I have not addressed ‘Obama-mania’ in a review yet; the movie I love you man as well as the last 20 headlines in The Onion has brought this to my attention. I have not seen any media speculation as to when the Obama backlash would begin –as if he were a hit movie or American Idol contestant.
But once this question does in fact arise, pundits will have to mark the point on a timeline. I would say the backlash begins after the Inauguration: he is now president; whom do we have to fight against?
When I first had the idea of reviewing I love you man: a film it occurred to me that the review should be a series of suicide notes; or at least rough drafts for one good suicide note. This idea occurred to me before the idea of an Obama backlash occurred to me and before I had the dream I am about to describe.
A Mid-review Dream
This is one of three dreams, and the only one I made a point of consciously remembering.
At first I had a very valuable CD in my mouth and was trying to remove it without breaking it. Then I was in the presence of something that was blood red and glowing, almost like a heart. This heart type image was enclosed within a rusty wire mesh cage. I knew then that I was about to die and that this presence was what self-inflicted death felt like. I had to make a very definite step, like stepping off of a box –which I did. I felt my throat freeze up, experienced a moment of non-existence then woke up.
If I was a big shot at Saturday Night Live I would pull any possible strings available to bring Paul Rudd onto the show as a host. If I accomplished this I would proceed to write and direct sketch after sketch where Paul Rudd makes every movie he can in order to cash in as much as possible before 2012.
…A Book by Hermann Hesse After Having Recovered Paul Rudd’s Soul
The sketches would evolve from Paul blatantly acting in terrible movies for egregious sums of money, to a near final sketch where, in a crisis of conscience, he re-records John Lennon’s How do you sleep? as a scathing reproach to Judd Apatow. I think that, at that point in the show I will have Joaquin Phoenix playing the role of Paul Rudd. Maybe I will have Joaquin Phoenix carry around a book by Hermann Hesse after having recovered Paul Rudd’s soul.
The story will get so engrossing that when the show is over, the actors will hang around wondering what will become of Paul Rudd. But Paul Rudd will not be concerned with his own well-being anymore, he will be lost within the panorama that is this particular episode of Saturday Night Live.
You see, if we do this episode right, we can stage the apocalypse on TV and contain it there.
I have no idea what the apocalypse will look like on television. Maybe my plan is the reason why the Federal Government has mandated the move to digital TV.
Here is a quote from Borges…
“On the first day of creation, foreseeing that at the end of time many disasters and calamities would befall, the god had written a magical phrase capable of warding off these evils. He wrote it in such a way that it would pass down to the farthest generations, and remain untouched by fate.”
This passage is from a review of the new Nicholas Cage movie Knowing: a film. It is called The writing of the God. It is a review that draws heavily on ideas presented in The temptation of St. Anthony by Flaubert. Just as Knowing: a film draws heavily from ideas presented in 23: a film –starring Jim Carrey.
It seems to me that the only ‘safe’ way to stage the apocalypse on an episode of Saturday Night Live is to do so in a dream.
To fall asleep I suggest recalling pop songs made before 1966 that have been used as movie titles.
My Girl
Calendar Girl
Stand by Me
Only the Lonely
Great Balls of Fire…
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I love you man is getting decent reviews. Will I be the only person decrying this movie?
Will this be the first movie that people generally like, that I will bash without seeing?
What will the ‘Big’ earthquake that hits Los Angeles be like?
Just now a door slammed and I thought of earthquakes I’d experienced in the past, then imagined a huge earthquake I’ve never experienced. It seemed more like a movie than a memory. A memory is not stored in your head; it is consciously reassembled every time you have it.
This seems logical. So let’s say that most relationships we have are the products of active assemblage of past contingent experiences.
The above is an excerpt from the opening monologue.
Paul Rudd likes his apocalyptic dreams to be biblical enough to fit on a soundstage; so when you shoot the end of the world on SNL it appears as the creation story. Genesis and Revelations proceed simultaneously.
“I’ve never been afraid of death, but now I’m not so sure.”- Paul Rudd
The cast is unstable, actors morph into one another slowly at first, more rapidly as the show progresses.
John Belushi, John Candy and Chris Farley have cameos but do not speak. Experts say that it will be years before you will experience an episode in which the dead speak.
Mike Myers addresses the audience: “who was it that said ‘artificiality is the essence of decadence’?”
The applause sign lights up and the musical guest begins performing, except the performance has no beginning and things become too confusing.
Thoughts appear as geometrical shapes.
Paul Rudd, off camera, realizes what is happening and says: “I better cash in quick!”
He looks for his agent but finds his grandmother instead. They begin discussing possible career moves.
Images are becoming opaque now and the show is losing content.
Quick! Look at your hands!
You try to do this but order others to do it instead. They do. Control is regained for them.
The studio audience lines up to thank Paul Rudd. They believe he is the one who gave them the order to look at their hands.
Paul Rudd has taken credit for your idea. He must pay!
There is a sketch where St. Anthony is telling Dick Cavett that things never would’ve worked out with the Queen of Sheba –she isn’t his type.
He has mistaken a hallucination for reality.
Over the stage there is a marquee that reads: “Now playing: Less than Zero”
But Less than Zero was recorded in 1976! And Gnostics believe the dialectic reduces the Universe to Zero… but less than Zero?
Isn’t it a synthesis?
A new thesis?
One?
Alone?
Wake up
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Join us next time in “Chicken Soup For the Film Goer Soul: a sigh”
Or go back to last time in “Friday the 13th: a film”
Or check out “Saved Admission” Tag.
WHAT TO DO NOW?