The Incongruities: This Post is for You

Monday, April 9, 2007

This Post is for You

Christopher Hitchens, the last honestly mean media supporter of the Iraq War (the others fake their meanness, if not their vapidity, for ratings; this guy is a bona fide asshole, and you have to respect that in a way: see this vicious takedown of Mother Teresa of all people; who's next, Hitch? the Dalai Lama? Santa Claus? Your own grandmother?), takes note of an interesting phenomenon that you, too, should take note of: namely, that everything is about you these days.

I've noticed you, too. Besides YouTube, which he mentions, there's YOU: The Owner's Manual (apparently, you could stand to lose a few pounds, too); Dove Soap and Doritos apparently want you (or someone similarly trained and compensated) to make their commercials to sell their products to you. Your Federal Emergency Management Association has even decided to put the burden of Emergency Management squarely on your shoulders, too. For all of this hard work, Time magazine even named you Person of the Year last year.

I like to think I ushered in the You Decade back in 1995 when I was editor of my high school yearbook and found myself inexplicably tickled by the placeholder headline I used for the Student Council page: "Student Government Governs for You." So I and my easily amused staff of teenagers set about writing the blandest and second-personest headlines possible for each section the yearbook. "Volleyball Team Bumps, Sets, Spikes for You"; "French Club Speak French Pour Toi"; "Homecoming Dance Took You 'Under the Sea'"; "Yearbook Staff Made This Yearbook." Due to the outrageously wide berth granted us by our supervisor and the indisputably far-ranging influence of the Aquila (The Eagle Soars for You), the 17-year-old me has obviously and inexorably changed your life, this decade. And neither Time nor Christopher Hitchens bothered to mention it. I blame you.

1 comment:

Carolyn said...: Even the IRS... in a publication summarizing various tax provisions, the guidance cites to "Your Income Tax 2.1", "Your Income Tax 43.13", etc.; 4/10/07, 12:38 PM

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One Sentence Movie Reviews

A Scanner Darkly: Fitting that in this movie about a brain divided against itself: sometimes the animation looks really cool, and sometimes it looks like Paint-By-Number art; sometimes Keanu Reeves acts confused, and sometimes Keanu Reeves seems confused; and sometimes the plot is interesting and coherent, and sometimes it makes as much sense as a paranoid PCP-freak reading Beowulf out loud.
Hollywoodland: This movie about the suicide (murder? enter Adrian Brody) of George "TV's Superman" Reeves is kind of interesting, until it is completely not.
Little Children: Beautiful people act like average-looking people, and Jackie Earle Haley thoroughly creeps you out, all in a nice, artistic way, though.
Quinceañera: I am neither fifteen, pregnant, Chicana, a practicing member of an indeterminate sect of Christianity, nor impressed by Hummer stretch limousines, all of which goes to prove that you don't need to have anything in common with the characters in a film to enjoy watching it.
SherryBaby: Maggie Gyllenhal is perpetually braless and fairly compelling (especially while tunelessly singing a Bangles song) in this otherwise dull movie that comes across like a writing-workshop short story; also, Danny Trejo has been working out.
The Break-Up: Too many characters and an obviously pasted-on ending hinder this decent romantic-comedy-in-reverse, which stars the likably chumpy Vince Vaughn and a very pretty Jennifer Aniston.
The Conversation: I'd never seen this super-super-tight 1974 F.F. Coppola film starring Gene Hackman, but it proved to me that the sound editor (Walter Murch is the genius's name) can be as important to a movie as having one of the most amazing cast of 1970s supporting stars you can imagine: Fredo, Shirley, Indy, Inga, and (uncredited!) the Great Santini.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston: Let's call this a decent, visually-appealing documentary about Daniel Johnston, his religion-oriented mental illness, and playing music, without enough music, frankly.
The Good Shepherd: Apparently Larry King really liked this long, boring suckfest of a spy movie, which seems to be about some secrets behind the Bay of Pigs Invasion and inadequate fathers.
The History Boys: An old, fat, probably gay teacher and a young, thin, probably gay teacher alternately have respectfully inappropriate relationships with a group of witty, diverse Oxbridge applicants, all under the watchful eye of an amusingly blustery and utilitarian headmaster and a wise, wizened female history teacher.
The Host (Gwoemul): Do not hesitate to see what might be the best monster movie ever made, which manages to make you laugh, scare the piss out of you, dampen your eyes, and get you to think about western imperialism in Korea all at once, with adequately convincing CGI.
The Last King of Scotland: What you've got here is a charming, horny Scottish doctor, a charming, vicious African dictator, and a real blow to the Ugandan tourism industry.
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen): Well, if you didn't know or didnt remember how bad the totalitarian government of East Germany was, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (check out that name!) reminds you in a really great, compelling movie that manages to humanize at least one individual stasi officer and shows the dehumanizing nature of the State and its Security behind the Wall.
The Proposition: I thought Ray Winstone was great in this character-driven Western set in the Australian outback, circa 1880, and though the film was a real looker with a good premise (written by Nick Cave), I don't know why I didn't really like it, but I didn't.
The Queen: Meh, I was studying in London when it happened, and while this film nicely presents a personal view of an otherwise utterly impersonal monarch, I didn't much care.
Wordplay: A surprisingly good documentary about crosswords and people who do them really quickly, which, at 94 minutes, is over faster than I can do a NY Times puzzle.