don’t be a jerk

There was a movie that came out last year called Primer. It’s about time travel. It’s also utter crap.
 
The movie takes too long getting to the meat of the story (the time travel.) The acting is mostly prattle. An inordinate amount of energy is spent on techo-babble and explicit ways of explaining how the time travel actually works. And on top of all this, the movie is completely unintelligible. The multiple timelines are impossible to follow and the plotline basically becomes a mass of tangled hair. I even went online to read other peoples’ breakdowns of the plot, and even then, the movie still comes off as too convoluted and poorly executed.
 
In interviews, the director states that everything in the movie is intentional, and that it all makes sense if you really study it. His purpose was to make you think. He wants people to try to figure out what happens (which, by the way, is impossible.)
 
See my problem is that I’m not so concerned about what happens in a movie as I am with what it all means in the end. Memento is a good example of this. The “what happens” is a mystery, but eventually is explained and is understandable and not really important in the end because what’s really important is what it all means: the “why” it was all important.
 
I feel bad harshing on it that much because it was the filmmaker’s first feature, and I’ve seen worse.
 
But the fucking thing won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, so my standards of judgement go up a bit.
 
WTF?
 
I think people, especially people in high places don’t like to look dumb. I’m sure that there are a some of people that look at a Picasso and really appreciate the genius behind it. I’m also sure that the vast majority of people that “appreciate” Picasso are just trying not to look like uncultured dipshits.
 
I think the people who gave Primer the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance just didn’t want to look like stupid dipshits so they pretended like they understood it, which is totally impossible. The stupid liars.
 
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So anyways, I watched Syriana today with the buddies. I was so relieved when Rick turned to me 45 minutes into the movie and asked, “Are you as lost as I am?” The movie made me feel dumb. Especially since it’s been getting such good reviews. Even Mike G with his enormous, enormous brain couldn’t explain the movie to us. I think I like Stephen Gaghan’s scripts better when Steven Soderbergh directs them.
 
This is what the movie is about, from what I remember:
 
George Clooney is fat and hairy and does dangerous, illicit work for the US government in the middle east. Something to do with weapons sales and…oh fuck it. I don’t know. At some point he gets betrayed and hurries his ass back to the middle east to do something. Not quite sure what, but it seemed pretty important.
 
Matt Damon, thankfully has the most understandable story line. He goes to a party thrown by some mid-east royalty. His kid dies at the party, and because of that, Matt Damon starts working for the prince of the kingdom. He starts being a dick to his own family after that. Oh also, the prince of the kingdom has this brother who I swear is flaming gay, but they never really say it outright. Maybe he’s just straight and utterly fabulous.
 
There’s this black lawyer guy whose firm is brokering a merger between two huge oil companies in Texas. I don’t know what this black lawyer’s name is, but the government keeps pressuring him to be a snitch and he also knows Christopher Plummer who is very important and rich and powerful and has a very expensive home security system in his house. I think George Clooney breaks his expensive alarm system at one point, but they talk later, and Christopher Plummer never makes him pay for it. Man, if someone broke my very expensive alarm system, I’d sure make them pay for it.
 
Anyway, whenever this black lawyer guy goes home, there’s this older, angry black dude always sitting on his front steps. This older black dude might be the black lawyer guy’s father, but I’ll never know, because I had pretty much given up on trying to understand the movie about 15 minutes into it.
 
There’s also a couple of Persian kids that they follow, but they mostly just play soccer and eventually go blow something up. I knew something was going to blow up. Once I gave up trying to understand the movie, I just waited the next hour and 45 minutes for what I was sure would be a spectacular explosion. It wasn’t that good tho.
 
Syriana sucks. I’d recommend watching King Kong instead. It comes out next week.
 
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R.I.P. Richard Pryor.
 
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Oh, and found a new roommate, BTW. Forgot to mention that. Thank god that got taken care of pretty quickly.