Published

Sometimes I Have to Apologize for Leading My Friends into Experimental Tom Hardy Films

“I may have a lot of problems, but at least I can grow a magnificent beard.”

Seeing as I live in the terrible abscess of culture and art that is Central New Jersey, I don’t often get the chance to do simple things like go to museums, take DJ classes, or go to the movies. (There are plenty of opportunities for having deep metaphysical conversations with trees, so if you’re into that you should come hang out with me in my woods.) The closest movie theaters are about 45 minutes away if you drive the speed limit or an hour away if you spent a considerable amount of time living abroad and are now afraid of automobiles. (Everything just moves so fast now!)

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Hazy College Days, a Big Tattoo, and a Failed Love – Five Years of Watching Princess Mononoke

Unless you’ve seen me naked sometime in the past three years, you probably don’t know about the giant homage to Princess Mononoke that adorns my stomach. I’m a relatively inconspicuous young man, my most notable other features being a thick, scraggly beard and a pair of extremely plump red lips, so most seem to be a little surprised when I take off my shirt and they are faced with a piece of art that takes up approximately 50% of my torso.

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Watching Titanic Stoned Is Not Nearly As Much Fun As It Sounds

Don’t believe the hype, Rose.

The first time I watched Titanic also happened to be the first time I saw a pair of large naked boobs staring at me onscreen. They were Kate Winslet’s large naked boobs, of course. I was a confused young boy of nine sitting in the corner of the very first row of a Central New Jersey theater: my father to my right, my older sister to my left, and me and a rapidly mounting sense of awkwardness in the middle.

(Ahh… should I look? Should I not look? What’s everyone else doing? Oh god, something is happening in my pants!)

Fifteen or so years later I found myself again watching Titanic in a completely sold out theater, but this time from the corner of the last row, with very different company and about as far away from New Jersey as one can get without either burrowing to the Earth’s core or flying to the moon.

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The Most Disturbing Thing I Have Ever Seen

Even though I have seen countless films and have traveled through some of the darkest and most disturbing nether regions of the internet, there still remain moments when I am shocked out of my desensitized shell and genuinely and profoundly and utterly repulsed. Those also happen to be some of my very favorite moments. There’s certainly a devilish perversion in witnessing something so sick and twisted that it practically knocks you right off your seat (or at least there is for me anyway).

‘Boyz N the Hood’ and ‘Friday’ are the Same Film to an Outsider

It’s easy to take a look at my iTunes and stereotype me as a typical white country-boy with delusions of the ghetto. Whether it’s the frequency of seeing artists with “Young” in the name (Young Thug, Young Gangsta, Young Jeezy, Young Dro, Young Roddy) or the overwhelming prevalence of ebonics in the song titles (“Mo Money Mo Problems,” “Ova Da Wudz,” “Workin Em”) or perhaps it’s just the effortlessness at finding numerals in the album titles (Dedication 2, Thug Motivation 103: Hustlerz Ambition, Hunger for More 2, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx), it’s clear I have a deep well of interest in hip-hop culture and music.

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‘The Tree of Life’ Breaks the Cardinal Rule of Cinema

Hey, I’m all for ponderous, overwrought films that slowly sink under the weight of their own monotony as much as the next perpetually hungover, country raised, hipster film addict, but there does come a point – perhaps sometime between the third and fourth checking of the film’s progress – that you think to yourself, “Self. This is an incredibly boring movie. Why do I continue to torture myself?”

And, of course, you may start a tennis match conversation with your own consciousness –

“Turn it off.”

“Hey there’s only… only 45 minutes left… Let’s just finish it.”

“Turn it off! It’s so boring. Uhh.”

“There’s not much left, and it got really good reviews.”

“Oh God, I want to die. I just… I just want to die. Like right… right now.”

It’s a laborious thing to argue with oneself, and doubly so when half of the mental arguers seem to be suicidal; it is not an endeavor that should be undertaken lightly.

More at – movies.mxdwn.com