hakimitus

[hakimitus]

new video about Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy, and how everyone* keeps getting them wrong! this video is sponsored by Nebula, a place where you can watch the original version of this video before I had to tweak it for YouTube's copyright bots. (by clicking that link, you can get an annual subscription for 40% off.) or you can just back me on Patreon, which is also cool and good.

transcript below the cut.

I adore Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy. I flirted with making a video about it ages ago, had a draft of a script, but ultimately decided it wasn’t about anything except “here’s a thing I like, and here are its (I thought) very obvious themes.” So I shelved it. But, in the years since, I have seen multiple video essayists on this here website claim that these movies are about growing up and taking responsibility. (I say “multiple.” It’s not a lot. But it’s more than one! And that’s enough.)

These people are 100% wrong.

Lemme lay it out: the Cornetto Trilogy is not about growing up. It is not about taking responsibility. It is the exact opposite, and that’s not subtext. It is three movies about stunted manchildren thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and each, in the end, is saved - is redeemed - by abandoning his character arc and failing to grow or change. It is a three-part love letter to immaturity.

And I guess I have to set the record straight.

Sometimes making a video about a thing you love is an act of appreciation. And sometimes it’s out of spite.

The Cornetto Trilogy is three movies: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End. All three are written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright; Pegg stars, and Wright directs; all three center on a relationship between Pegg and real-life best friend Nick Frost, which makes each film a reunion of the core team behind Spaced (excepting, but for a small role in Shaun of the Dead, Jessica Hynes). The three films span three genres: zombie apocalypse, buddy cop, alien invasion; each features a Cornetto ice cream cone: strawberry to represent blood, original blue to represent the police, and mint to represent little green men; this is a joking nod to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Trois Couleur films, Bleu, Blanc, and Rouge, which were based on the colors and themes of the French flag (I don’t care what you say, Emily: #TeamRouge); that nod is funny because Trois Couleur is high-art drama and these are comedies. All three are parodies of, tributes to, and actually surprisingly good executions of their respective genres. And the hook, the gag at the center of all these movies, is that Simon Pegg plays a character wholly unsuited to be starring in this kind of film.

Shaun, the burnout, is the wrong person to survive the zombie apocalypse; by-the-book British bobby Nicholas is the wrong person to lead an American-style bombastic actioner; and alcoholic asshole Gary is the last person to save the world from aliens.

And I think that’s where people get stuck. Because “schlub finds himself protagonist of a genre film” is the elevator pitch for like a dozen Adam Sandler movies. The genre trappings may be as mundane as parenthood or mandated anger management classes, or as high-concept as action movie, whodunnit, or time travel It’s a Wonderful Life if Clarence were Christopher Walken as the angel of death (that… that makes it sound good, it’s not, don’t see Click; leave Frank Capra alone, Adam). But all these movies have the same basic shape: an extraordinary situation forces a guy to confront his shortcomings, which always stem from having never grown up. And you probably haven’t seen all of these movies, but if you’ve seen any, I bet you have assumptions about how the rest end: even though “Adam Sandler acts like a child” is generally the selling point of an Adam Sandler movie, they all end with some lip service toward becoming an adult: hey man, grow up a bit; appreciate your family a little more; square your shoulders; clean your room. This is so standard, it was parodied mercilessly in Funny People.

And this was a formative microgenre for my generation! Whole universe turns itself upside down to teach some shitty dude to, like, do the dishes and pay his wife a compliment now and then - Liar Liar, Bruce and Evan Almighty (all directed by the same guy, by the way). So I don’t blame people of a certain age for seeing the first act of Shaun of the Dead and thinking “I know where this is going.” And when, at the last minute, it swerves and goes someplace else, you could read that as a gag, a final subversion of expectation, still the same basic shape. But no! No! Once is a gag - thrice??? Thrice is a thematic statement!

So lemme make my case. I’ma take you through these movies one by one - we’ll talk about the manchildren and the expectations set by the genre, and then we’ll talk about that last-minute swerve and what it means. And then you’ll tell me I’m right and apologize!

Shaun of the Dead:

Shaun is a man in his twenties. What kind of manchild is he? He’s the slacker.

What is his problem? He needs to sort his life out. Shaun doesn’t know how to take action. He hasn’t advanced since college - he’s been working the kind of job a teen takes over the summer for like a decade, lives with the same best friend, has the same petty fights with his stepdad, goes to the same pub every week with the same group of people. He can’t make a reservation, he can’t manage a calendar, he’s a washup. This makes his girlfriend, Liz, feel stifled, trapped; he is a weight around her ankle, taking her on the same date week after week, keeping her from living her own dreams, having her own adventures. She gives him one last chance to prove he can sort his life out, and he blows it, and she dumps him.

And then: a zombie movie happens.

The genre forces him to confront his shortcomings: to survive, and save his loved ones, he’ll have to take action, make plans, be decisive. This is a common fantasy: when you feel ground down by the mundanity of life, you might imagine, oh, if only a crisis would happen, like a zombie virus outbreak, where my normal-life problems like “am I gonna make rent,” “is my girl gonna take me back,” “is my roommate gonna kick out my stoner buddy who’s crashing on the couch” become meaningless, and it’s immediately clear what’s really important, what matters. Then I’d know exactly what to do. It’s why disaster movies work as escapism: a necromantic plague - or at least the fantasy of one - is sometime preferable to normal life.

Hot Fuzz:

Nicholas is a man in his thirties. What kind of manchild is he? He’s the hall monitor.

What is his problem? He can’t switch off. He is a hypercompetant police officer with a rulebook where his brain should be. He’s so good at being a cop that he’s spotting and unraveling crimes even on his day off. He can’t maintain a relationship, has no friends, all his coworkers hate him because he keeps finishing their work for them, and his stats show up the rest of the force so badly that they scuttle him out to the country.

Now you might be thinking, “Mmm. A fastidious police officer who can’t have fun? How is that a manchild? Sounds pretty grown-up to me. You’re reaching, bud.” Ohhhh ho ho, smartass, do you remember this scene? [bar scene] Yeah! Nicholas Angel has a five-year-old’s notion of law and order. He’s still playing cops and robbers.

And that’s a problem, because then: an action movie happens.

It doesn’t happen all at once: he goes out to the country and finds they do things a bit differently there. They are (ostensibly) less concerned with rules than what than the rules are for: if the purpose of drinking laws is to keep the streets safe and orderly, and letting some people off with a warning or allowing kids drink so long as they do it inside achieves that end, the rule can be bent. That’s a judgment grown-ups can make; I mean, they’re the ones who wrote the rules in the first place. So be lenient with shoplifters, don’t hassle people for speeding; this isn’t the Big City, you can use your better judgment. But Nicholas never got past doing whatever Mom & Dad said; obedience, and trusting whoever’s up the chain, is his entire moral framework. He can’t accept that bending the law could be more righteous than following it.

But also maybe there’s a criminal conspiracy murdering people and writing it off as accidents and the police chief might be in on it. Or maybe Nicholas is so desperate for a big case with no moral ambiguity that he’s seeing things where they aren’t. 

The genre forces him to confront his shortcomings: either there’s nothing going on and he needs to chill out about procedure, or the department is corrupt and he’ll have to go rogue like it’s Point Break - and this is how he experiences Point Break. [“paperwork”]

No matter what, he’ll have to bend the rules, which he constitutionally cannot do.

The World’s End:

Gary is a man in his forties. What kind of manchild is he? He’s the delinquent.

What’s his problem? Pfffft. What isn’t his problem? Gary is a manipulative, narcissistic, lying, self-destructive, ignorant, violent, thieving, shit-talking, unapologetic asshole who peaked in high school when being all those things was still kind of badass. The greatest night of his life was the drunken pub crawl after graduation he and his friends didn’t even finish, and he’s been tumbling downhill ever since. He’s spent his life ruining everyone who knows him until there’s no one left to ruin but Gary King. So now it’s time to bully the old gang into going back home with him to relive that night by finishing the pub crawl, because, in his own words, it’s all he’s got. And he and his friends have to confront how home has changed since they left - the bars have gentrified, not everyone recognizes them; the defining, epic deeds of Gary’s youth have been forgotten. You can’t actually go back because that place doesn’t exist anymore.

And then: a sci-fi movie happens.

Turns out the town’s been taken over by aliens, and all the people who couldn’t conform to their new order have been replaced with robots! That’s why no one recognizes them! And that’s why the pubs all look the same: the aliens are homogenizing everything! And it’s clear, if they can’t get Gary and his friends to play ball, they’ll roboticize them as well! The obvious move is to get the hell out of town, but Gary keeps inventing excuses to stay and finish the pub crawl, and they sound pretty sensible because the group’s already five pints in. The genre forces him to confront his shortcomings: sooner or later he’s gonna have to give up on recapturing his youth and do what’s best for him and his friends now, even if it means running back to the city where all his problems live.

So there we have it: the characters cross the threshold into an unfamiliar world where an external conflict cannot be addressed without resolving the tension within. The slacker will have to get his shit sorted, the hall monitor will have to break the rules, and the delinquent will have to do what’s good for him. And, to an extent, all three know this! The movies Wright and Pegg pay homage to exist in these stories - Shaun knows what a zombie is, Danny keeps Nicholas up watching Point Break and Bad Boys II, and Gary and friends know bodysnatcher movies so well they have philosophical debates with the robots about whether “robot” is the PC term.

So, yeah, if you turned the movies off there, I could forgive you for thinking that’s where they’re headed. But you goofballs watched them to the end and then made content about them, what is wrong with you???

What actually happens in the second halves of these movies?

Shaun twigs that he’s in a zombie movie and, at first, tries to play the part - his survival plans are miniature hero’s journeys with him as protagonist, wherein he’ll save the day by neatly confronting all his flaws. He’ll resolve parental conflict by saving his mom from his zombified stepdad, resolve romantic conflict by showing his girl he can come through when it counts, and resolve internal conflict by being a man who saves the day. And all his plans suck! It’s just the same plan he always comes up with! Dragging around the same useless liability of a bestie, collecting the same group of people, and holing up in the same pub! He doesn’t save his mom: his stepdad apologizes, resolving their conflict for him, and then survives in zombie form but Shaun’s mom gets killed; most of the friend group gets killed because the crisis does not actually suspend but in fact amplifies their personal grievances; and he doesn’t save the day, just manages not to die long enough for the military to show up.

But… well, Liz wanted adventure and now she’s had enough for a lifetime, so… she’s down to just be boring with him for a while - sit on the couch, watch TV, hit the pub. Beats running for your life. Tensions with the roommate are gone cuz roommate died, but rent is covered cuz Liz moved in. Zombies don’t get eradicated, just folded into normal life, so Shaun can mindlessly play video games with his bestie forever, and it’s not a problem that bestie doesn’t have an income cuz he doesn’t need food or shelter.

The zombie apocalypse doesn’t make Shaun sort his life out, it changes the world til he doesn’t have to.

When Nicholas discovers that, yes, there is definitely a murderous criminal conspiracy inside the police department, he recognizes the only way to bring about justice is to become what Danny has always wanted and go Dirty Harry on the town. It’s either that or just swallow the crimes. But he does neither. He and Danny go on an epic shooting spree, recreating famous movie scenes, taking out the entire criminal organization against all odds, and spouting badass one-liners… but everyone who helps them is a cop, they don’t actually kill anyone, all perps are formally arrested, and they fill out all the paperwork. I think he even properly signs out the weapons. He never switches off, never breaks a rule, does absolutely everything by the book, only… louder. And this violent showdown saves him from the chill town with lax rules he thought he’d moved to. Now he, with his five-year-old notion of right and wrong, is in charge of the police department.

The buddy cop actioner doesn’t make Nicholas bend the rules, it changes the world til he doesn’t have to.

Gary knows exactly how a movie of this sort is supposed to go and spends the whole movie running from it. Friends and secondary characters keep sharing these poignant moments with him, because they know this story, too: yeah, he’s gonna reject help at first, but sooner or later he’ll hit rock bottom and then someone will get through to him. And, as the night goes on, and the characters get drunker and drunker, and Gary passes up more and more opportunities to abandon the pub crawl and go home, these moments take a tone of desperation. They start to sound more like interventions; like, Gary, we all know you’re going to come to your senses but could you hurry up with it??? How many of your friends need to literally die for you to shape up? Are you gonna get them all killed?

And the answer is: Gary will never shape up! To Gary the Human Dril Tweet, his friends trying to save him, psychiatrists trying to treat him, and aliens trying to assimilate him are all the same thing. He doggedly makes it to the end of the pub crawl and confronts the alien overlord who tells him all the technological advancements of the past few decades - all the efficiency and homogenization that’ve changed the face of his home town - are their doing. The Information Age is an intervention on behalf of Earth, a pan-galactic effort to save humanity from itself. And the reason they’ve been replacing people with robots is some people are too fucked up to go along with it.

And here’s Gary, King of the Fuckups, brashly declaring that fucking up is what makes us human. There is no freedom without the freedom to ruin your life. We are endowed by our creator with the right to be drunken, ornery pieces of shit.

He tells the aliens to piss off and he’s so fucking annoying that they do, and they take the Information Age with them.

Now… I know… ugh… I know a lot of people love this movie, say it’s the best of the three. Some friends who’ve struggled with mental health or just being an adult under late capitalism really identify with Gary, and the valorization of being a mess. I see you, you’re not wrong, I get it, I really do. But can we just… not “but” but “also” can we… can we also admit that this ending is… this is Space Brexit.

Like, literally it’s an alien invasion but symbolically this is Gary rejecting the adult world of rules and authority and doing what’s best for the community and that’s how Brexiters view the EU. And people keep telling him “Gary, this is in your best interest” and Gary says, I don’t want my best interest! I am registered in the anti-Gary’s Face Party and I will cast my vote by cutting my nose! I choose to do what’s bad for me.

And, like a true Brexiter, he chooses for everybody.

Now tell me that’s a movie about growing up. Gary collapses human civilization in its entirety rather than change, and in the world that follows, he thrives… by being an immature, irresponsible bag of garbage.

To Wright and Pegg, growing up is death, and these are movies about being alive. These characters don’t cross the threshold back into the ordinary world with the ultimate boon of character growth; all three stay in the extraordinary world. The zombies remain, the robots remain, Nicholas is offered his London job back and chooses to stay in the country. These are stories about normal life spontaneously turning into a genre film, and they are made with deep love for those genres; why would they end with leaving those genres behind? Because it’s what Adam Sandler would do?

So there you have it. I rest my case.

“Okay Ian. Why does this matter?”

…what was that?

“You’ve made your point: these movies aren’t about growing up or taking responsibility. So what?”

Uhhhh.

“Bring it home for us.”

…

“Why do you care so much?

[breath]

I wrote the first draft of this script when I was around Shaun and Nicholas’ age, and “so what?” is why I shelved it. Now I’m Gary’s age, this video’s been in the back of my brain the whole time, but I got this far and “so what” is where I got stuck, again. This is why the CO-VIDs came out quicker, cuz I let myself end with “so that’s interesting!” and got on with my life. But there’s clearly something sticky here, more than “someone is wrong on the internet.” (Also, to the YouTubers I’m vaguebooking, who said these were movies about growing up - I’m way more annoyed at the folks I’ve argued with on Twitter about this, you just made a better rhetorical device; you do not owe me an apology!) (Also, to the commentariat: I am not extrapolating this from like two data points, this is chronic and recurring and has been bothering me for years.)

There are a few directions I could take this to give it some “cultural weight.” I could put on my social justice hat and talk about how the “crisis of adulthood” doesn’t play as broad comedy unless you look like Adam Sandler or Simon Pegg, or put on my class analysis hat and talk about how signifiers of adulthood are, traditionally, ways of spending and accruing capital which are, today, often inaccessible to people under 40.

And that’s all legit, but here’s the real deal: I’m just mad at Gary. The world changed around Shaun such that he could stay a child. And Nicholas ended up somewhere he could stay a child. If you missed that, you’re wrong, but whatever. But to say that Gary grew up grinds me, because Gary chose this. The whole movie is people telling him to grow up, and he says no! He says it out loud! He says it to the literal end of the world. To walk out of the theater and say “that’s a movie about growing up” is more than a mistake, it’s a refusal. It’s trying to “fix” the movie by fitting it into a more familiar shape, so it doesn’t say what it says, so Gary isn’t who he is, who he chooses to be.

I’m being cheeky when I say this because he’s a fictional character, but saying Gary grew up is enabling.

Gary says there’s no freedom without the freedom to ruin your life, which is the problem with alcoholics and libertarians: it’s not just your life, Gary! You live in a community, a culture, and an ecosystem! Your actions - everybody’s actions - impact other people! That’s just the way the world is! You can’t shit yourself at the bar without other people having to smell it. We’re all fuckin’ connected, man! You don’t want anyone’s will imposed on you; you spend the whole movie imposing your will on everyone else! You say humans don’t wanna be told what to do, and then you decide humanity’s future by yourself with no input or consent from anyone!

People point to Gary ordering water in the last scene instead of beer as evidence that he got sober, like that’s proof that he did grow up in the end, which are you fucking joking??? Getting sober is a shorthand for maturity the way buying a house is, it doesn’t signify anything in and of itself! Gary drank to escape the adult world of rules and responsibilities! So, yeah, under normal circumstances getting sober would mean he’s made peace with that world and is ready to integrate. But that’s not what happened! The thing he was escaping doesn’t exist anymore! He literally destroyed it!! People died! Probably millions! Now he lives a happy life LARPing as Omega Doom - no I don’t expect you to catch that reference! He doesn’t need to drink! He is literally reliving the best day of his life forever. And even if it did mean personal growth, the idea that a person could make what would be, unequivocally, the most selfish decision in human history, and then spend his life celebrating the outcome, oh but if he overcame a personal demon in the process then on balance that’s maturity? That is lightspeed solipsism! Who are you if you think that way? Are you all Adam Sandler???

And none of that makes this a bad ending, or Gary a bad character. I mean, he is the reason The World’s End is my least favorite, and I don’t like the ending, but I don’t think it’s bad that I don’t like the ending. Rather than watch another addict pull his life together or destroy himself, we watch a downward spiral with so much gravity the whole world self-destructs alongside him. And that’s why The World’s End is the most interesting of the three: it is a bold choice, and I think we are free to feel however we want about the conclusion Gary engineered for himself. I don’t think it’s valid to pretend it didn’t happen.

In the context of the trilogy, we see that Shaun’s immaturity is mostly a problem for Shaun: he would be, at worst, a footnote in the lives of the people who love him; “yeah, I liked Shaun a lot, but I couldn’t carry him through life anymore.” Nicholas is the kind of overachiever that is useful if pointed in the right direction; juvenile code of ethics aside, he is, empirically, helping the community (within the entirely fictional framework where that’s a thing police do). If the world hadn’t changed to turn their flaws into strengths, they would still be relatively harmless. Gary is what happens when immaturity isn’t harmless, and shows us how a world built by that immaturity would look.

There is an appeal to Gary King, a wish fulfillment. Letting your id fully off the leash because you no longer care what anybody thinks - it’s why some people drink, and it’s why some people would like to drink with Gary. But if that’s not just your Friday night, not just your twenties, but that’s your life? There is a destination at the end of that road, and it’s Gary doing something truly ugly. And we see that ugly thing the way Gary sees it: as awesome. But then you see the reality: the Monday morning after the Friday night. We went out with Gary and he did something terrible.

And I’m not telling you to hate Gary for it; I’m not saying Gary can’t be forgiven. In fact, seeing it for what it is is the only way Gary could be forgiven, because, if he “grew up and took responsibility,” there’s nothing to forgive.

I think this is the only way the trilogy could have ended. I mean, you make stories about boys who get older and older and don’t grow up, it eventually becomes a problem. There’s only two ways to resolve it: you either end with a guy actually sorting his shit out, or you go for broke and show what happens if he doesn’t. And I think some of us boys saw that and said, “no, noooo, they did grow up! all three of them!” rather than say, “haha! hahaaa! ……………shit.”

[hakimitus]

Gotta say my mental has been EXTREMELY hocus as of late

[hakimitus]

[hakimitus]

[hakimitus]

The quickie before the storm

Hey, folks!

It has been B-A-N-A-N-A-S!!

Since the last blog post, I’ve gotten a new job, enrolled in a couple video game development courses, have started exploring animation, and am taking Return to Life in an exciting new direction!

I’ve also started leaning into motion graphics and am finding my heading.

Oh! And I’ve started a Twitch channel!

I’ll be getting some legit content up here soon, so hang on!

[hakimitus]

there is no time

“life cycles”

[hakimitus]

Reflections on Imminent Fatherhood (or: Holy Shit, I'm About to be a Dad)(ROIF(HSIATBAD)): II

Over the course of the last several months, especially as we get closer to go time, I find myself reminiscing more and more on my time in high school. For me, as this new period of uncertainty gets nearer and nearer, I want to feel as much certainty as I can.

In my last post I briefly discussed a lot of doubts filling my head and my heart.

There’s some kind of correlation going on here… The more uncertainty a person feels, the more certainty they want to feel, so they think back to times where they exhibited a great deal of it; that and/or self-confidence. Also, the more a person anticipates something, the more they worry about something going wrong with it. I don’t know that these are necessarily universal, but they sure are common in me; and as far back as I can remember I’ve always wanted to A) be a husband and B) be a dad. So that’s 30-some odd years of anticipating and building up.

For me, my time of certainty was my junior and senior years of high school when I was on fire for Jesus and helping lead my church youth group as well as a bible study at school. The love of God I experienced in July of 1995 at an international youth conference was life-changing. I wish I had been a better purveyor of that love and witness of that experience, but instead I let myself get caught up in the church establishment, the Western Cultural Machine I’ll call it, and cultivated an overly-developed sense of responsibility. Basically, I’d get into other people’s shit and tell them how they ought to live, based out of a healthy bit of self-loathing as I feared I'd never be good enough to experience that life-changing love again.

While the summer of ’95 to ’98 was a time I was at the apex of self-confidence I’m not super-stoked about how I comported myself. Once I left the safety of my church home bubble and entered the real world on my own, no friends coming with me, I learned that everything I was so certain about wasn’t really that solid.

All the rules, all the books of rules, all the books explaining the books of rules and what you can and can’t and should and shouldn’t do as a follower of Christ led only to increasing frustration and despair.

The one thing that remained true through it all, though, was the LOVE of God. The love that’s unconditional; the love that says, “Fuck the rules, I love you;” the love that says, “That’s a neat thing you did there, but I don’t want you doing all this stuff; let’s just hang out and spend some time together;” the love that says, “I know what’s happened to you and that’s fucked up; I know you’ve done some fucked up things; but that’s okay because I love you and the way I see it (and I’m omniscient, y’know [God talking, obvi]) there’s nothing wrong with you and I want to help you get over the lies fed to you saying there is.”

The Way of the Rules got me a five month marriage. I could have whipped myself then: See? You’re such a loser you couldn’t even make a marriage work! Time for the monastery, sucker. Time to dwell on this for the rest of your life until you know better!!

Well, dwelling on mistakes gets you nowhere except Miseryville.

The Way of Love said: Well, that sucked. Let’s see what we can learn from this and forge ahead. Maybe next time, instead of imposing rules, let her just be herself. If you’re into her, go after her, but again, let her be herself and let you be yourself.

Not long after, I met Jenny. Love said: JACKPOT, SON!

The Rules said: Nope. She checks only non-essential boxes; what about all these?

Love said: Dude, chill. Trust me; she’s the one.

The Rules kept on complaining; but approaching 34 years of life, most of them dominated by the oppressive Rules, I turned my back to them and opened my arms to love.

And so I guess that’s my answer. In reminiscing on times in my life where I faced daunting situations without letting fear get the best of me (because never doubt this: I was still scared shitless (which is good because it lessens your body mass, lightening the load for either fight or flight)), I was able to proceed because I wasn’t overthinking it, I wasn’t psyching myself out, and I wasn’t doubting myself because I knew I was enough to get the job done, whatever it was. For me, that comes from knowing that God loves me, farts and all. Same with Jenny, same with all my closer friends.

And damnit, that’s the kind of husband/dad/friend/brother/compadre I hope I can be.

[hakimitus]

Reflections on Imminent Fatherhood (or: Holy Shit, I'm About to be a Dad)

So, yeah…it’s not like my situation is any more special than any of the other countless fathers-to-be who have helped propagate our species since Adam first introduced his snake to Eve’s juicy fruit but still…holy crap…or when I really let it sink in: holy shit. It’s different when it’s you. For all the other times it’s someone else, when you’re finally someone else to everybody else, it’s different, way different.

 I’m super-stoked! …and super-scared. But I’m not super-scared of ruining him, necessarily, but will he feel loved? Will he know love and be able to give it to others? Will I at least be on par with my dad as I assume the paternal mantle? Will I be better? Will I be worse? How will I do in my husbandly duties once my wife and I are parents?

 We’ve got less than four weeks until the due date.  

[hakimitus]

The Vacation of Blessed Tragedy

Chaos Theory?

I’m probably not using that term correctly, but it seems to fit.

The past couple of weeks have been a little bananas. No – not little bananas. Big bananas. Plantain bananas – it’s been CRAZY the last couple of weeks.

It mostly has to do with my day job. The optempo suddenly escalated by a factor of 100 as a confluence of events generated hectic 10-12 hour workdays. It was toward the end of last week that things finally started to settle down.

I’m on leave through the end of this week and Jenn and I have been planning a little getaway to Kauai for a few weeks now, but the usual anticipation I feel when a vacay is imminent was absent leading up to this one; I guess because we’ve been so freaking busy.

It wasn’t just my work schedule; Jenn has been making herself busy with doctor’s appointments, Poshmark, and other things and our social calendar has suddenly exploded, too (lots of friends with birthdays this time of year). We ended up not packing until the night before.

So, when we began our journey Sunday morning, we were both pretty wiped, though oscillating between excitement, adrenaline and anticipation with fatigue, hunger and resulting grouchiness. Thankfully our grouches never synched up and we were always able to balance each other out.

Her dad dropped us off at the airport in plenty of time, checked in with no problem, got to our gate and were able to enjoy Burger King breakfast and Starbucks. Time came to board, also easy breezy because it wasn’t a packed flight. And compared to the flight to the Big Island, it seemed like the flight attendants had barely served the Pass-o-guava juice before we were preparing to land!

Now, Kauai is a place Jenn has been to before, but it was a number of years ago and this is my very first time. After multiple trips to the Big Island, it is nice to be in a place that’s brand spankin’ new. It’s still Hawaii, but for me it’s a new island with new sights, new drives, and new people. However, the baggage handling experience did provide a first for the both of us.

I figure after the events of Avengers 2, Bruce Banner made his way to Hawaii and is kicking it as a baggage handler. I mean, how does the main cover just get ripped off like that at the seam?

So, maintaining my calm, but not hiding my shock, we wheeled it over to customer service. The guy there (to whom I owe a 5-star Yelp!) was calm throughout the experience too, and processed a satisfactory claim for us. It was too easy, and gave us an excuse for going shopping at Macy’s. We now have a badass hardback suitcase that was originally priced at $300, but through sales, coupons, and Hawaiian Airlines comping us for the damage, only cost us $2.39.

We had about a 45 minute drive ahead of us to get to the beach cottage and a few hours to kill, so we drove out to…shoot…some waterfall that’s really nice then back toward Safeway to get some groceries.

Now, the Safeway was nice enough – it had some really cool wood sculptures out front and then inside, a nice layout. The thing was, randomly a loud “PEEEEB” would ring out over the PA system. It was just the right tone and volume to start driving my CRAZY by the third PEEEEEB. Jenn, bless her heart, tried to keep me calm, but then 10 minutes into it, she was starting to feel it, too. By this point, we had gone so long without adequate rest fatigue was overtaking the two of us, we got what we needed and got out ASAP.

Not two minutes down the road we realized we had forgotten sunscreen. I offered to turn around, but instead we decided to stop at a place along the way. We found a Long’s Pharmacy, thinking it’d be like a Long’s Drugs – just different naming for some reason. Upon closer inspection, it was indeed exclusively a pharmacy and not the place selling general needs wares. Thankfully, there was a Big Save, a local chain grocery store, in the same plaza.

After going up and down the health and beauty aisle a couple times, I found an aisle toward the end of the store labeled as “Beach Accessories”. Ha-HA! There was ample sunscreen.

At checkout I saw a Bison Bar. Similar to jerky, but not as hard and chewy and embedded with cranberries, I found this to be a delicious snack. I even enjoyed the afterburp, it was so good.

So, we finally made it to the missile range, passed through the ID check, and found the cottage check-in office. Now, we waited to arrive because check-in is scheduled at 3PM. We got there at 4, and on Sundays the office closes at…3. So, instead check-in is at the guard shack. We drove back to the gate, got our stuff, and finally made it to the cottage.

We unloaded everything, sat down for a second, found a rather nasty hornet/wasp thing buzzing around, some ants, then went back out to the newly-discovered NEX for some bug spray and ant traps.

Now, we wouldn’t have even known about this place were it not for a couple of our good friends. They had told us that there is one restaurant here, but they had never tried it. So, we decided to go poking around and check it out.

Not too far down the road is a groovy little oceanfront restaurant/bar. It’s very similar to the Army Club in Makaha if you’ve ever been there, but I daresay, Shenanigans (heheh) is mite bit nicer. Service is comparable, but it’s quieter, being far away from any other towns or civilization. 

They were out of normal beer, but they had my favorite beer – LAVA MAN. After a couple pints and a couple hours of enjoying each other’s company, we headed back to the cottage for the night, tucked into our big, fluffy, king-sized bed with the a/c on and passed. Out.

We didn’t set any alarms, but a rooster woke us up around 5, then the National Anthem at 8, and finally around 9 we rolled out of bed for a lazy breakfast on the lanai.

For most of the afternoon I’ve been working on this post, next I’ll be working on my novel, Jenn’s been soaking in some sun – yes, vacay was most definitely needed.

Not all has gone according to plan or met expectation, but everything is just right.

[hakimitus]

24 HOUR FILM RACE

 Soooo…the 24 Hour Film Race happened this last weekend and I PARTICIPATED.

Haven’t done anything like it in awhile, and it was a blast. Granted, I was exhausted ,but it was great.

Hopefully I’ll be able to share it with you all soon…

The story behind it is kind of crazy.

So: the premise of the whole shebang is as follows: you pay to sign up and at 2200 EST (1600 where I’m sittin’) this past Friday (12JUN) you get an assignment – elements you need to include in your short film. And we’re talking super short film here – 3.5 minutes of narrative, 30 seconds of credits. Like I said, I haven’t done this kind of thing in a while and I’m a little short on resources, though I’m way ahead of where I was when I first started getting into this with Mario Paint (!) and Spider-Man action figures back in ’93-’94.

That being said, I am lucky enough to be friends with a fellow of a fine family of five actresses who were more than game to open up their home and let me stay there as long as needed to shoot principal photography. And my wife is wonderful enough to not only support but join in on the insanity. :D

This is also the first official product of The Bailey Adventure! So I was authorized to get some equipment to contribute to the storytelling experience – a fog machine, a ghost costume, and some eerie lighting gear - - that is to say, the gear itself isn’t eerie, but the effect it produces is.

You know what film really inspires me in the filmmaking process? Super 8. I love that, as a subplot all along, one of the kids is just trying to make his dang zombie film and he’s all about production value. So I was approaching this project with that attitude, knowing this isn’t going to be anywhere near Hollywood, nor even high-end indie quality, but dadgummit: we could still effectively tell a story with our (puritanically) modest budget.

One thing I learned when I first got into filmmaking with actual actors – this being during my college years (late 90s, early 00s) – planning is everything. If you don’t know what you’re doing, where you’re going, or just what the dadgum vision of the project is, there are potentially going to be a lot of people getting bored, frustrated, and/or impatient and that’s just no Bueno. So, with this contest, I wanted to be as far along in the planning process as I could be, because I’d probably have to be at work right up until 1600 that day – then drive home, then drive back to the location – burning up a good hour in driving time alone. Seeing as how the cast is comprised mostly of kids, I didn’t want to keep them tied up too late, so yeah – without breaking the rules, I wanted to be as prepared as possible.

So, the day before the contest, I was running on one of the ellipticals at the gym and thinking about everything and everyone I had at my disposal…the best bet I’d have was to keep it in as few locations as possible…okay, keep it in or around the house – got it. And I’ve a couple adults and a bunch of kids…most of them related to each other…so, something with a family at the center…what could be a good…SCARY MOVIE??!

And it hit me! Make a scary movie!

Okay – uh – it’s kids, and I don’t have the experience with fake blood or make-up, and I don’t want it to be too scary…so, a ghost!

Okay – ghosty…it’s a haunting…how do we introduce the idea of… Isyourhousehaunted.com! Not a real .com – not yet, anyway, but it could be a good device for how the girls get the notion that their home may be haunted!

And the parents can’t be there, so…let’s have them going on a date and leaving the kids home for the evening!

And it just went on and on from there and I thought it was great!

That night, I started writing it out – then I thought two things: 1) it’s against the rules to write the script beforehand. 2) What if the theme conflicts with the story and doesn’t mesh at all? So, I decided to not stay up til all hours of the night Thursday and instead played some Portal 2 for an hour or so (haven’t played that in a couple years) and spent some time with my lovely wife.

The next day, I was ready to get my work and duties done early to leave to get home and pound out the script and storyboards. I wanted to at least be en route when the assignment email was released.

I wasn’t. Everything kept me from leaving early – it may have been about 1545 before I was finally able to get out the door...but shortly thereafter, at a stoplight, I got the email!!

 TO BE CONTINUED…!!

[hakimitus]

Happy International Women's Day (albeit a day late...) from The Movie Garden Podcast!

[hakimitus]

Makes sense.

Rape is the only crime on the books for which arguing that the temptation to commit it was too clear and obvious to resist is treated as a defence. For every other crime, we call that a confession.

[hakimitus]

Superheroes - They’re just like us! 

Photographer Edy Hardjo created this super photo series. You can see more HERE.

[hakimitus]

Cliff Bailey and I just finished recording our first podcast. 2 hours--that's right, *2 hours*--of commentary on some super-awesome topics: Leonard Nimoy and his legacy; The Lego Movie (its themes, how it was snubbed by the Academy, etc.); a few tidbits a...

[hakimitus]

An animator at Robot Chicken has reinvented the failed Nintendo Power Glove as a stop-motion animation tool.

This - this is pretty awesome.

[hakimitus]

Official music video of Fear & Delight by The Correspondents.  If only MTV's usual product was this creative...

[hakimitus]

...I don't care, I'm still free / You can't take my Christmas Tree...