
God fucking almighty would not sanction the production of that movie, and he signed the chitty for the crusades, for christ's sake.
Ridiculous. Agonisingly long-winded. Contained almost no battle scenes - a movie about one of the four or five greatest warriors or military leaders the world has ever known - and half of the ones it did contain were filmed so needlessly close to the action as to obscure it from all comprehension. Most of the rest, of what little there was, is shown through an overpoweringly pink filter that bleeds all details into one writhing rose-coloured mass. Yes, we get the idea of blood-drenched sadism and animalist bloodlusting carnage, but it goes on - and you really can't see a thing but a block of pink covering two-thrids of the screen and itinerent limbs and weapons poking out form the top of it - for something like 4 straight minutes. It is very, very annoying to say the least.
The Alexander in this movie is neither powerful nor commanding, not even inspiring or eloquent. His rousing speeches are shit and he is shown to be halfway to whimpering every time he talks in public, which hardly lends him an air of credible authority. He is even shit in a fight and regularly gets his arse handed to him throughout the movie. He cries, a lot.
This is not what anyone wanted to see, even the hard-bitten cynics. You may think that Ghengis Khan, Julius Caesar, Sun Tzu, Hannibal, Napoleon, maybe a few others were equal or greater leaders or strategists, but this dude is still up there amongst them. Napoleon may have been a short-arse Corsican but he was still an amazing general.
It does not end there though, I'm sorry to say. Washed out, cheap looking, cringingly homoerotic in the most flimsy way, this films fails on almost every level. And, just to confound things further, most of the army including Alexander himself is apparently Irish!
It seems they cast Colin Farrel and then just stopped bothering, turning one of the most important historical figures ever to influence the Near East and a guaranteed Sout-Eastern European into a celtic nonce, if I may be permitted a little un-PC name-calling.
The thing is, in this film he is not just bloke who happens to be gay, but an overtly femininised character who, very literally, spends all his time not arguing with his Mum or being beaten up by the common soldiery of his foes either kissing or climbing into bed with various men. Yes, he would rather have a boy than a girl, we understand that Oliver. We do not need to see it repeated over and over in place of worthwhile action, believable exposition or events of actual interest.
We all know that the Greeks of the day were largely bisexual, or so the surviving accounts often tell us (the fact that they continued breeding for the next 2500 years does rather suggest this has been given undue weight and attention, incidentally) but it would appear from Alexander that they had more or less forgotten what women were for, aprta from fetching and carrying things or, in the case of Alex's ol' Mum, keeping a lot of pet snakes.
Coupled with the fact that there is almost no attempt at covering the gaelic accents of half the cast, this would be enough to see this movie off the parade ground and straight to DVD, preferably straight to VHS in fact, in order to minimise hazardous exposure.
But there's even more! Angelina Jolie is in it, as Alexander's Mother, even thoguh, yes, she looks almost exactly the same age as him. She isn't as bad as the rest despite a cumbersome and innappropriate accent of her own (Serbian? Polish?) because her parts of the script require her to pretty much simply to talk funny and wrap limbless reptiles herself, her furniture and in the early stages around her son. Yes, we get the Hercules/Heracles comparison, we see what you're driving at, Stone. Stop now. Oh please stop.
The age difference and even accent isn't too much too a bugger while still being massively inconsistent, as it is hardly notable aginstt he background of dreadfulness that is the rest of the film.
Val Kilmer as Alex's Father, the old king, is excellent, in fact. Be comparison at least. And when you have to say that the best actor and character in the whole film - by a mile - is Val Kilmer, you know something was seriously wrong with the water on that set.
I go on because the film goes on, about 3 hours, again, from Oliver Stone and it seems to be almost completely wasted. It is probably the only film where you start looking for your overnight bag before the main events have even begun to take place, and hopefully the only one where your razor starts to look pretty good as a means of escape.
Zeus save us all from this film. I'm just glad I watched it so I can warn the rest of the human race.
