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accountingfortaste · 7 years ago

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The Biggest Logic Hole in the History of Cinema

by Clay Keller

I wish it didn’t have to be like this. Generally speaking, there’s nothing wrong with Clark Johnson’s S.W.A.T. (2003); it’s a relatively diverting LAPD action thriller with a surprisingly solid, “in-their-prime,” cast.* Under different circumstances, producer Neal H. Moritz’s 2 Fast 2 Furious follow-up could be remembered for any number of things. It could be remembered for the cracker jack airplane paintball training sequence, or for LL Cool J’s preposterous abdominal muscles, or perhaps even for Gamble, Jeremy Renner’s emo ex-S.W.A.T. villain, who definitely looks like this:

But that would be under different circumstances. As things are, all of the positive aspects of the fourth of five (!) Colin Farrell movies released in 2003 are overshadowed by the fact that this film contains the single most inexplicable logic hole / paradox in the history of movies.

At this point, you might be saying to yourself, “I don’t remember those parts of the movie that are supposedly ‘overshadowed’ by that other part of the movie that I don’t remember.” And you’d be right, because you don’t care about S.W.A.T., no one does.

But you’re about to.

Part One: The Theme Song

S.W.A.T was not the first time that a television show was adapted into a feature film. In fact, without doing any research, I’d venture to guess that S.W.A.T. isn’t even the second or third time this happened. And when a television show is adapted for the big screen, it is commonplace to include some kind of winking, self aware, moment that lets the audience know that the filmmakers are aware that the story they are telling is derived from a different story that was previously told on a different medium. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson sharing a scene with the actors who played the original Starsky and Hutch in Starsky and Hutch (2004) comes to mind, or the “does she always look like she’s in slow-motion?” joke from the trailer for Baywatch (2017). There are many more examples, but since those are the only ones that immediately came to mind, they must be the best.

Considering that long, proud tradition, it isn’t unreasonable that the people behind S.W.A.T. wanted to throw in a reference or two to the ol’ TV show. In fact, the fans would expect no less! And the references begin subtly enough, with the famous theme song from the show, originally composed by Barry De Vorzon, woven into the fabric of the score of the film, composed by Elliot Goldenthal. This is great, a nice little nod to the TV show that instantly evokes jaunty 70’s police fun without being too on-the-nose or distracting. Plus, since the characters in movies cannot hear the score music, having the original theme song present there doesn’t create any irreparable tears in the foundational logic of the world of the movie.

So far, so good. But then…

Midway through the movie, after successfully passing the aforementioned airplane paintball trial and officially becoming a S.W.A.T. unit, our heroes go out for a celebratory BBQ dinner. They laugh, drink, ogle Ladies Love Cool James’ abs, listen to a somber speech by Sam Jackson about the unacceptability of dying, and then begin singing the theme song from S.W.A.T. the TV show. All of them. In unison.

At first blush this may not seem like an issue. After all, the S.W.A.T. theme song is simple and catchy. Real-life S.W.A.T. teams probably sing it all the time, like how pilots are constantly humming the Wings theme, and you can’t walk past a fire station without hearing some firefighter jamming out Third Watch on an electric keyboard. The issue comes with the realization that this particular S.W.A.T. team is in a movie directly based on the TV show that this song originates from, sharing their names and characteristics with the characters from said show. If the TV show existed in the world of the movie, and they all know it well enough to spontaneously break out singing the theme, surely by now one or more of them would have had the existential meltdown that comes with noticing that you and your friends have the exact same names as a fictional S.W.A.T. team from a thirty year old television show. Surely.

But maybe not.

While this seems like a fairly egregious oversight, it isn’t completely damning, and, with a little bit of “deleted scene hypothesizing,” can be explained away. Perhaps in the world of S.W.A.T., that catchy theme song did not originate with Mr. De Vorzon and the Aaron Spelling-produced show, which of course couldn’t exist, but rather with our heroes themselves, composed at some point in the course of the narrative and adopted as a personal pump-up jam. As far as I know, such a scene does not exist, but easily could, and would make an excellent addition to one of the films myriad training montages:

For this theory to hold water, one needs to assume that Oscar-nominated composer Marc Shaiman would be friends with Samuel L. Jackson’s Sgt. Dan “Hondo” Harrelson, but Shaiman seems very likable, so I buy it.

Whew, that was close. Clark Johnson, screenwriter David Ayer, and company, almost obliterated the reality of their film for a tossed-off joke, but with a little creative thinking on the part of the audience, the movie can continue on, unabated. All they need to do now is avoid making any more references to…

Part Two: The Actual Goddamn Show

… oh come on.

Mere minutes after the movie’s first flirtation with smashing through the fourth wall like the Kool-Aid Man, we find our heroes enjoying a much-deserved day off.

Sgt. Hondo and Lt. Velasquez (Reg E. Cathy) are putting in some time on the links…

… while Deacon takes his kids shopping…

… TJ (Josh Charles) has a predictably douchey (lunch?) date at a French restaurant…

… Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez) tests Street’s step-dad potential with a backyard water gun fight…

… and Boxer (Brian Van Holt) shirks his household chores…

… while kicking back on the couch with a lukewarm Dr. Pepper…

… and blithely watching everything he thought he knew about the universe be thrown into utter chaos.

Well, shit. So much for the airtight “personal team theme song composed for them by Oscar-nominated composer Marc Shaiman” theory. This scene confirms it: the TV show S.W.A.T., a spin-off of The Rookies that aired from 1975–1976, exists in the world of the movie. The reason everyone was able to sing the theme song during that scene in the BBQ restaurant is because they are all aware (and presumably fans) of the TV show, S.W.A.T., which, again, exists.

How is it possible, in light of this new information, that every single last goddamn fucking scene in this movie doesn’t play out like so:

It just doesn’t make sense! All things considered, the movie S.W.A.T. should be about regular blue collar cops who, after bearing witness to a glitch in the space-time continuum, slowly lose their minds as they become feverishly obsessed with figuring out how this is possible and if they can fix this broken reality. Not one drug lord should be apprehended from a flaming private jet, not one beach dramatically ran upon by a dripping-wet Colin Farrell. Who has time for that kinda crap in the midst of their psyche slowly cracking into a million pieces? S.W.A.T. should essentially be the same movie as Jake Gyllenhaal’s Enemy, but with significantly more hair gel and leather cuffs; there’s no reason it doesn’t end with every character either dead, in an institution, or facing down a spider the size of a bus.

Part Three: Theories

Honestly, the time for excuses is over. The stretch that was necessary to explain away the theme song gaffe was just barely short enough that I was willing to make it. This, however, is a bridge too far. By including a clip from the actual show, S.W.A.T. earned itself the dubious honor of having The Biggest Logic Hole In The History Of Cinema, full-stop.

However, in blatant defiance of the sentence immediately preceding this one, I am not going to stop, but rather press forward, with a collection of theories that attempt to bring sense to the nonsensical, and fill The Biggest Logic Hole In The History Of Cinema.

Each theory will be followed by points both for, and against.

Theory 1: The characters in the movie all love S.W.A.T. so much that they legally changed their names to those of the characters on the show.

Ok, maybe? But since none of the characters know each other at the beginning of the film, that means they all did this very weird thing independent of each other, and just coincidentally all picked different characters. Then to top it off, they were all recruited for the job that the fictional character that they named themselves after also had, and in the same unit, no less. And then they never spoke about it.

Actually, no. For the one, the probability of that happening is infinitesimal, and for two we know from the movie that Hondo didn’t recruit people based on their names, he recruited them based on their willingness to beat the hell out of suspects, and enjoy “good old fashioned American hot dogs.” Plus, if it was some pro-level “The Secret” shit, they would go on about it non-fucking-stop and they’d be on, like, The Talk, if that’s still a show.

Theory 2: It’s the holodeck, from Star Trek

“Whoa, these theories sure went off the rails quick, didn’t they?” Why yes, they did. The theories went off the rails with a quickness that is in direct proportion to the insanity of the hole.

S.W.A.T. officer Michael Boxer (the grinning layabout we see watching S.W.A.T. on his couch) is actually Lt. Mike Boxer, a security officer on a Galaxy Class starship that isn’t the Enterprise, I don’t know their names, but one of the other ones. Since nothing ever fucking happens out in space (remember, not the Enterprise), Lt. Boxer stares wistfully out at the stars, lost in nostalgic reveres about the good ol’ days of cops and international drug kingpins, until he remembers that there is a holodeck and he can just go and do the damn thing. So, not unlike Capt. Picard and his 40s private eye fantasies, Lt. Boxer wiles away the hours in his program set in 2003 Los Angeles, because really, was there ever a better place and moment in American history?

I’m still thinkin’ no. If this is Boxer’s program, which is assumed because he’s the one who is unequivocally aware of the show, why is he not the lead? Hell, he isn’t even on the poster! Who writes themselves into something as a supporting character who gets shot and has to sit out the entire climax of the story? Unless this is some sort of reverse- Lt. Barclay situation, where in real life Boxer is the cock of the walk and his secret fantasy is to be background bullet fodder… I don’t know. I’ll chalk this one up as a “possible.”

(You: “Wait, the author snarkily implies that, like all cool people, he knows the bare-minimum necessary about Star Trek, but then invokes occasional guest character Lt. Barclay as a reference? Just how much does he actually know about Star Trek: The Next Generation? Is he secretly a big The Talk fan as well?” Me: “Fuck you, that’s how much.”)

Theory 3: Michael Boxer is a bored immortal and/or interdimensional being

This theory is similar to the holodeck theory, but with a less proprietary mythology. Basically, Boxer is an ancient, and possibly interdimensional, being who loved the television show S.W.A.T. so much that he decided his late-20th century game would be organically recreating the program, with real people and real situations. He Marty McFly-ed all of the heroes’ parents (“You know a name I’ve always liked? Hondo...”) then took up some sort of mentorship role during their youths (a teacher, coach, surprisingly wise vagrant, etc) to subtly nudge them in the direction of law enforcement. Boxer has had millennia of practice with human Rube Goldberg puzzles like this, so he’s really fucking good at it and it works like a charm.

“If he was an influential part of their young adulthoods, why doesn’t anyone recognize him as such?” Easy, the mustache. Next.

“Why does he allow himself to be shot at the end of the second act?” Because he needs to take himself out of the situation in order for his little baby birds to fly on their own. Next.

“What about the continued existence of the show? And knowledge of the theme song?” In his capacity as wise vagrant, he indoctrinated his pupils with the idea that television is evil and should be avoided at all costs. As for the song? Welcome back to the game, Clay’s Perfect Marc Shaiman Theory From Earlier!

Holy shit, you guys. I think we did it. We patched the biggest logic hole in the history of cinema. Congrats, Brian Van Holt! Here you’ve been for the last fifteen years thinking you played seventh banana in a moderately successful PG-13 franchise non-starter, when you were actually playing omniscient god-like banana in a moderately successful PG-13 franchise non-starter. I’m glad we were able to do you this service. You can now be at peace.

Part Four: What Come Next?

As you are no doubt already aware, the S.W.A.T. legacy is far from concluded. A new version of the series, from The Shield creator Shawn Ryan and Fast Five director Justin Lin, is premiering this fall on CBS. Oddly, it is an adaptation of both the TV show and the movie, since it incorporates the Chris Sanchez character that was originated by Michelle Rodriguez in the film.

This begs the question, will ageless interdimensional trickster god Michael Boxer also appear in the new series? According to imdb it would seem that he does not show up in the pilot, but that doesn’t mean much. Scripts can be rewritten. Pilots can be re-shot. Just imagine the narrative possibilities of adding a TV-obsessed, all-powerful, immortal character to a gritty LA police / social drama. I’m not saying that it will be better, because that is obvious, and I am not in the habit of redundantly pointing out the obvious.

Do with this information what you will, Shawn Ryan. I know you’ll make the correct choice.

In Conclusion:

youtube

*S.W.A.T. is actually a pretty damn good time. Underrated. Check it out.

#S.W.A.T.#jeremy renner #samuel l jackson #michelle rodriguez #josh charles #ll cool j #brian van holt #david ayer #movies #screenwriting #clark johnson #los angeles #aaron spelling #shawn ryan #colin farrell #clay keller

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wendyimmiller · 4 years ago

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Looking for Something More Positive

Lovettsville, VA

Dear Scott,

Rain. Glorious rain!

The exclamation point is, I assure you, fully justified. After three and a half weeks without the stuff and without piped water to my sunniest gardens, I had reached a point of exhaustion and had begun the process of separation.

Last year and the year before were the years to plant trees – and I did. But this year, I finally had time to put in the thuja hedge. Now it’s being kept on life support by milk jugs schlepped up from the creek. How wonderful that the crab grass and creeping charlie seem undaunted.

I know you are familiar with this gardener’s trick of self-preservation. Just stop looking at the things that upset you so that they in effect, disappear. My inherited 100ft Long Bed currently requires a machete, pith helmet and vaccine certificate to enter, but by simply turning my head left instead of right when I exit the back door, the issue is solved until winter takes a crack at it.

Douglas Adams wrote of something similar in his Hitchhiker’s series – advocating the use of a towel over one’s head to successfully protect the wearer from seeing anything dangerous. And I am successfully using something similar with my mirror these days – you do not have that many years on me you know.

I touched upon this August feeling of exhaustion/annoyance two weeks ago on my own website – pulling no punches – only to have a subscriber withdraw her reading services, citing “Looking for something more positive.”

Oh how I wanted to reply to her – breaking no doubt, sixteen Mailchimp covenants and sworn oaths of privacy – to say “My friend and fellow gardener, this IS positive. It’s the perfectly packaged pap from the everything-is-okay-I’m-doing-awesome-having-it-all-#BestLifeEver crowd that you should be avoiding. We’re all in this together – it sure as hell helps if someone is truthful about it.”

I refrained. But I did get a giggle when Anne Wareham of The Vedww House Garden commented “Still knackered – I measure this by how many times a day I say f… off to an inanimate object.” Wonderful.

I believe you are dry in the Midwest too this year – isn’t it annoying to find ourselves more dependent on the wet stuff than we wish to be? And that’s just the vodka gin and tonics. The despair attached to a long cool spring and mostly rainless summer in a year where I am writing and photographing a book on tropical plants has necessitated a few more visits to the drinks cabinet than are advocated by those that officially advocate these things.

Fresh flowers on the drinks cabinet keeps the intoxication process civilized.

Some mornings I can feel the ghost of Beth Chatto hovering over me and my watering cans as I slop warm rainwater over sandaled, gritty toes and give Anne at The Vedww something to strive for in graduate level Creative Swearing.

Hearkening back to our discussion of gardeners you do not care to read, but don’t mind slagging off, Chatto championed the idea of planting specifically for drought tolerance. When I last visited the Beth Chatto Garden in East Anglia two years ago, they had received all of 13 inches of rain by the end of August, and the gravel garden (built over the remains of a car park) had not had a drop of supplemental water. It was a hot summer certainly, but that area of England is particularly dry in the best of years.

Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden in August 2018

Chatto’s ghost chastises me for planting choices made in wetter years. I’d offer her a coffee, but she has so many gardeners to chastise on her morning rounds there’s no time for a chat. Should she stay, I’m ashamed to say I would begin the discussion with an excuse — having been instructed throughout my gardening career not to.

“The difficulty with my garden,” I would say (How many sentences begin thus? I have heard hundreds myself.) “is that I live in a wooded stream valley.”

She would look at me blankly – in that way the British are so good at – in the way my militant (but beloved) godmother used to – politely waiting for the actual problem. And I would instantly feel ashamed of myself and get back to water slopping and some menial weeding.

Hypothetical one-sided discussion over.

Not that I wouldn’t continue to feel sorry for myself, chastised and muttering into the crabgrass. For I am a gardener and that is what gardeners do. There is an enormous amount of energy spent feeling sorry for ourselves. A dry season, a deer feast, a late spring freeze, a child on a mower. Poor Anne and Charles at The Vedww lost one massive yew in an established hedge to a dripping tap and I want to shake my fist at the Heavens for them – I can’t imagine how cosmically wronged they feel.

Ah! The glories we could achieve were it not for [X]! The vegetables we could grow were it not for [Y]! The excuse-free year we would have were it not for [Z]! I could go on, but I have an excuse to finish illustrating for you and demons compel me…

A wooded stream valley means free draining alluvial soils worthy of a Mediterranean garden…were it not for the 90 foot tulip poplars meting out sunlight like a miserly king. And then there’s the cold air that trips and tumbles down the hillsides to pool over my expensive zone-pushers. Lavender without the sun. Ferns without the moisture. Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink…

A drone photo in May shows part of the lower garden, but more importantly, shows the surrounding woods lurking like Fangorn Forest. Minus the Ents.

It is a paradox that can only be solved by the time and effort needed to amend the soils and figure out what works and what won’t. Beyond the Japanese Stilt Grass, which couldn’t be happier.

During this dry year, it is tempting to allow the survivors to slip quietly into dormancy. With COVID bells sounding and everything off the calendar, including tours of my garden by highly opinionated gardeners tsking and tutting between mouthfuls of quiche and cheap plonk, I have questioned the need (for instance) to keep watering containerized color for my eyes only. Further existential questions such as “What is it all for?” or “Is there a purpose to all this suffering?” or “Why the hell did I wait to put in that thuja hedge until THIS year?” have been springing from my lips just as often has Anne has been abusing her inanimate objects.

Now it is you who are no doubt looking for something more positive. Forgive me. I am in an August state of mind and there is nothing like it. August will try the very soul of you. How many new, excited 20-something gardeners have met their Waterloo in August and fled back to more pleasurable ways of abusing their bodies and minds?

There I go again. This is getting grim quickly. You might as well be writing this letter. Let me attempt to redeem myself with something profound: Adversity refocuses the lens of necessity.

This perhaps is the most positive lesson coming out of all this mess, by which I mean the COVID emergency, the dry summer, and the non-stop political wars: The perspective it gives on the importance of the garden. Not the garden in a particular moment in time mind you (glorious May, damnable August), but the garden in general. The necessity of the garden.

Space to breathe, a place to think, inanimate objects to abuse without recrimination. I am very grateful for that.

I love the color and resilience of the Sombrero series of Echinacea too – Granada Gold is perhaps my favorite (though this is an early season photo), followed by ‘Baja Burgundy’

‘Baja Burgundy’ Echinacea

I have also been made more aware of the things I don’t need – like that containerized color in a far off part of the garden, extra pots of cuttings to water that will never find a home this season, clearance plants at deep discounts that will cost me dearly in sweat trying to revive them during a cruel summer. It is a freeing state of mind.

I was so very thankful recently to a professional gardener on a social media page who took an honest picture of plants heading to the compost pile in the back of a truck because he hadn’t the staff to plant them, much less water them after the COVID mess. He also had zero time to find homes for them all and arrange pick up etc… (yes, this takes time!). He was saddened, but realistic.

I submit such honesty as “something more positive.” We all know we’re going to keep working with plants. We all live, breathe and sleep it. But to pretend the difficulties don’t get us down? That creates unrealistic expectations for others (particularly beginners) that may result in them chucking it all before they have had a chance to thoroughly swallow the hook.

Should we wallow? I do not believe this to be helpful either. But a well balanced mix of good with bad is better I think than broad August smiles proclaiming truths one knows to be lies.

Now for “something more [overtly] positive”…

With August’s arrival, the tropicals are coming into their own, which is why I adore them and have spent the first half of this year slouched in front of my laptop trying to communicate why we should all have a tropical love affair or two. They are heavy drinkers of course (you’d get on splendidly), but sometimes I am amazed by what I can get away with wielding only a watering can.

Ensete and ‘Bengal Tiger’ canna against a burgeoning ‘Baby Lace’ hydrangea.

In the early evening when I walk the garden in a better frame of mind, they magically transfer their enthusiasm for heat and humidity to the temperate shrubs and perennials who are flagging. A bit like that guest at the party who comes late, mixes up a new cocktail, commandeers the playlist and gets everybody moving again. We’ll all have a hell of a hangover digging rhizomes in the fall, but damn, it will be worth it.

You simply can’t beat the instant effect of tropical foliage. This little pond area is five weeks old and looked like hell in June.

Thank you by the way for your last letter which elicited a belly laugh of the best kind. You are too rich in your praise – I can assure you it is undeserved. I am merely an extrovert who enjoys the natural introversion of academics – and would happily sign my life away to sitting in a common room discussing Zingiberaceae over a subsidized beer if I didn’t have to literally sign my life away to another round of crippling student loans.

Been there. Done that. If I had a rich uncle I’d be doing it again. So I read. And I study. And I tour. My garden is my lab. Minus the subsidized beer. And the piercings.

However. Do not think for one minute I am not on to you and your cleverly-chosen avatar of Underdog. That is a strategic place to lurk, and you pull it off well. I can only come off as harsh and unsympathetic in comparison. I will remind you that I did once sit through one of your interminable lectures (the one where you weren’t attacking me), and you are fooling no one with the “I’m just an average, at best, student” shtick.

The Pity-The-Poor-Midwesterner routine is also particularly shrewd (esp. as anti-coastal bias is popular and I am creature of not one, but two); but I’ve seen the black, beautiful soils out there. You could throw a pack of cigarettes on the ground and sprout tobacco. Who needs mountains and oceans with fertility like that?

Yes. You are good at what you do. But do seek therapy at once.

Yours,

Marianne

P.S. My version of too much gin at age 15 and the dirty asphalt of a drive-in right off the Mosteller Road exit in Sharonville, Ohio, is tequilla in a little town in Norway at 18. No asphalt. Cannot touch the stuff now…double-vision fjords come flooding back. Thank God social media didn’t exist when we were young & supple, eh?

Looking for Something More Positive originally appeared on GardenRant on August 6, 2020.

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turfandlawncare · 4 years ago

Text

Looking for Something More Positive

Lovettsville, VA

Dear Scott,

Rain. Glorious rain!

Fresh flowers on the drinks cabinet keeps the intoxication process civilized.

Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden in August 2018

“The difficulty with my garden,” I would say (How many sentences begin thus? I have heard hundreds myself.) “is that I live in a wooded stream valley.”

Hypothetical one-sided discussion over.

A drone photo in May shows part of the lower garden, but more importantly, shows the surrounding woods lurking like Fangorn Forest. Minus the Ents.

It is a paradox that can only be solved by the time and effort needed to amend the soils and figure out what works and what won’t. Beyond the Japanese Stilt Grass, which couldn’t be happier.

There I go again. This is getting grim quickly. You might as well be writing this letter. Let me attempt to redeem myself with something profound: Adversity refocuses the lens of necessity.

Space to breathe, a place to think, inanimate objects to abuse without recrimination. I am very grateful for that.

I love the color and resilience of the Sombrero series of Echinacea too – Granada Gold is perhaps my favorite (though this is an early season photo), followed by ‘Baja Burgundy’

‘Baja Burgundy’ Echinacea

Should we wallow? I do not believe this to be helpful either. But a well balanced mix of good with bad is better I think than broad August smiles proclaiming truths one knows to be lies.

Now for “something more [overtly] positive”…

Ensete and ‘Bengal Tiger’ canna against a burgeoning ‘Baby Lace’ hydrangea.

You simply can’t beat the instant effect of tropical foliage. This little pond area is five weeks old and looked like hell in June.

Been there. Done that. If I had a rich uncle I’d be doing it again. So I read. And I study. And I tour. My garden is my lab. Minus the subsidized beer. And the piercings.

Yes. You are good at what you do. But do seek therapy at once.

Yours,

Marianne

Looking for Something More Positive originally appeared on GardenRant on August 6, 2020.

The post Looking for Something More Positive appeared first on GardenRant.

from GardenRant https://ift.tt/2XzUNDH

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