Notebook Doodle Ming and Bill sit down to watch manly action movies.
Two years ago, I met an adorable Pekinese by name of Mr. Ming. Short beige hair, floppy ears and a pushed in face, Ming wormed his way into my heart. One night, while doing some dog sitting for Jamie, Ming and I started a tradition. With his mommy away, we sat down on the couch, I with a beer and he with a cookie, and watched “man movies”. The playlist included 80’s classics like Die Hard, Robocop and Lethal Weapon. By the time Ming fell asleep on my chest, I fell in love with him.
A year later, I fell in love with his mommy and our tradition became secure. Every year or so, Ming and I grab some snacks and watch loud, obnoxious and deliciously fun action flicks. With some help from the good people at weareallcritics, I had some great choices for this year’s ear buster but due to lack of availability, I went back to a classic. Commando is pure 80’s excess, full of gun battles, explosions and Arnie’s biceps. It’s not high art but it’s a great piece of low brow escapism that still manages to give you enough to actually care.
At first glance, there’s nothing in the story we haven’t seen a thousand times before. Schwarzenegger plays John Matrix, an ex-Army operative who lives in the mountains with his daughter, Jenny (a very young Alyssa Milano). After some senseless bloodletting, the opening montage shows the two fishing, laughing and having uncomfortable ice cream fights. The opening does two things perfectly: lets us know this is going to be an ass kicking action flick and gives us just enough back-story so we care about the protagonists. It’s not deep by any stretch but there’s just enough to keep the ridiculous plot within our suspension of disbelief.
Obviously, Mr. Ming is more of a Bruce Willis fan than he is of Arnold.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a Schwarzenegger movie without something going wrong. According to Matrix’s old commander, the bullet pillows of the opening are all of his old army buddies and wouldn’t you guess it, the large Austrian bodybuilder is next. The muscle of the operation is Bennett, Matrix’s old right hand man. The blaggard has teamed up with a South American dictator who’s working his way to his hidden retreat. Why? To recruit him for a devious “overthrow the government” plot. If Matrix fails to comply, the newly kidnapped Jenny gets the ax. Again, the setup provides just enough reason for us to follow Schwarzenegger through the bloodbath. A dad will do anything to save his daughter. Simple enough to get out of the way but not too simple where we cease to care.
And what a hilarious bloodbath it is. Commando isn’t the goriest of action films, but what it lacks in cadmium red, it makes up for with great action pacing. Some of the action scenes run long, especially the final assault on the compound, but the cheese ball James Horner score and well directed rhythm keep things interesting. The film is also filled to the brim with groan inducing one liners. Anywhere else, I’d smash these lines down with my Critic Stick but for some reason, they elevate the fun in Commando.
But there’s more to the success of this film than bullets and bombs. Plenty of movies have tried the same trick with diminishing returns. Commando not only gets the big set pieces right, it nails the details. Jenny is written as more than a damsel in distress which lends some reality to her being an army nut’s daughter. The baddies all wear outlandish outfits, allowing the audience to easily identify the enemy and freeing us up to focus on the fun. Arnold’s reluctant sidekick arcs from ear splitting annoying to somewhat useful throughout the course of the picture. All of these little touches and tricks help elevate the movie from a special effects demo to a movie we can rally around and care about
In fact, there’s a moral to this story if you look carefully enough. Action is really tough to do properly. Any fourteen year old with some explosives can blow things up but it takes real craft and skill to wrap up an audience in it. Commando does just that. A skillfully and well made film, Commando dials up the adrenaline with over the top action rooted in solid, old fashioned filmmaking. The movie isn’t perfect, but if you’re looking to have a boy’s night in with a furry friend of your own, you can’t have much more fun than this.
Score – 85%
Originally Reviewed – 7/25/2010
It’s been widely established that Christopher Nolan is a bit of a visionary when it comes to filmmaking. While not quite on the level of Spielberg and Lucas, with films like Momento, Insomnia and 2008’s The Dark Knight, Nolan has proven himself as a director who can satisfy audiences and critics alike. So, in this summer’s wildly hyped and promoted Inception, Nolan has finally made the film he’s always wanted to make, mixing his love for complex storylines and tragically flawed anti-heroes in a film he clearly hopes blows audiences away. The result’ A damn good try that does a lot of little things right but ultimately feels too overcooked for its own good.
Starring Leonardo DeCaprio, Ellen Page and Marion Cotillard, Inception is the story of a team of dream crashers who, after a job gone awry, is given the chance of a lifetime; rather than sneaking around a subjects dream with the intent of extracting secrets, they are tasked with injecting an idea in. The result is wild race against time, mental projections and all sorts of psudeo-science hoopla that provides some decent thrills, a fascinating premise and a story that barely ties together despite the sheer amount of material presented. There is a lot to absorb in Inception and while Nolan does a very good job of keeping the film moving and the audience engaged, he makes some sacrifices in storytelling along the way. Sure, if he hadn’t we would still be sitting there watching it, but the result is a film that has everything that was advertised, just in limited amounts, creating an entertaining but slightly thin experience.
As one could tell from a quick glance at the trailers, most of the emotional heavy lifting is on the shoulders of Leonardo DeCaprio as the team’s lead dream sneaker. While I’m still not sold on DeCaprio’s acting chops, he does a more than adequate job portraying Nolan’s signature emotionally wrought anti-hero. While there are moments where DeCaprio just doesn’t hit the emotional depths required to keep the character engaging, his best scenes are when he’s paired with the always excellent Mario Cotillard as his love interest. At its core, Inception is a cyber sleuth love story and while Leo simply can’t hang with Cotillard on an acting level, Nolan does a great job of developing their relationship, in turn developing their characters.
Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is just there for the room tumbling ride. While there are some notable performances by Tom Hardy as the team’s wisecracking ‘Forger’, Dileep Rao as the ‘chemist’ of the team and Cillian Murphy as the exec who’s the recipient of the implanted idea, the rest of the cast just hangs there, underdeveloped and underused. The worst offender is Ken Watanbe as the mumbling taskmaster who put DeCaprio and team up to the whole thing, who, with the exception of bookending the film, provided nothing to the story. Joseph Gordon-Levitt also does a fine if forgettable job as Leo’s number two man. To me, aside from the wonderful Marion Cotillard, the best character in the film is the spinning token carried by DeCaprio to remind himself he’s in the real world. Let’s just say that the most gripping point of the film involves that inanimate object, a feat that Nolan deserves full credit for and should not be missed.
But you may be saying to yourself, this is a summer action movie! Acting be damned, how’s all that city bending, Matrix style float fighting I’ve been seeing in trailers’ Well, action buffs will get a Tale of Two Cities in Inception; it is the best of times when Ellen Page is warping dream worlds and it’s the worst of times when the film devolves to a rejected James Bond movie in the snow blanketed third act. As a matter of fact, the middle bit of Inception is probably some of the strongest stuff you’ll see all summer, with mind bending feats of wall jumping, gravity defiance and hand to hand combat that sets up a huge let down in the third act. By the time the team gets to the snow drenched mountains of the third part, the action becomes rote, stale and frankly boring. Viewers who are expecting a high velocity action flick get some of what’s promised but not quite what the trailers suggest.
On a side note, many fans and critics have been hailing Inception as this decade’s Matrix and in my opinion it falls short in that comparison. While the stories have some ties of alternate realities and dream worlds, Inception does not emotionally connect in the way the Matrix did and as a result, is an inferior experience. The reason is simple. In the Matrix, the joy of the film was the discovery of this mind blowing ‘real world’ alongside an instantly identifiable main character. No matter what your lot in life is, everyone has felt like ‘Mr. Anderson’ at some point and the thrill of learning about the world of machines with Keanu Reeves made that film the classic it is today. In Inception, DeCaprio and company are old pros, so there is no excitement in the discovery of this new world. Instead of learning alongside an amazed Keanu Reeves, we get lectured along with Ellen Page, who is written as that audience link but fails pretty miserably in that task. Where Reeves spends a whole movie just learning about this new world, it feels like Page has it down pat in exactly five minutes. That, combined with a surprisingly bland performance, is what knocks Inception from excellent down to merely good.
In reviewing my review, it sounds like I’m being overly harsh, when in the end, I had a very good time watching Inception. The problem is that it really could have been so much more. While I rarely make an argument for films to be longer, I truly believe that the intriguing central idea of Inception would have been better served as two movies instead of one; one movie to set up the world and the characters and the second to get into the meat of the action. That way, we could have discovered the dream space of Inception naturally instead of getting it force fed to us in the opening half hour. All that being said, Inception is still the most interesting and thought provoking film you will see in wide release this summer and more than worth a watch, especially in the theater with a good crowd. Director Christopher Nolan has created an dream-centric love story full of spinning hallways, arresting visuals and an eye opening view of the world we inhabit when our eyes are closed. Despite it being a touch watered down, Inception is still pretty close to a must see this summer if only so you can discuss it with likeminded people. Besides, it’s either this or Last Airbender and a choice like that isn’t really a choice at all.
Score – 80%
Originally Reviewed – 4/24/2010
Just to set the stage for this review, Hot Tub Time Machine is not the type of film I usually run out to see in theaters. For me, films like this are better enjoyed coming across as opposed to actively perusing. So, imagine my surprise when a friend from work invited me out to see this film and I brazenly said, “Sure, why not”. Based on initial trailers, this looked to be a combination of Old School meets Old Dogs meets…well…Old Standard Comedy. Besides, nothing was going to tickle me like The Hangover did, so my expectations were pretty low. And the result?
Expectations met. Hot Tub Time Machine is exactly as advertised; a silly, at times funny but ultimately disposable film about men longing for the glory days of their youth, and getting it.
The premise is simple enough. Four old friends go on a ski weekend to their old teenage stomping grounds only to find the place in almost ruins. Things aren’t looking to go their way until they get hammered in the room hot tub, spill some energy drink on the console and BLAM-O, they get rocketed back to 1986. There, in their teenage forms no less, have the choice to either re-invent their history, potentially ruining the fabric of time or play things exactly as they happen so nothing in the present gets messed with. The story does just enough to stay out its own way and while the crux of it gets a bit muddled with time travel and all of that, it does a fine job as a backdrop for the obligatory 80’s references and gross out jokes.
And boy, is there a whole lot of that going on. Folks who grew up in that time period will surely appreciate the Motley Crue soundtrack, the neon legwarmers and the wacky hairstyles that make up the bulk of this movie. Me? I have no real connection to the time period, so the joke was lost on me. While there’s enough comedy to get over this hump, I imagine a good understanding of time period will help.
As for the gross out factor, it is here in spades. Every sort of bodily secretion you can think of, or would rather not think of, is prominently featured in this movie. The Hangover had these “shock value” moments but in that film, they were naturally incorporated in the story where here, they are forced in to creep the audience. While I will admit, there is something fun about a whole theater of people gasping, “Yeeeeaaaahhuuucck” in union, it would have helped if those moments were naturally rooted in the story.
As for the cast, the characters are your standard mix of 40 something life drifters: a recent dumpee (John Cusack), an alcoholic party guy (Rob Corddry), a dog groomer who’s controlled by his wife (Craig Robinson) and video game nerd (Clark Duke). Each of the four do a fine job portraying the characters and while the script is very uneven, especially when they start arguing, the likeability of the characters elevates this film from standard comedy schlock to something a little bit more. It’s also worth noting that I really enjoyed the ending, not because the film was over (ha ha) but the direction they took was honest, in keeping with the characters not something you would expect from big budget Hollywood comedy.
As a result, Hot Tub Time Machine is, like I said in the opening, exactly as advertised: a fun buddy comedy that, while it doesn’t break any new ground, never takes itself too seriously either. Fans of films like The Hangover and Old School wont place HTTM on that level, but it’s a solid second string film that delivers on what it promises: a few laughs, a few retches and, if seen in the company of good friends, will offer some solid laughs on a Saturday night.
Score – 60%
Originally Reviewed – 2/8/2010
Anticipation is a funny thing. Sometimes, no matter how good a movie is, it never reaches the heights you’ve set for it in your head. After watching Public Enemies, I really tried to separate my high expectations from the reality of the film. Was it really as drab and average as I thought it was? Was Depp and company really sleepwalking through the lines? Was the cinematography really that bad or was the theater screen just out of focus? After sleeping on it and giving it some thought, I’ve come to this conclusion:
Nope, I’m right. Public Enemies is a remarkably average movie.
I could point to alot of what went wrong in the film but the best summation is it’s a big stinking pile of blah. The shooting scenes didn’t thrill, the love scenes had no chemistry, Johnny Depp’s snappy dialogue didn’t make anyone smile…just a big flatline for over two hours.
Speaking of Johnny Depp, he does the best he can with a decent script, but I feel as though the writers didn’t make the character interesting enough…it was as if they expected Depp to just “run with it”. Not once did I ever like or hate John Dillinger and that’s a problem with a move…uh…about John Dillinger. The rest of the cast, as I predicted, just had to be there. Marion Collard, aside from a great performance in the “interrogation scene”, was totally unbelievable as Depp’s love interest and Bale, as the FBI man sent to take Dillinger down, was barely there. At least he didn’t do the wacky Batman voice, so for that, I give him a pass.
The most shocking problem was the cinematography and lighting. While I’m doing my best to not be reactionary, this was one of the worst lit Hollywood movies I’ve ever seen. Everything had a dark haze to it, almost to the point where I wanted to complain to the theater manager for sticking us with a broken projector. The action scenes suffered from severe motion blur, almost to the point where you had no clue what was going on. Maybe the cinematographer wanted to convey a sense of “being in a 1930’s film noir film” with the lack of lighting and overused handheld camera but the result was highly distracting. This may be one of those films that’s actually better suited for DVD as the digital format reduces that effect.
The film had it’s good moments however. The aforementioned interrogation scene was intense as well as the opening scene, but the movie took a sharp downhill turn from there. Shame too, as the movie’s main character has tons of potential. Suffice to say, this is definite SKIP film, unless you are a true Depp fan and need to see everything he’s in. For everyone else, just get a copy of Road To Perdition or The Untouchables for your 30’s era gangster fix.
Score – 50%
Originally Reviewed – 9/19/2012
If you follow my reviews with any regularity, you know how I feel about the original Expendables movie. Look back at that review from two years ago, and you’ll read about “the defining moment”, the point where the movie completely leaps over the proverbial shark and swan dives into a lake of ridiculousness. Expendables 2 has a very similar moment.
Forty five minutes into the second installment in Sly Stallone’s latest grab for a paycheck, there’s a very tense and teary scene. After a moment of “terrible tragedy” featuring an actor we’ve spent a total of eight minutes with, Stallone reminisces to the crew about the nature of their deadly business. With as many tears as his crinkled face can muster, Stallone delivers a line to Jason Statham that resembles something heartfelt. A rumination. A genuine thought through the blood, bullets and CGI smoke. Statham’s deadpan response? “What’s the plan.” Stallone’s brilliant response?
“Track him. Find him. Kill him.”
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Expendables 2.
The story behind Expendables 2 is irrelevant. Tough guys battle a group of not as tough guys headed up by a plutonium seeking Jean-Claude Van Damme. The baddies are looking for a ridiculous amount of the nuclear stuff to sell to an unnamed buyer and it’s up to the Geriatric Rambo’s to stop them. The streamlined story actually works better than the convoluted government / general’s daughter claptrap of the first and allows the audience to think less about what’s going on and just enjoy the ride.
Wait. Aren’t we supposed to think at movies? Honestly, sometimes no. Commando remains one of my all time favorite “dumb movies”, because it’s pure escapism. Where the first Expendables took itself entirely too seriously, Number 2 succeeds in its simplicity. No goofy love story. No feigned political intrigue. Just guns, fists and a sound awareness that it’s exactly as dumb as you would expect it to be.
And with a cast this epic, how could it not be. Last time around, the story centered around Jason Statham and Stallone with the rest of the billboard names acting as scene specific filler. This time around, everyone gets a bit more time, creating a slightly more realistic team. Of course, the film features plenty of nostalgic fan service, mostly featuring actors who clearly showed up for a day, shot their scenes and left, but the cameos are better integrated into the main story. There’s also a smattering of decent acting, mostly by newcomer Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games) and a surprisingly funny turn by Dolph Lundgren as a chemical engineer / professional killer. Lundgren has a great deal of screen time, and nearly every joke he’s a part of works perfectly. Van Damme is also a well cast villain because…well…it’s Jean Claude freaking Van Damme.
But don’t let this review fool you into thinking this is an A+ movie. Fun doesn’t necessarily translate to good and there are plenty of bumps in the rollercoaster. The main hiccup is the shocking amount of bad CGI going on here. Computer enhanced shots are commonplace in movies but someone needs to remind director Simon West (Con Air, The Mechanic) that we can still create blood, bullet flashes and smoke (yes, smoke) via traditional means. Oh, and if you’re going to do it with computers, don’t make it looks like a Film 1 student’s After Effects project. The characters, especially the new ones, are given the bare minimum of development, making the experience again suffer from the, “tons of action with no real stakes” syndrome. The movie also suffers from midway bloat and the scenes where things calm down are just as poorly written and acted as one would expect.
When I saw the original film, it was on a whim with a friend and it was so bad, we laughed hysterically. The sequel also had me cracking up but not because it was unassumingly poor. It was a genuine good time. While nobody featured in this flick is going to win any Oscars, the fights scenes are well done, there’s nice mix of hand to hand combat with the gunplay and the whole feature flies by like a runaway tractor trailer strapped with machine guns speeding along a crowded highway. No worries, that’s not a spoiler. The result is a fun filled thrill ride that raises some pulses while dialing down the brain stem, the most you can ask for with a trailer so full of long forgotten names. A good time for fans of good times.
Score – 70%
Originally Reviewed – 1/19/2013
Over New Years Eve, I sat on the floor of my good friend’s apartment and got all “film critic-y” about Quentin Tarantino. Fellow movie fans were all a-flutter about the auteur director’s latest film, Django Unchained. They and the rest of the film going community loved it, but the trailer had me less than psyched. My 1:00 AM reasoning? As a Quentin fan, I want more. Making his career off the videotaped memories of a young adulthood spent staring at picture shows, Tarantino uses his remarkable skills to make souped up genre flicks. The Pulp Fiction phenomenon aside, his movies range from good to great. Selfishly, I want him to take the artistic leap to exceptional. Django’s trailer seemed to offer more of the same and my pre show expectations were low.
And why wouldn’t they be given the setup? Essentially a spaghetti western Kill Bill, Jamie Foxx plays Django, a slave who’s freed from bondage by bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz (Christoph Waltz). With the help of the good doctor, Django embarks on a mission to free his wife from the same chains he found himself in for years and years. The man holding the key is the affluent Calvin Candie (Leonardo DeCaprio). Can Django and Shultz infiltrate the racist aristocracy of the 1860’s Deep South to save the woman he loves? Anybody with a brain in their head could answer that question but the point isn’t the threadbare story. It’s all about the strange, violent and oddly magnetic journey Django and company take during the film’s 165 minutes.
As of late, Tarantino has been seen as style over substance and the 8th fiick in the director’s filmography is pure tooth rotting deliciousness. Quentin colors Unchained with his usual winks to the genres he loves while maintaining genuine intrigue throughout. Foxx is cool yet menacing in his portrayal of the educated slave and has a likability that undercuts the rampaging action. Waltz is also fine as the gun toting dentist, despite his character wearing thin around the two and a half hour mark. The real surprise is DeCaprio as the master of the house. Leo does his best work when he loves the role and he has so much fun with the Southern accents and over the top monologues, it’s naturally infectious.
Of course, nothing exceeds like Tarantino excess which is where Django Unchained shines brightest. Watching Jamie Foxx dispatch hordes of racist baddies is good cathartic fun, made more so by Tarantino’s knack for pacing and timing. While gun slinging doesn’t have the visual impact of sword play or kung fu, Quentin makes it work with stylish camerawork and his usual flair for the absurd. The movie also has genuine comedy to rinse off the bloodshed. Many of the moments from a Clan meeting gone bad to the more subtle bouncing tooth on Schultz’s dentist’s wagon are hilarious, reminding the viewer they’re in a Tarantino world.
In fact, when thinking back on Django Unchained, I’m reminded that Tarantino isn’t just another auteur. He’s a cubist painter who takes familiar film archetypes and bends them to his own strange vision. Everything is slanted left of center and the result is an experience that doesn’t break new ground yet still feels fresh. The film isn’t perfect. There’s no sense of connection between Django and his love interest, there are some questionable musical choices and, for God’s sake Quentin, don’t ever make a cameo in your own film ever again. Still, the end result is full of sugary, pulpy goodness. Tarantino wisely doesn’t try to resolve race relations from 150 years ago. He blasts them in the face with gunpowder and surrealist mayhem. Django Unchained isn’t the masterpiece us Taran-taniacs have been looking for, but so long as the director continues to make entertaining and well made films, maybe that’s more than good enough.
Score – 80%
Originally Reviewed – 9/2/2012
Growing up, I never had much of a connection to the TV series 21 Jump Street. While aware of it, I had never seen a single episode of the popular series. Alf, Star Trek: Next Generation and Perfect Strangers were more my speed. What I was missing was a cultural hit. Spanning five seasons and over one hundred episodes, the original Jump Street became a hit among young TV fans. A serious yet fun police procedural about undercover cops investigating crimes among high schoolers, the series quickly became a cult classic. Now, over twenty years later, a film has been made, rebooting the popular franchise. The result is a foul mouthed yet clever comedy piece that modernizes the now stale formula while staying true to the roots of the original series.
In this Jump Street, our investigative twosome is Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum). Growing up, Schmidt was a geek and Jenko was a jock but due to a bonding experience while attending police academy, the two become dear friends. After a bust gone bad, the two friends are reassigned to 21 Jump Street, an undercover division of the local police force. Their task is to pass as high schoolers, infiltrate the school’s various social strata and find the source of a new drug that’s sweeping the campus. This very simple setup lays a good if unbelievable baseline for the resulting gags and jokes, most of which work quite well in the context of the film. Much of the success of the movie is in the self referential way it treats this story. Many time characters mention how “writers have no new ideas” and how they “recycle old crap”, a willing wink to the audience. This removes all expectations of realism and allows the viewer to relax and get swept up in the silliness. The film also takes the time to provide links to the original show through cameos and inside jokes, all of which never hinder the story. Suffice to say, you don’t need to have seen the original series in order to get a laugh or two out of the movie, but if you have, these subtle winks are a scream.
And there is plenty of silliness to be had. From ill fitting Peter Pan costumes to ridiculous chase sequences, 21 Jump Street doesn’t lack in the “things to see” department. While the middle section gets a touch bloated, the film rebounds nicely with a satisfying final twenty minutes. By that time, some of the gags have worn a little thin, but there’s more than enough laughs to keep audiences interested. Much of this is due to some fine chemistry between Hill and Tatum. Although neither actor really excels, you can tell they are having a genuine good time, and in a silly farce like this, it’s more than enough. The film also features a very strong script, penned in part by Mr. Hill. Seven years ago, Hill was a geek and Tatum was a jock but since their high school days, the roles have been reversed. This creates a natural tension that develops between the two friends and gives the characters a much needed shot of believability. The other standout performance is that of Ice Cube as Capt. Dickson. Labeled as the standard “angry black boss”, Cube’s straight forward and cutting delivery steals many of the scenes he’s in.
The film isn’t all perfect, however. Many of the jokes miss the mark and the film feels a little overlong, especially around the 80 minute mark. There’s also one very uncomfortable scene where a neighbor threatens to blow Hill’s cover, prompting him to push her into a pile of shoeboxes. Played simply for the physical comedy of seeing an old woman fall down, the scene slows the action to a crawl, ruining the movie’s momentum. There’s also an uncomfortable romance between Hill and a student named Molly (Brie Larson). Despite the film reminding us numerous times that she’s supposed to be 18 in the movie, she doesn’t look it and seeing Hill fawn over someone who doesn’t look legal is a little creepy. While the script doesn’t go beyond the attraction, the romance could have been nixed entirely as it does little for the main plot.
When all is said and done, this is the only way you could have done a modern 21 Jump Street movie. Back in 1987, procedural police dramas weren’t on every channel and the serious tone was welcomed by fans and critics. Now, the method is ripe for parody and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller know it’s all supposed to be one big joke. If you’re looking for a serious reboot of the series, you’d be better served dusting off those old VHS tapes of the original show. However, if you’re in the mood for a clever, raunchy and mostly funny film that knows exactly what it is, 21 Jump Street is right up your alley. Just don’t be too offended when the leads get high, party with the kids and stare up at Korean Jesus. Just six back, relax and be happy that it’s supposed to be stupid. Anything else would have been unbearable.
Score : 80%
I remember the first night I spent in New York.
It was December, cold, bitter, the kind of night best spent in fuzzy pajama pants wrapped in a blankie, curled up on the loveseat watching Deadly OSD Housewives on A&E. Nothing here, just two suitcases with everything I owned tucked in the corner of the studio. The hard wood floor was cold to my feet, the place smelled like Pledge and I was alone. The sound of the heating pipes in the far corner cried out a plaintive squeal and cry as steam coursed through the metal thoroughfares, finally escaping via the baseboard radiators. There was a chill in the air yet it was warm, a product of poorly sealed windows. All was still and so was I.
I remember laying next to that window on the rickety bed left behind by the previous tenants. The windows were bereft of dressing, leaving the world below open to me. I remember lying there, wrapped in a flimsy sheet, staring out that window. It was nothing special, just a view of the neighboring apartment building, brick side, open windows, corner ending to a half view of the street, bar on the far corner with standard bar neon illuminating the wet pavement. Like I said, nothing special. My wristwatch read 1:51 AM but I didn’t mind. It was enchanting just staring out that window at the people settled, relaxed, purposeful, their places filled with meaningful stuff doing meaningful things. Kitchens full of utensils, living rooms stocked with chairs, tables, TV’s, bedrooms with curtains oddly open. Full of things done, challenges bested, obstacles overcome.
From my empty room, my first empty room in a series of empty rooms that would last to today, I felt terrified. Overwhelmed. My place did not have any of these things. No pots, pans, coffee tables, duvets or curtains. Nothing. Just empty space begging to be filled. Right then and there, I felt ill equipped for the task. The mountain to climb was too imposing for me to bear. And at that moment, I felt fully content to lay there on the bed that wasn’t mine, in a place I didn’t know, in a city everyone said I couldn’t last in a body I felt detached from and lie there for time infinite. Just waste away watching the world roll by.
Until a kitchen light in apartment 6D snapped to life and an angel in an ironic t-shirt came into frame.
The moment I saw Her.
She was rooting in her fridge, amongst her colanders and spatulas, looking for something to chew on. Couldn’t see what was in her fridge but the manner of her sloped back and softly shaking head was inclination enough that there was nothing of note. She just needed to move, needed to get out of her room and get away from the emptiness of her queen size. Like a clichéd Death Cab song, she had the air of long loss coupled with accepted loneliness, evidenced by the straight forward way she closed the refrigerator door and walked to the window directly across from mine. Her baby blue eyes held a world weariness, yet her brow held firm, resolute, calm. Later she would say that it was the snow made her look but something else that made her stay, some energetic force that kept her framed in that New York City moment.
Right then I knew, I had to know her. Her in her dancing potato t-shit with the slogan “Viva La Idaho” emblazoned on the front, her hair pulled back in a tie, her soft lips in a curious kind of half smile, I knew I had to know her. The notion of surrendering to failure was suddenly gone. For the first time in what seemed like weeks, I had a purpose. Why would I get a decent couch to sit on? So she could come over and be comfortable. Why would I buy a toaster oven and microwave? So I could make her Eggos and Ramen noodles when she was hungry. Why would I mop the floor once in while? So I could kiss her feet and not taste dust. Self serving as my motives were, I knew I had to have her.
And I did.
I’m typing this from a borrowed lappy from that very same room. Odd providence sent me to my old neighborhood tonight. Just wanted to get out of the place in SoHo, escape the nightmares that have been plaguing me for the last month, away from why I haven’t posted, away from all I got myself into. And it just so happened I found myself on my old street in front of my old building and wouldn’t you know it, somebody just happened to walk in as I passed and could you believe it, held the door for me to let myself in. Sadly the elevator was out, but the six floor walkup didn’t bother me as I scaled the steps to my old studio. Five years had passed since I last occupied this place and imagine my surprise to see an expired eviction notice taped to the door.
Now, I’ m not sure what compelled me to try the handle, to feel the slow click and turn of the locking mechanisms that allowed the door to creak open and it’s beyond me why I decided to enter, but I did anyhow. Easily breaking and entry, but I felt the need to visit a relic of my past. And there it was, more furnished than I remembered it, but still grimy, grungy and distinctly old. The bed was right where I left it five years beforehand and still had that familiar squeak and groan as I laid my body upon it, head resting where my makeshift pillow rested five year ago to the day. The view was the same, and there it was, that window where I first saw a vision of loveliness and decided the journey was worth embarking on. And for a small fragment of a moment, I half expected her to come to that window, wearing that damn potato shirt, smiling that half smile, to gaze at me like the last five years never occurred, the ends of time squishing together to create a compacted moment where then equals now, past equates to present.
But I knew she wouldn’t come to the window.
Not now, not ever.
thesurrealityproject 