- Next Week: President Obama says “Also, I decree heroin totally legal. And free! Nowwhoyagonnavotefor?”
TAGS: Dreamin' Wild, Hulk, Jake Gyllenhall, Mark Ruffalo, Martha Brockenbrough, On the road, Robert Downey Jr., Scarjo's Assets, Scarlett Johansson, The Avengers, The Human Centipede
| SEAN BEAUDOIN's latest novel is Wise Young Fool. His stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications including the Onion, the San Francisco Chronicle and Spirit, the in-flight magazine of Southwest Airlines. www.seanbeaudoin.com. |
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“Next Week: President Obama says “Also, I decree heroin totally legal. And free! Nowwhoyagonnavotefor?””
I hope you’re not suggesting there’s political motives behind the decisions of these…politicians.
Thank heaven the only thing I’ve even heard of on this chart is On The Road.
Oh, and the green guy.
I’m down with the top half, or those references I fully understand. I mean, “Superhero content…” coincides perfectly with “When Dinosaurs Rule the Earth.” Also, the “On the Road” movie? I. Can’t. Fucking. Deal.
I’m pretty sure this went WAY over my head.
So, one time, I was watching Dunston Checks In, only I thought it was the weird evil part of Pretty Woman. It wasn’t Jason Alexander is super cool in Dunston, it’s the ape/monkey/babboon that’s nasty.
But my favorite part of any movie is the part in that one movie when the board members all vote for the token minority member of the board, who also speaks like he gargles with white lightning.
Field of Dreams would have been better if they weren’t dead, but trapped, like a better weirder actually scary version of Children of the Corn, but with Shoeless Joe.
And lastly, it’s not Vanishing Point if you show up back in L.A. a few years later and get arrested.
In my teens, On the Road was the first book that really spoke to me (with the possible exception of the Elric of Melnibone series by Michael Moorcock, about the albino warrior Elric, wielder of the soul-eating black sword Stormbringer,) so I have a fondness for Kerouac, but it’s the same kind of fondness I had for my anachronistic, Neanderthal uncle George. He was unreservedly sexist, bigoted, and otherwise backwards, but he used to sing songs about the beautiful sadness of rail yards at night.
What I can’t get over is the lack of event within the book, how untranslatable to film it is. Take out the endless descriptive improvisational passages and strip it down to the basic narrative and you’ve got the story of a couple of women-hating speedfreaks who won’t shut the fuck up (they consider it an EXPERIMENT!) who run out of asphalt in the US and so ride down south, ultimately taking advantage of inexpensive third-world prostitutes before heading home.
And that’s why I’ll boycott the film until I see it on Netflix a year from now, and even then it’ll just sit in the queue with Rum Diaries until I’ve finished rewatching every episode of Law and Order.
*Diary
Not only is the movie version of On the Road the most depressing book-to-movie adaptation ever conceived, but also Kristin Stewart and her expressionless face should never be allowed to appear in anything ever again.