Just came back from coffee/tea with friend from USC (millenniums of cultural evolution and human beings end up socializing pretty much the same way as the ancient romans must have, minus the steamy bathhouses) and we commiserated at the lack of a non-legally-oriented social scene at our respective lawschools. he complained about how his classmates at so cal are obsessed w/ everything law; i related how every conversation i have nowadays w/ law school friends seems to live and die by "how's your job search" and "how do you like your classes". all of which made me wonder, have we become more boring? are we less interesting people?
and then, we proceeded to talk about school... and post-graduation... and our law school friends... and our professors... and more about our schools...
our lives have become a horror movie: you run and run and run but you know, soon enough, you gonna get stabbed anyways.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Movie: Rocky Balboa
"Life is hard and it will knock you down, but it is not about how hard you get knocked down, its about how far you keep going forward after you get knocked down that matters."
take your hero, and beat him up before he ever gets in the ring. beat him up with a bad kid, with a dingy restaurant, with a grimy city. and beat him up some more by making him take pity in a bartending mom who more wal-mart than victoria's secret. and then kick him by making him the object of ridicule, up to the opening moments of the fight.
then watch him stand up. and stand up. and stand up.
everyone who leaves the theaters will remember that line. it's the hook to the tune, the part you're supposed to hum to yourself.
but the other part of it, the part that's in the background, is that bit outside the ring. that swath of the movie that says, this is where they put the old horses out to die. to tell their fight stories over and over again and pose with teenagers for their digi-cam parents. the part that existentially questions whether there was any real point to the fight when, at the very end of it, rocky loses and the only validation he's won is that he's remained standing for 10 rounds of beatings. the part that asks what was all that "stuff" he had to get out of himself inside the ring and why he couldn't be doing it in a shrink's chair instead of a boxing ring.
cause, make it clear, end of that fight, rocky goes back to that restaurant. with, as mason dixon's manager says, "some more stories to tell." you take every single sports movie ever told, and you stay and right before the credits, they roll up and go "...and he ended up as a successful car salesman." and you wonder, this was it? this was what you get for that last minute shot? that last touchdown? that last punch? this? an eternity reliving that moment while peddling ford tauruses to suburban soccer moms?
that's the crisis rocky the movie can't resolve. that's the parallel with his kid, the i-banker groupie that, try as he might, just can't sell as many bonds as his dad can land punches. that hates the shadow but can't figure out who he is away from it.
yes, i'm making the case that silvester stallone, mr. rambo, has made the ultimate post-modern flick. the ultimate film about what do you do with a boxer past his prime? a dog - an ugly dog - past puppy-hood? a city - all working-class philly - past its glory days and reduced to a bunch of tenements where "the bus hasn't come in years". a life without meaning, a city without meaning, mourning the past (personified in the dead wife Adrian) and needing just someone to sock your lights out.
what do you do?
you go to vegas. and hope the lights drown your sorrows.
take your hero, and beat him up before he ever gets in the ring. beat him up with a bad kid, with a dingy restaurant, with a grimy city. and beat him up some more by making him take pity in a bartending mom who more wal-mart than victoria's secret. and then kick him by making him the object of ridicule, up to the opening moments of the fight.
then watch him stand up. and stand up. and stand up.
everyone who leaves the theaters will remember that line. it's the hook to the tune, the part you're supposed to hum to yourself.
but the other part of it, the part that's in the background, is that bit outside the ring. that swath of the movie that says, this is where they put the old horses out to die. to tell their fight stories over and over again and pose with teenagers for their digi-cam parents. the part that existentially questions whether there was any real point to the fight when, at the very end of it, rocky loses and the only validation he's won is that he's remained standing for 10 rounds of beatings. the part that asks what was all that "stuff" he had to get out of himself inside the ring and why he couldn't be doing it in a shrink's chair instead of a boxing ring.
cause, make it clear, end of that fight, rocky goes back to that restaurant. with, as mason dixon's manager says, "some more stories to tell." you take every single sports movie ever told, and you stay and right before the credits, they roll up and go "...and he ended up as a successful car salesman." and you wonder, this was it? this was what you get for that last minute shot? that last touchdown? that last punch? this? an eternity reliving that moment while peddling ford tauruses to suburban soccer moms?
that's the crisis rocky the movie can't resolve. that's the parallel with his kid, the i-banker groupie that, try as he might, just can't sell as many bonds as his dad can land punches. that hates the shadow but can't figure out who he is away from it.
yes, i'm making the case that silvester stallone, mr. rambo, has made the ultimate post-modern flick. the ultimate film about what do you do with a boxer past his prime? a dog - an ugly dog - past puppy-hood? a city - all working-class philly - past its glory days and reduced to a bunch of tenements where "the bus hasn't come in years". a life without meaning, a city without meaning, mourning the past (personified in the dead wife Adrian) and needing just someone to sock your lights out.
what do you do?
you go to vegas. and hope the lights drown your sorrows.
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