bombarded with fart joke fare like HANGOVER 3 and BRIDESMAIDS 2? Can you see the signs of the times? The writing on the wall? Yip. Of all the values and virtues we are rapidly shedding, one of the casualties... is story.
And don’ t go fooling yourself that we still have a healthy, naive, regenerative audience in the youth. By the time they hit their teens, today’ s kids have seen and done it all, and if they haven’ t done it all, they’ ve watched it online, via torrent, or lived it virtually in the latest ultra-violent video games. Today’ s 12 year-old is yesterday’ s 20 or 30 year-old. And, given the pisspoor standard of OB education these days, these kids are certainly not interested in exploring great themes in classic literature. That shit’ s become too boring.
The general attitude towards great story, books and movies these days- especially among the youth- seems to be“ who still gives a fuck?” You want real drama? Turn on the news. And who can blame them?
Problem is, the blizzard of the world is amping up and up and it’ s killing our desire for well-crafted classic fiction, story, and books. To a kid today, born in the digi age, what’ s more exciting? A dusty old book... or a Kindle? Fuck the Kindle, how about a cutting edge mobile with HD wide-screen monitor and a zillion book and movie titles on hand with the click of a thumb? When you look around, you see people with their noses in books? Kindles? Or, do you see everyone with their nose in their mobiles thumbing away?( Wouldn’ t be surprised to see, in the not too distant future, a generation of mutant, cross-eyed uncouth youths with one HUGE thumb the size of Uma Thurman’ s in Cowgirls Get the Blues). Oh, don’ t get me wrong. There will always be readers of books... but the future generations will look on book readers the way we today look on those who still cling blindly to the golden age of silent, black and white, celluloid cinema.
Besides, what book or film coming out right now is more dramatic than what’ s happening in international news? If you’ ve followed the headlines in the past month or so, you’ ll see there are more rising crisis plot
16 | WGSA MAG June 2013
You’ re up against what the masses, the mindless mob want
points, more adrenalizing thrills happening in the world today( fuck the world – just in the Arab countries alone) than in any novel or Hollywood movie out there. What fictional story is more disturbing and horrifying than the sight of WW3 unfolding in the Middle East and gradually spreading to Africa and the rest of the world as we speak? What film is scarier than watching the world end in slow-motion? Why go to the cinema and watch a glossy, gossamer, glossed-over Hollywood movie about the war in Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria when you can just turn on the news and see the immediate, gritty, vérité version, with real blood and guts splattering the lens? That is part of what is killing story. Reality. Things are so out of control in the world right now that this rollercoaster ride through purgatory tops anything that any author or Hollywood screenwriter hack-for-hire can suck outta his ass. It’ s Hollywood pulp entertainment vs Reality vérité cinema – live on TV. No contest. Who gives a shit about the“ terrorists” in Zero Dark Thirty or Argo or Olympus Falls when we got live ones running around Boston detonating dirty bombs? And Olympus doesn’ t ring true( not just because the President is white) but who really cares if the White House goes up in flames anyway? This is the control room behind all the fkn wars flaring up around the planet today, right? We got a rogue, mad-dog, Zionist-controlled, traitorous Uncle-Tom-in-Chief at the controls, and America and the whole fkn world carries on jogging merrily along as if life is one long, fun-filled, fun-run. Then they wonder why they find themselves crossing the finish line minus a limb or two.( That’ s called Blowback, y’ all).
Take that Boston incident. I just spent the past few weeks watching a hi-octane live-action Manhunt akin to THE SIEGE or something unfolding in that city – live on TV. It began with a mini 9 / 11 event, and, beat by beat, amped up into a full-blown standoff and kick-ass gunfight in the streets. I stopped watching Denzel’ s SAFEHOUSE because the Boston story was far more exciting. Where to from here?
In fact, SKYFALL could be the last meaningful