BLOGTEMPEST TEN: FAILURE

Blogtempest Two Thousand Nine started as a silent promise from Carmen to inner Carmen that he would have a blog post for each of March's 31 days, partly for himself but mostly for the betterment of the world at large, but it ended up as this pathetic, pile-up of suck.  Like water shoes, failure is a tough pill to swallow.  Luckily, due to a malfunctioning gag reflex, CP can't swallow pills.  So instead he spends his post-fail sulk time considering how out of an infinitely expanding universe a cold rock found its improbable way into the gravitational pull of the tiny star that could and that rock churned with belts of cinder and molten rock for centuries until the fiery lashings cooled and hardened and absorbed the star's miracle rays and gave rise to the only functioning ecosphere in millions of light years in every way and the hollow, bottomless crevices of the world were filled with cool oceans that gushed with life and millions of years of unimaginable animals killing and doing mating dances with each other resulted in organisms so unfathomably complex that their processes laid the foundations for even more complex organisms to arise and kill each other and perform mating dances until a race of insane apes claimed hold of the once charred and ashen world and developed crude tools to fashion dwelling places and atonal instruments for their own petty amusements and then these hairy mammalians made quaint civilizations and bizarre mating rituals and this went on and on until the space rock was so chocked full of insane, mega-apes and crocodiles and computerized music devices that the super apes had nothing better to do but produce negative energies in relation to their failed blogging practices, completely ignoring the trillions upon trillions upon zillions of coincidences that resulted in their simple existence in a vacuum filled only with black, glacial nothing and how every lost second of their fleeting, decomposing being was such an unabated miracle in its own right that getting upset about almost anything is a veritable crotchshot to the thousand upon thousands of forgotten strangers that came together over the mammoth course of history to produce them, a drop kick to the universe at the center of all this and the endless universes locked inside every last blog-bemoaning person, and this isn't even considering non-bloggers.  Let's Go Flyers.

BLOGTEMPEST NINE: UUUHHHHH MAYBE WANT

In less than 38 days, Carmen will return to the gilded shores of Funs River, NJ, and upon arrival he will genuflect at the concourse of the Ocean County Mall, reorganize his DVD collection, spend his Coconuts gift cards, and consume this perfect assortment of delectable, regional delicacies:

Breakfast:

1 Bacon, Egg, and Cheese on a Plain Bagel from Manhattan Bagel. 

1 Chocolate Milk

Noontime Snack:

1-2 Packets of Tasty Kakes Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes

1 Red Solo Cup of Arizona Lemon Iced Tea

Lunch:

3-4 Slices of Buffalo Chicken Pizza from Tony's Pasta House

1 Cranberry-Raspberry Snapple

Dinner

1 Order Mozzarella Sticks from T.G.I.F. Friday's

1 Order Chicken Fingers with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce

1 Sprite

Post-Dinner Intake

1 Wawa Submarine Sandwich with Turkey and Mayo

1 Arizona Raspberry Iced Tea (glass bottle)

Dead of Night Snack

1-2 Tony's Microwavable Pizza heated for two minutes in Carmen's very own childhood home microwave.

1 Red Solo Cup of Arizona Lemon Iced Tea

Then Carmen will ride the caloric waves of ecstasy into sweet, radiant dreams that unfurl like scrolls or regal rugs and stretch on and on forever.

BLOGTEMPEST EIGHT: CATHARTIC SHOEGAZE GLACIERS FROM SATURN

Special Thanks to Josh Chertoff for bringing this by extension to Carmen's attention!

BLOGTEMPEST SEVEN: NOW YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART OF HEARTS AND YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO WEAR ON YOUR SLEEVE OF SLEEVES

Recent Audial Absorption on Carmen's Part:

1. The Passenger by Iggy Pop

2. In My Place by Coldplay

3. Same Lo' Road by Dredg

4. Fireworks by Animal Collective

5. Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie

6. The Past Recedes by John Frusciante

7. The Czar by Mastodon

8. Cinder & Smoke by Iron & Wine (Look at all those ampersands!)

9. Mistaken for Strangers by The National

10. Moonchild by M83

BLOGTEMPEST SIX: I AM NOT A GUN.

     History's most underrated animated film, The Iron Giant, harkens back to simpler times, when a protagonist could be named Hogarth, and animated movies were actually animated, and hearing Vin Diesel's velveteen voice didn't make one's guidance systems fail.  This film pretty much marked the end for hand-drawn features playing to any audience on the big or small screen, which gives CP an empty, staring into the abyss feeling.  In retrospect, this makes the already incredible movie that much more endearing, like revisiting memories of this really awesome friend of yours that is pronounced dead because he/she's lost at sea but in your core of cores you know he/she is still out there and you're kind of reluctant to miss but you do just the same.

     Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, TIG is as relevant as it ever was, touching on topics such as pacifism, sentience, sacrifice, militarism, anachronism, artistic expression, non-traditional familial schemas, laxatives, Maine, governmental failings, the soul's permanence, and how watching a giant robot blow things up is incredibly rewarding regardless of medium. As per most children's movies, there is some heady, complex stuff going on at all times.  Does the Iron Giant assume a patriarchal or friendly relationship in regards to Hogarth?  How do possible messianic implications affect this dynamic?  Who names their kid Hogarth?  Is the Iron Giant in fact a trope for human experience, thrust into a ferocious, chaotic world that works only to destroy what truly makes him human, with internal programs that work solely towards his own undoing, and it takes meeting a nuclear warhead head-on at the cusp of the Earth's atmosphere to achieve any sort of real happiness, freedom, peace both inner and outer, well, does it?  Only you can and should decide.

      This was also before Jennifer Aniston decided to relinquish any potential acting credibility (i.e. see anything post-The Good Girl), so there's that, too.  Ted Hughes, who's children's book, The Iron Man, is the film's source material, heartily approved of movie, on top of directly contributing if not actually murdering Silvia Plath, although Carmen doesn't think Ted would do that no way.  Ted Hughes has a really good poem called The Minotaur.  It can be Googled.

BLOGTEMPEST FIVE: IT'S NOT CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE ANYMORE!!!

http://www.app.com/article/20090318/NEWS02/903180392/1070/NEWS02

BLOGTEMPEST FOUR: REALLY GOOD REALLY LONG SONGS, A LIST

BEST OF THE BEST, BY LENGTH AND SUBSEQUENTLY AWESOMENESS:

1. Cassandra Gemini by The Mars Volta (32:32)

2. Dazed and Confused (Live from HTWWW) by Led Zeppelin (25:25)

3. Dogs by Pink Floyd (17:08)

4. Goodbye Sky Harbor by Jimmy Eat World (16:12)

5. Shine on You Crazy Diamond Part 1 by Pink Floyd (13:40)

6. The Last Baron by Mastodon (13:01)

7. Desolation Row by Bob Dylan (11:24)

8. Steam Engine (Live from Okonokos) by My Morning Jacket (11:07)

9. Spiders (Kid Smoke) by Wilco (10:47)

10. Cowgirl in the Sand by Neil Young (10:06)

BLOGTEMPEST THREE: SPIRALING OUT THROUGH A CRACK IN THE SKY, LEAVING MATERIAL WORLD BEHIND, I SEE YOUR FACE IN CONSELLATIONS

When Carmen and TCS attended a Mastodon concert circa June 2007, a strange occurrence took place: after a fifteen-year-old slime master ODed on pig tranquilizers and had to be dragged away by concert security, a visibly drunk wigger accosted CP+TCS about the transcendent eminence of Atlanta's most celebrated metal band.  He said that Mastodon could appeal to a stupid wigger like him because it was real music, and then he moved on to try to give his spiel to 6'5" hipster that consequently threatened to punch him(wigger) in the face, literally balling his(hipster's) fist and performing that fast arm-jerk that supposedly denotes punch-potential but kinda looks like that Rookie of the Year involuntary convulsion.  Needless to say, that wigger was the one wigger who was ever right about anything.  Mastodon's new CD, Crack the Skye, is a harken back to 70's album craft, tinged with psychedelia and otherworldly digressions while still maintaining that doom gallop of the apocalyptic cavalry and bad trip lyrics and their obsession with Rasputin and the Elephant Man.  Occasionally, a band works to craft an actual album, where the dynamics work on a song-by-song basis and still stretch over the album as a whole, and it makes CP :) that people still manage to strive for stuff like that in this forsaken musical landscape, no matter how high they are when they do it.  

On a side note, Rasputin, the famed Russian mystic/healer from the early 20th Century who was murdered for his increasing influence over the Czarist regime, had his penis excised at death, and the severed genitalia has been working its way across the world, rumors say, although some persist that the supposed remains are cucumber and geoduck.  Rasputin's 12-inch member can, according to reports, cure impotency on sight.

BLOGTEMPEST TWO: SUMMER MOVIE BUCKET LIST (I HATE CHO' ROTTEN GOTS)

A list of movies that Carmen will be seeing this upcoming Summer that you should probably see, too.  Some weak justifications follow.

Limits of Control-Carmen's not too big on Jarmuschiness, but he'll take what he can get in this sick, sad world.

Star Trek-J.J. Abrams INVENTED Felicity.

Brothers Bloom (Review Dependent)-Typically, Carmen sees anything with Adrien Brody's nose in it, but this movie will require a 80% or higher on the Tomatometer to garner CP's $12 USD.

Terminator: Salvation-The director refers to himself as McG.

Drag Me to Hell-A handful of Carmen's warmest memories are having laugh seizures in the basement of one Anthony Rombardo during his first viewing of Evil Dead 2.

Up- See attached picture.

Away We Go-As a post-post-modern upper middle class white person, Carmen loves all things quirk.  And John Krasinski in the man in every sense of the word (man, not the).

The Hangover-See the moving scene with Mike Tyson at the tail end of the trailer.

Moon-Directed by DAVID BOWIE'S SON.

Whatever Works-Carmen likes about nine Jews.  One of them stars in this movie.  Another one directs it.  Another is Big Gun's lawyer, Ronny G.  Another is his Uncle Randy.  The other five slots he keeps open, for the future.  It is important to think ahead.

Year One-MICHAEL CERA IS SOOOOOO AWKWARDLY ENDEARING IT'S NUTZ.

Public Enemies-Jonny Depp=hott.

Bruno-Borat.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince-How someone thought up the letter combinations to create the word Voldemort is worth so much of Carmen's money he can't even enumerate a figure.  But if he had to guess: 7 Hardcover Books+5 Movie Tickets+5 DVDS+One Magic Wand=About $350 USD, so far?

500 DAYS OF SUMMER-Quirkiness once again!

Funny People-The beginning of the end for Judd Apatow.

Inglorious Bastards-Trailer features some of the worst dialogue Carmen's heard in a while and still he is confident that Mcgowan-looking nimrod Q.T. will somehow make it impossibly amazing.

BLOGTEMPEST ONE: GIVE ME FREEDOM TOAST ANY DAY OF THE WEEK BUT THIS AIN'T HALF BAD NOT AT ALL

The Big City is, by far, the Earth's most awesomestiest city, but Paris is probably the prettiest.  French people are also the nicest of the European ilk, being completely forgiving and understanding of C+S's boorish and innate penchants for guns, snake boots and appended spurs, multi-gallon cowboy hats, professional wrestling, and, of course, Nickelback.  They were cordial in their crepes creation, 1664 pouring, and offerings of tiny Eiffel Towers were plentiful and annoying, and all this coalesced to make the cobblestones seem a little more cobbled, the streetlights warmer, brighter, and the berets beretiful.

 
Parks were top-notch.  Carmen is into flowing greens and manicured landscapes in a big way and Paris offered these in bulging bountiful baskets that require amazing amounts of alliterative astuteness to even convey, rightfully.  C+S's first full day there was stellar on all atmospheric fronts, topping out at 67F with minimal cloud coverage and optimal good-feeling, inner, sun-induced vibrations.

Don't be fooled by this picture!  Carmen isn't actually as tall as the first rung of the Eiffel Tower.  He is simply closer (in the foreground) to the photographer (S.A.R.) than the Eiffel Tower is (in the background).  Perception, like most things, is relative.  If Carmen were a 50-foot manchild, he would use his powers for good.

Although S.A.R is a staunch atheist, she isn't one to overlook a church's architectural virtues.  Inside Notre Dame, people abused the banned flash photograph and a gypsy woman made strange equine sounds with her lips and there was NO HUNCHBACK at all.  AT ALL.

This pretty church/garden setup was the setting for C+S's magnificent crepes breakfasts.  The bundled French children played.  Conversations trailed off.  Warm breezes passed through the tress and once again all was all right.  Huzzah.

MopCutz By S.A.R.

From Florentine Fud...

To Parisian Ultra-Stud:

The Birth of Cool

Happy Birthday Tsar.  I liked Bunkbed Brats.

The Hipsterization of Kings of Leon

Watch the Followill brothers' gradual devolution into hipsterdom.  By the grace of God, the drummer was spared, at the expense of his beard.

Next Time Around...I Don't Wanna Be A Man...I Want To Be...I Want To Be An Octopus

Yesterday, 17 March 2009, saw Carmen venturing out to La Pietra's garden setup for a few hours of sun-soaking and geetah plucking and reading and general lounging about.  Twas one of those interstellar/self-alignment days.  This post is intended to ensure that CP doesn't forget it, ever.

CHOCO STORY: THE BRUGIAN CHOCOLATE MUSEUM

This big chocolate egg is found in Bruges' big chocolate museum.  Sadly, the museum is not made of chocolate, but it does offer enough bizarre, miscellaneous chocolate-centric stuff to almost make up for it.  Almost.  Upon entry, there is complimentary chocolate, which is one of Carmen's favorite types of chocolate, along with milk, milk chocolate that is, although dipping chocolate products in milk can be very rewarding, especially Oreos, which are doubly satisfying when paired with milk as one can watch the milk slowly worm through the rivets and shapings of the Oreo choco shell.

Cortez brought chocolate back to the Old, grimy world.  Then he went back to South America and extinctified the Aztecs on his continent-spanning blood march!  Choco Story describes his role in Choco History as "Once in the Americas, Cortez bartered for the cocoa beans and knowledge of chocolate production from the Aztecs.  Later, he enacted his veritable genocide [sic]."

Both the monkey and the cocoa bean were fake.  :(

For centuries, each generation of the Belgian Royal Family has its own special chocolate tin designed for commemoration of their useless position and the storage of chocolate.  Notice the joy on the wee one to the far left.  Carmen imagines his name to be Greggy Boy, a precocious but strong-willed youth with a taste for poetry, fine linens, and the viola.  Also take note on how Greggy Boy's felicitous attitude decidedly juxtaposed the look of savage terror on his younger brothers face (HANS).

This is Jack Sparrow and Barbaras made out of chocolate.  The Orlando Bloom made out of chocolate was life-sized and horrifying and there were actual warnings against capturing it on camera for, as the signage warned, "detrimental repercussions to the human psyche" could occur.

My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. (Bruges)

The Belgian City of Bruges boasts both this picturesque, scalable belfry and a vial full of Jesus' blood that can be touched and prayed upon for 1,50 Euro.  At night, the city was mostly deserted, prompting blurry picture-taking and quiet dinnering.  Whereas Italy's beauty stems from its grandiose pulchritude's ability to overcome how everybody's been graffiting and littering on the place for centuries, Bruges was a much more intimate, clean affair, with the entire city center boasting unsullied cobblestones, small restaurants and shops that kindly offered life-shattering waffles and crepes, serene canals, and a lamp museum.

Carmen and TCS's boat trip down the canal was informative as it was fun.  While they didn't get the cool tour guide with the Ipod and Converses, their trilingual guide knew a bunch of stuff and was pretty adept at driving his boat.  One random building on the waterfront in Bruges has windows made of Viennese crystal that reflect light differently than regular windows.  How about that!

366 steps are climbed on one's way to the top of Bruges Belfry Tower.  Carmen got to see the grand-scale piano workings of the tower's bells, and views like the one shown above.  The best thing about Bruges is how modernity truly doesn't show up at all in the city center, or that the Europeanness of the place is really apparent from the onset, and the swans, too, of course.

This is a big ceramic horse dressed as a zebra in the Brussels train station.  Never, ever, go to Brussels.

"THE DEAD ARE STILL DEAD" or "DER."

After two months of movie theater withdrawal, CP's return to the partially sane, pseudo-Western world allowed for moviegoing and these subsequent reviews.

Franklyn:  Good ideas squandered all over the place.  This movie boasted Hollywood's second most underrated 30ish actor, an interesting conceit, and a fantasy world that's part colonialism, part masquerade.  Unfortunately, the script was bad.  Parallels between the fantasy world and the real world weren't effective because the happenings in the real world were sometimes more preposterous than those in Franklyn world.  Screenwriters should swear off the Iraq war along with the rest of humanity, as nothing redeeming will ever come out of that cesspool except waves of delicious oil for THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  In the right hands Franklyn could have been the Naughties' Dark City, instead its this silly shamey thing.  Ryan Reynolds is underrated. 

Surveillance:  A pleasant surprise!  Since this was directed by David Lynch's daughter, Carmen expected a derivative, demented weirdfest chocked full of vagaries and violence and structureless abstraction, but, bizarrely, he was wrong!  The movie presented a pretty straightforward narrative, with great acting and the little weird flourishes that shock and surprise and make smiles.  The best thing about the movie is that the "twist" ending is incredibly obvious from very early in, and still the director manages to keep the audience interested and to present the events in a very idiosyncratic light.  Yayyyyyy. 

The Reader:  Why was this movie made?  Outside of Kate Winslet stealing Anne Hathaway's Oscar, The Reader presents absolutely nothing audiences haven't seen before, and this is only made exponentially worse by the movie relating itself through the most manipulative of historical vehicles: The Holocaust.  Why are they speaking English?  CP felt not anger towards the film but the kind of dull indifference that he experiences when looking at brown shirts without designs on them or interacting with really, really boring people.  Maybe a better analogy would be to say that watching The Reader is like watching home movies of your own childhood where someone else plays the part of you; it registers as something familiar and maybe evocative but ends up just being remote and lifeless and a mere imitation of something "real".  :(.

A Fake Mugging That Probably Wasn't Fake But Was Certainly Real in Experiential Terms But In Mugging Terms Who Really Knows

      Butt Bridge, Dublin, Ireland, Europe, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe.  In broad daylight, the two pale, male, handsome tourists snap panoramic views of the easing mass of alluvium that is the Liffey River.  They navigate camera menus.  They are satisfied with the photographic results.  A squat, bull-doggish Irishman turns a corner, heading North, angrily passing through a few idlers, onto the mostly deserted bridge, towards the tourists.  Trash and refuse bob in the Liffey.  The tourists start back across the Butt.  Increasing his speed, sending glances in a bunch of directions, the Irishman nears them, changing his vector abruptly as they go parallel, sort of bumping into the less-extremely-dangerous-looking of the two tourists.  We shall call him (the tourist) Mr. Cool.

     "Money," says the Irishman, lowly, eyes darting.

     The tourists continue undeterred.  Some contact is made with the man.  Everyone stops.

     "Money.  Money," repeats the Irishman, to Mr. Cool, completely ignoring Mr. Cool's co-traveler.  We shall call him Carmen, although he isn't really important in the story.

     Looks are exchanged.  "I don't have any money," says Mr. Cool.

     The Irishman pushes closer, his voice moving to a slurred whisper.  "Empty your fucking pockets.  Your wallet.  Everything.  Come on."

     Keeping his cool, Mr. Cool reaches into his jeans and produces a handful of change.  "I only have coins.  I don't have--

     The Irishman's countenance does a 180.  Suddenly, he is very happy about seemingly everything.  A ravaged smile comes across his face.  "Just kidding, fellas."  With a clap on Mr. Cool's back he prances away from the tourists, heading South on Butt Bridge.  

     After nearly a week's worth of heated, abstract debate, Carmen and TCS decided that the happening was not the product of a twisted Irishman's sense of humor, but a real and true mugging that became a fake mugging but remains still a real mugging, even though they were never mugged, but they were, mugged that is.  Above is a recreation of the scene, based of composites drawn from the witnesses, who were also the victims, that weren't actually victims, but were.  Crime is a complex art form.

In Bruges

But for real.

The Birth of a Genius

Chris Mcgowan is now 21. Happy Birthday McG.

Major Knuckles and the Tambourine Walk

In Dublin, there are fifty different monuments to James Joyce and this one, a 3rd floor mural in Isaac's Hostel (76% Approval Rating on Hostelworld.com), dedicated to gilded lions that hang out by sewage pipes.  The hostel also boasted communal showers that operated for half-minutes at a time, spraying ice water, an equally frigid room with bunkbeds(!) and little else furniture-wise, comforters made of velcro, a somewhat demented desk clerk who tore a map clear in-half while attempting to direct hostelers, an adjacent roomful of giggling French girls that may have been twins but regardless of zygote-sharing exploded into laugh apoplexy every night at around 4 A.M.  The Wi-Fi was more than passable.  Carmen's grade: 70% (3.5 strawberries).

Prior to getting mugged, Carmen and TCS's wanderlust led them into this scenic Irish ghetto.  Childhood flights of imaginative fancy, especially those involving garbage, are truly inspiring to see, and Carmen couldn't help reminiscing about boyhood afternoons spent mummifying himself in used toilet paper, forging wigs out of tampon strings, and basically rolling around in big piles of refuse until the sun sank into the horizon and his mother rang the dinner bell.

St. Stephen's Green is now up there on Carmen's All-Time Park's List, somewhere between Central Park and Bay Lea.  The rolling, verdant concourse was super green even out of season, and the bundled children roamed, and swans eased down the mini-lake, and everything was near bloom.

OH LOOK AT THE DUCKS!

Just around the corner from Isaac's Hostel were 1. O'Shea's Pub and Restaurant and 2. This Horrifying Doll Thing.  O'Shea's was Carmen and CTS's main haunt for the trip, providing one of the better bar experiences in Carmen's pretty short positive bar experiences list.  There was fiddling and mandolining and bar-wide clapping and chorusing and the overall mood clocked in at cheery. 

LION BARS GOOD

Whether these exist in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA or not, Carmen had never experienced Nestle’s little leonine treasures up until this point in his life. You must. The delectable bars mix the cathartic crunchiness of Nestle’s Crunch with the smooth chocolate taste of Milky Way to wondrous effect. While never quite reaching the vertiginous creamy heights of 3 Musketeers, Lion Bars provide a tasty escape for those looking for a novel way to slowly poison their insides with processed mini-bricks of chocolate! Why the wrapping has a tiger on it no one knows.

MEN WATCH WATCHMEN

     No movie in recent memory has elicited a nexus of indecipherable emotions in Carmen’s brain parts as Zak Synder’s Watchmen did. Watching the film on a nearly IMAX-sized screen in an I-could-eat-off-this-carpet Dublin theater whose individual screening rooms listed specs on leg room, audience capacity, and speaker dimensions, Carmen was subject to a near perfect viewing environ for the movie, especially when considering the self-exhorting bro that performed pre-film push-ups and crunches in order to prepare, the obligatory Asian crouched in the corner peaking looks at the theater’s doorway over his Nintendo DS screen. Visually, Watchmen is awe-inspiring. The frenetic pacing and distinct color palettes and set design and costumes and Zak Synder’s mega-stylized camerawork all fuse together and morph into a nine-headed monster that literally pummels the eyeballs with satisfaction. That said, the film is decidedly, undeniably flawed—as is all truly great art—but these shortcomings were so juxtaposed with filmic brilliance-and coupled with the blinding steaming weirdness of the thing, the lines of demarcation became more than blurry between what Carmen considers good/bad in a traditional sense and what is weirdly good/bad in his own deviant perception.
     The first fault lies with the musical choices. Watchmen’s score, the eerily ominous mellotron rolls from the opening of the second trailer, is incredible, perfectly capturing the film’s cerebral, chimerical vision, and playing background to its best sequence: the death and rebirth of Dr. Manhattan; but, unfortunately, somebody in there chose to also include popular music in the film as well. These songs rarely work in conjunction with what’s transpiring on screen and work even less when comparing them to the score. Secondly, Malin Ackerman can’t act. Thirdly, the movie, a much more direct narrative, only serves to point out the really quite flawed denouement that the graphic novel presents. There is no logic to it, never was, and this becomes really apparent when recalling that the events that unfurl are a result of the world’s smartest man and a super-human demigod whose intelligence transcends all human limitations. And this is the just the tip of the iceberg.
     There is a sex scene in this movie that defies description. It produced a feeling in Carmen so complex that to even try to discern between jubilant joy and high-strain horror isn’t even worth it.
     If anything, Carmen can’t recommend any movie more than Watchmen because no other movie can divide a person, and an audience, like it can. There is so much to love and so much to hate that everyone will leave the theater with a different subjective experience. So 4 out of 5 strawberries.

The Henchmen Have Gathered in Waiting

With Watchmen's release less than 1920 minutes away, Carmen is hunkered down for a cascading lights-coming-up-in-the-theater roar of "pretty good, but nowhere near as good as the book."  Carmen is guilty of using this cockamamie criticism, partly to show that he reads books and is consequently big-brained and partly because that's what you say when you see a movie based on a book.  People love saying this.  Whether this has something to do with an increasing less-literate society's continued paradoxical reverence of the written word or people just like the way it rolls off the tongue is tough to say, but it probably has to end, especially when it gets to "pretty good, but nowhere near as good as the graphic novel."  Because you know how everyone likes graphic novels....CP can see why Watchmen was revolutionary on merit of its scope alone, but that said, how it was able to transcend the thick barriers of narrow-mindedness is somewhat of an anomaly.  So it has become increasingly obvious to CP that critics and message board lurkers are merely convinced that the graphic novel is good because its on TIME's fiercely accurate 100 GREATEST NOVELS OF ALL-TIME (FROM 1923 to PRESENT) LIST.  Now, this is one frenziedly weird book.  FACT: People don't like weird stuff. Yet somehow, every reviewer (while--and this goes for every, last review regardless of opinion--each states that the ending is an improvement over the graphic novel's, that the montage to Dylan is incredible, that Matthew Goode was miscast, that JEH is great, and that the dialogue doesn't transfer well to the screen) is mindlessly in love with this arguably complex, bizarre graphic novel.  Carmen doesn't buy it.  These are the same critics that hailed Slumdog Millionaire, Gran Torino, and Burn After Reading as masterpieces.  If anything, they have read TIME's list, and have, once again, agreed to agree.  How not a single one of these professional critics is able to step away from this supposedly completely opaque shadow that the graphic novel casts and see the movie from an objective standpoint is really sad, how they immediately accept the world in the "classic" book but find it unable to consider the filmic equivalent (a medium that mind you, literally saturates the senses) is not out of fault of the movie (and this goes for other adaptations) but on the viewer himself, who is unable to detach from preconceived notions of the source material.  They should just accept the movie as a movie as they accept the book as a book.  Somewhere in here is why you don't see many film-to-book adaptations.

Prior to offing himself, David Foster Wallace neatly stacked the pages of his decade-in-the-making incomplete manuscript for The Pale King for his wife to find along with his hanged body.  Carmen thanks him heartily, for the prior.

Thank You, God.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/bookroom/2009/03/david_foster_wallace_lives_on.html

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/03/09/090309fi_fiction_wallace?currentPage=all

"Beneath me, this awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children."

Somehow, midterms continue. Watch TVotR's bass player in these fantabulous videos. Fantabulous is a real word.