On tap this week:
— Mocking Ted Kennedy’s death
— P.T Anderson gets a wickedly under-rated cast together
— RIP, local Blockbuster
And slightly much more!
So Ted Kennedy is finally being put to rest this week, bless his soul, and one thing keeps bothering me. It seems so un-Kennedy-like for him to merely die of brain cancer. I mean considering he has two brothers that were both shot to death and are linked to conspiracies, a nephew who died in a plane crash and another distant relative who died while skiing and just thinking that brain cancer killed him doesn’t sound right. This is the Kennedy brother that lived, for the love of Pete, so why is it the fact that he somehow died in a bland, ordinary way just not sitting right with me? I say it’s because he didn’t die of brain cancer; it’s a conspiracy of bigger proportions then the ones that took out RFK and JFK.
Listen to me now and believe me later.
There is no way on Earth did Teddy Kennedy die of brain cancer last week, not a chance. I want to scream aloud “shenanigans” and think there has to be a more plausible explanation for it. I mean if Chappaquiddick and enough liquor to keep the entire country of Djibouti in a profound, drunken stupor long enough to sit through Inland Empire in one sitting can’t kill the bastard, then he’d have to be a total puss to die of brain cancer. I mean come on; he’s a KENNEDY. You just can’t roll like that if you’re a member of a clan who gained wealth by bootlegging and other, various schemes of questionable legality….allegedly. I mean this is as close to American royalty as it gets; it’s amazing that Arnold Schwarzenegger married into the family because I always assumed they were all inbred like royalty of old. When you use the same genes over and over again, it gives you an added layer of genetic protection. It’s science, look it up. So I just can’t buy him dying of something lightweight like cancer. His hair alone I imagine should’ve prevented him from dying by any sort of pansy method like cancer. You know what actually killed him?
Ninja assassins.
Probably the same ones that killed David Carradine, too. You never know with those sneaky bastards. Much like how they killed the star of Kung-Fu and then wrapped a cord around his neck and his junk to make it look like he killed himself while he was shaking hands with the unemployed, Ninjas totally killed Ted Kennedy and then covered their tracks via the “terminal cancer” cover-up. It’s a total conspiracy that probably goes higher up in the food chain then we are ready to admit.
And it’s easy to see how it played out.
They broke into the vast Kennedy compound the night that he died. Mourning the loss of his sister, no doubt killed in her sleep by the ninjas to lure him back, they broke in late at night with one mission in mind: kill the Senior Senator from Massachusetts. It was going down, partner, and there were waves of them coming at him. He had ninjas all over the house in matching garb, menacingly stalking him while they attacked him individually and broke into generic karate poses while they waited their turn. The Kennedy clan was awoken, scared at the thought of invaders and paralyzed in their fear. Only the power of a drunken Irishman with two fifths of Scotch in him, armed to the teeth and angry with the sort of vengeance that an old-school curmudgeonly drunkard possesses, could save them.
One imagines he fought them off using his guile, cunning and a pair of swords handed down to him by his father (who got them from his father, who received them from his father, et al) until they finally found his one weakness. I think they decided that instead of luring him into a high speed chase near a lake, to take advantage of his driving abilities, they went for the easy target: his hair. As the bodies of dead, anonymous ninjas were piled like bricks and their blood as its mortar, Ted held his swords high until someone hit him in hair mane of grayed, Kennedy pompadour with a throwing star. That’s what probably did it, and it makes a good cover for that whole “brain cancer” thing.
The only part of Ted Kennedy’s body readily vulnerable to weaponry would be the hair, like Achilles and his heel in the middle of an epic battle or Rick Pitino with his wang in a closed restaurant with a dirty, dirty girl. Every great, or moderately decent, man has one body part that when assaulted will lead to his death or his ruin. The youngest Kennedy brother had one weak area and that was his hair. And his death will has to be avenged. There’s no other way around it.
Right now I bet Caroline Kennedy is in serious training in martial arts and weaponry, getting ready to lead a team of commandos specially trained for the mission deep into the jungle to kill the man who hired them to take out her Uncle. She’s good and ticked, jacked up on steroids and trying to get as vascular as possible to outdo the rest of her team and have the best body chemicals and weights can provide. But then again thoughts like these kept me out of the good colleges.
Random Thoughts of the Week
As you get older, the more of your past disappears into nothing but the recesses of your mind. I think of all the great places I used to shop, or eat, at from my childhood and most of them are gone. Especially in an economic downturn, which accelerates the process, the more I drive around my usual haunts the more I see empty storefronts and going out of business sales. It’s depressing to see, but there is one perk to seeing a place like Blockbuster go out of business: cheap movies.
The problem I usually have when I go to these types of sales is that everything I want I usually already have. One of the perks of writing for this site has been the freebies, which have strings attached to ‘em but a review isn’t a huge price to pay to get movies for free. It may not be exactly what I want, but I can’t argue with the price.
So when I walk in to any of these places, it’s really bloody hard to actually find something I don’t have already. In terms of new films there’s nothing out there that I’d really want that is on their shelves, so it’s in their older films where I go to find a bargain. And as I go through and see what’s left, which isn’t much because the shelves have been picked clean. Then it hits me.
DVD-shopping in a down economy is one of the more depressing things you can do if you’re looking for a bargain.
Seeing employees who know the end is near, seeing people who are trying to bargain a $5 DVD down to $3, shelves that are bare and people scavenging the aisles like they were looking for food in a post-apocalyptic zombie flick is a downer like you would not believe.
A Movie A Week – The Challenge
This Week’s Film –Boogie Nights
What a depressing movie this is. Following the tale of the pornography industry from its heyday in the ‘70s, when you could walk into a theatre and see porn that was more then just bad plots and titillation, to its current state as wall to wall money shots and cut to the chase stories. Adult films never had a high watermark in terms of trying to be actual cinema, but there was a time when it aspired to be more then just watching two beautiful people engage in the most base of activities.
Boogie Nights follows the rise, and fall, of Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg). Starting in the adult film industry as a teenager, Dirk (meant to be a stand-in for John Holmes, but mentioned during the film as a contemporary as well) goes from being another one of the boys to being one of the biggest stars in the industry due to his one massive, massive body part. All the while there’s a cast of characters that becomes the loving family he didn’t have at home. Rollergirl (Heather Graham in various states of nudity throughout) and Reed (John C Reilly) becomes a pair of interesting friends for him. Jack (Burt Reynolds) and Amber (Julianne Moore) become surrogate parents to him. Throw in a relatively unknown at the time Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H Macy and Philip Baker Hall in minor roles and you have your hands on a cast that’s markedly loaded.
But it’s a real depressing film because these people are wallowing in the muck and every time they try and get out of the industry it gets worse. From the sex and the drugs this is a dirty, dirty industry.
Mild recommendation. Great film but depressing subject manner.
What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 Pints of Bass Ale and community college co-eds with low standards at the Alumni Club
All About Steve – Sandra Bullock meets cute with Bradley Cooper, who has to rush off after a disaster. She follows him, stalker style.
See It – Sandy Bullock may never hit a home run, but she’s always good for a double.
Carriers – Four people run away from a virus destroying humanity.
Skip It – This was screened in 2007, originally, and Paramount has known this is a god-awful film and thus sat on it for a while. This will be in theatres for two weeks, tops, and then onto DVD by the end of October at the latest.
Gamer – Gerard Butler is a death row convict given a chance at release as the playable human being in a massive war game.
See It – This will be a test for the duo behind Crank. Can they make a film that’s better then “cult insanity” that series is known for?
Extract – Another soon to be home video phenomenon from Mike Judge.
See It – So at least you can say “I saw this in theatres and loved it” before it disappears in two weeks, reappears on DVD and then Comedy Central to find an actual audience.
Do you have questions about movies, life, love, or Branigan’s Law? Shoot me an e-mail at Kubryk@Insidepulse.com and you could be featured in the next “Monday Morning Critic.” Include your name and hometown to improve your odds.
