Jacket & Tie

If you are a fan of Rotten Tomatoes, you probably know that occasionally the compiled percentage rating doesn’t quite match how you would have rated a particular film. For instance, Howard the Duck is rated 16% on RT, making it a “bad movie” which is contrary to how I would rate the film, given its relevance as a staple of my childhood, a pioneer in talking-fake-animal-in-human-world narrative, and, let’s face it, a comedic gem (if one turns off one’s snobby and just relaxes for once). Sure, Howard is no Forrest Gump, but 16%?

What kind of mad science is that?

Similarly, the reviews of James Cameron’s Avatar on Rotten Tomatoes are enough to cause me and Ty to stop using the site. I mean, come on people… I disagree with MOST of you now.

Many reviews, both good and bad, mention “lack of storyline” or “plot” problems while others disrespect the half-a-billion-dollar effort by calling it a simple mix between Ferngully and Dances With Wolves. So? Those are two great films. And imitation is the most sincere type of flattery. The “problem” would be if this film did not build upon the genre or have anything to offer, and this is where I disagree with most reviewers of this film.

First, much like how The Matrix got everyone thinking about Bullet-time, this film has made CGI into less of a gimmick (think Jar-Jar Binx) and more of a validated story development tool. And its so smooth. At no time did I think to myself consciously that the characters were CGI. No, I went to my happy place (suspension of disbelief) and stayed there for two hours and forty minutes. This type of filmmaking adds more opportunities for other filmmakers, and as computer graphics improve and become less expensive, your mom might someday be able to make a sci-fi that will blow your mind.

Next, the story is there. Its fully developed. It paces along nicely. The first few minutes of the film orient the audience into what’s going on, then we are there with Jake Sully, the main charachter, discovering things along with him. At no point was I lost, misunderstanding something, or thought there was too much complexity involved. I think many of the reviewers expected complexity because now everything is expected to be like Memento, where the audience has to work at piecing things together, or solving some mystery. With Avatar, you are simply going along for the ride, discovering Pandora with Jake. When he eats fruit, you eat fruit; not trying to figure out if the fruit means that Dr. Augustine is hiding something and maybe the fruit is a trigger for some event, and maybe Jigsaw will show up and tell everyone that he’d like to play a game. No. This movie is simple, because the way of the Na’vi is simple, because Jake Sully wants to live simple.

By all means, go see the movie and make your opinions. Don’t let my review or anyone else’s dictate your emotions. Jake wouldn’t. He’d find out for himself.

Our hearts beat like train cars
hitting railroad ties: your thu-thump
then mine, wood and metal cycling.
And not the metaphoric heart – I
mean blood and sinew, your life all sacks
and chambers, doing its work
a nanosecond ahead of mine.
You and I go on like this,
travelling at night, window seats
and necks poised at the outside,
wondering how there could be so much
nothing filled with so much
something. My head rests on your shoulder
but my brain, the real organ, can’t. Logic
is a part of you I share, and we go on,
doing work with the lonely togetherness of
sentiment. I think about construction.
Of houses filling the void, babies, in
certain ways like words populating sentences.
The something in the nothing.
I don’t fear bad planning. Or us running
dry, no food or words, just the
thu-thump, yours then mine.
There is another sort of prompt from you
that I answer like a door opening,
to which you reply, cock your head,
and kiss me another question
I just have to answer.

A scream heard to closed ears is more like a grunt.
All they see is the sex. Those girfriends of mine
stand like dandylions waiting to be plucked,
to have petals pushed aside. But they display
the orange on their upturned cheeks
and pretend I have done nothing more than they have
with their thick stalks stuck firmly in soil.
I broke mine myself. Beautiful fingers. Eyes
at the sun. Now look at me and my white fluff,
being blown away by this love.

Here’s something you don’t know – you were almost a father.
I’m sorry. I say it like it was scientific.
I assure you, its purely emotional. A period late
may as well be a period missed, during a certain
stressful timeperiod. Hours add up to days
and thoughts like egg left out to congeal in a pan.
In a pen.

In my head you were perfect. The toys you’d by
with the non-gendered appeal; which hours
were set for curfew; the angle of the T
on the signature line on a permission slip.
We were the bowl holding our yolk and milk.
Heat that burned us growing up would never
sizzle our child.

You picked me up from work
held my hand the whole ride home
like you always do. Like how
periods always end sentences.

We sleep naked, our bodies
are not the most important layer
of the bed. Blankets nurture us
as we rest.

Sometimes love is painful and draining.
I do it because I need to feel alive.
Our skin rubs fiercely, babies
competing for the teat,

faces smooshed and ravenous.

We sit vanquished, Ms. Muffetts,
jeans worn like low-slung happiness
easily ruined by a harsh wash. Ass pained.
I’ve witnessed spiders aim themselves
like postcards, past letters, strings of words
shooting hope
directly from bleeding cavities.

You know what I mean. You know
because you’ve had sticky sweetness
fill and hollow you. You’ve craved
so deeply
that even your handwriting cramps from want.

So you also know the opposite.
This crux beneath us
eating time and losing light.
The ____ that follows more ____,
augmented only by details:
a random brush of hand,
vague smile. Desire and comfort
and connection.
Words cannot preserve and it took you
too long to acknowledge this.

There’s got to be something more.
Something else.
I sit with it, with you, for now.
We duel with dirty spoons but don’t keep score.

When the times comes, if it comes,
each of us will rise: Me with curly hair
smoothed down from the wind of it.
You with your whatever, doing something
symbolic and personal, understandable
only to you. And we’ll roll until
the sticky encases us, separately,
and we’ll fall and find ourselves
drenched in blood.

Momma’s body:
chicken parts.
That place I came from
is getting ripped out.
They’re stripping her
of core and hormone;
her uterine heart’s to be
picked, pickled, placed
in a grocery store,
dusty top shelf,
too high for me.
No one will deal with it there.

My skin grew from that skin
which grew from other skin.

I handle death like how I handle love;
injure, infect, manifest.
The obsessive itch I’ve had
since I was 13. Since ovaries,
mine, burst something forth
and my life’s expiration
quickened it’s hollow peck.

Words, friends, liquor.
More liquor. Nothing
solves anything
but numbness makes the slicing
bearable.

Momma’s got no anesthesia.
She runs around with her head
firmly on
and waits.

I just sit silent and scratching.

This man has eaten dandelions
and left a trail of stinking stems.
You followed them through the woods
to another woman’s house
and see him hovering over her bed.
He hasn’t shown his teeth yet.

You wanted him like dry earth
moaning towards the sky.
But he never saw the speck of
dust beat red dead center
and even if he had,
he would never fill himself
and pour for you and you know it.

So you follow for now. What else
can you do? Run away?
You wear red so large no hunter
will ever mistake you for cold meat.
And if they shot you, they’d see
that under your cloak you are black
and ready for it.

You’re mourning for the living.

You’ve got a basket of fresh silver tears
and if you don’t hurry . . .

He turns his cheek and sees you
stumble over the threshold
before he turns back
and sloppily devours another.

Hello, my non-existant readers.

I’ve decided to restart craved.wordpress.com, a food criticism blog. I would like to get more into blogging. Namely because if I want to ever get a media writing job, I will need samples of my writing other than minutes… So, go there and enjoy.

Posted some poetry recently. I’m still pumping through my stack of paper poems, inputting them into the computer and bringing them up to speed with this thing called technology. I’m editing some as I go. Some I’m outright ripping up because… honestly…I didn’t know what I was doing when I wrote them.

I think part of the reason I haven’t been able to write anything new in awhile is because I’ve said a lot of what I wanted to say. My muse is taking a well deserved break. It took me 16 years to get to a place of comfort and confidence, learning the how, the technical side of poetry. Now I am just waiting until I can actually use it somehow. I feel like it might start coming back soon. Meanwhile, I will continue playing Diablo II, WoW, and eating too much food while complaining about the girth of my thighs.

Ty is as Ty as ever – wondering about the future of technology, disappointed with the new Call of Duty, and researching researching researching. So cute!

I have, however, been listening to some good music. I had known about Hot Chip for awhile now, but we’ve been watching their videos like crazy. Very nerdy electronic stuff. Repetetive and catchy. Its what I would make, if I had the technology and know-how. Today I found out that Karin from The Knife has released a solo album, and I spent about a half hour today watching the vids with my mouth all open and in awe. Check them out here. This one’s my favorite.