I Love Time Travel - Part 15 - Seeing The Future Usually Sucks

Sometimes time travel stories have the smell and taste of the genre without any machines traveling through wormholes or historic fishes out of their historic waters. Characters learn knowledge of the future and are faced with similar questions as the time traveler.  Can we change the events that we see, or is this our destiny?  The trouble is, most of these stories fall flat.  Either the decisions made are dubious, or the premise runs out of steam halfway through the movie.  On television, where the waiting time is much longer, the effects are, well, shittier.

Minority Report and Paycheck were two movies based on Philip K. Dick stories.  I consider Dick to be one of the classic American sci-fi creators, although I don’t know if everything he wrote was meant to be a full length movie (Okay, Blade Runner...) Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise, was a mostly satisfying futuristic action film, complete with fancy gadgets.  Paycheck was a cool concept that turned into a frightful mess, with lots of help from director John Woo.  I won’t break down the critiques of the films, there is plenty of that out there anyway. It is the simple plot point of the ability to see the future, often reserved for time travel films, is just too problematic to ignore.

In, Minority Report, There are “precogs” enlisted by the future police bureau who are humans with special abilities to see murders before they happen.  They are so efficient that all premeditated murder is eradicated and only crimes of passion are now detected.  Cops, with knowledge of the impending future, storm in and interrupt murders before they happen.  The would-be murderer is put in jail.  The thrust of the movie is Cruise’s character wrongfully accused of a future crime.  Okay, but that is not where the story is most interesting.  Cops prevent crimes, so there are no crimes.  If there are no crimes, there should be no criminals.  The movie spends a minute on this discussion and moves on.  Take seeing the future out of it, is this constitutional?  Why would a future society allow people who almost commit crime go to prison?  If we truly had the ability to alter future events in the present, why would anyone pay for crimes that occurred in an alternate reality?  The thrust of the movie is a an extended chase seen with cool effects, but missed an opportunity. The movie ignored the most interesting wrinkle.

The premise of Paycheck is kind of fun.  Ben Affleck is a computer dude in the near future.  He works on top secret projects and then has his memory erased.  These projects can last months or even years.  He wakes up from one and something has gone wrong, he doesn’t remember the past three years, and all he has is an envelope of junk he left for himself. But, as his day progresses, the junk comes in particularly useful.  The project he just left was some sort of telescope into the future.  He left himself the materials he would need to survive.  Okay, fine.  It’s a nice little idea that is more loop time travel. But, now what?  Right.  That is pretty much it.  This is a sweet little short story premise with a chance to be expanded into something special that goes nowhere. John Woo turns the last thirty minutes into a kung fu fight between goons and scientists; complete a bunch of explosions and bullshit. 

Speaking of bullshit, remember FlashForward? This was a show that lasted one season and rightfully so.  It was just not good.  FlashForward was the first post-Lost show that tried to drag the die-hard fans kicking and screaming into a new sci-fi based drama.  There were even actors from Lost that filled out the cast.  The problem was that the premise was really dumb.  Everyone in the world blacked out for 137 seconds and saw what the future would be in six months.  This caused a lot of personal trauma as well as a lot of bus crashes, apparently.  There could be a pulse in that premise, but it is hard to find.  Keeping the total amount of seers to a minimum instead of the entire world might have helped.  I don’t know.  Everyone sees the future and tries to reconcile why they saw a murder or someone different in bed next to them.  I’m guessing most people saw themselves eating lunch or taking a leak. Truly, the premise could have been saved but the writers obviously suffered the fate of what so many people thought the problem was with Lost.  They had no idea where the story was going, because the premise had no steam.  Lost had a writer’s bible, with touchstones and major events that kept things moving.  FlashForward made it up as they went along and never hooked anyone.

Then, there’s Heroes.

There were 10,000 problems with Heroes but my eye will focus on one and only one:  The comic book that revealed the future.  If it was so important to see what was going to happen, events that would somehow destroy the world, and someone has already meticulously plotted it out in a comic book, and you needed to know what to do to change the inevitable future, SKIP TO THE LAST FUCKING PAGE!

I have to stop.  Boy that show sucked.

I Ain't Down With The Disposable Entertainment

Single rainbow.

What interests people always interests me.  I always want to know what is going on inside a person’s head when they enjoy something; especially if I cannot figure out why anyone would care about it.  There is no accounting for taste.  That is understood.  There is no reason why we all prefer different things.  But there is a reason why that specific person likes that specific thing, even if it that the person has never thought about a specific reason.  It is in there.  I am willing to bet if those reasons were collected, patterns would emerge.

When I turn the camera on myself I run into a few stumbling blocks.  There are nostalgic reasons, and intellectual curiosities, artic respect and then there is just goofy shit that makes me laugh.  One aspect of something I tend to reject has always confused me.  I like to think of myself as a person who does not take life too seriously, and even has trouble doing so when the situation demands.  When it comes to the art and media with which I decorate my life, there is one pattern that is certain.  I do not like disposable entertainment.

This applies to a few categories.  I do not like pop music, or specifically, one hit wonder stuff that is on pop radio.  I never have.  I do not like trendy speech, or memes, or latest craze in anything. If there is a TV show that is “hot”, I usually back away.  I do not have a ridiculous need to buck trends or be a permanent outsider. In fact, I have been burned a few times by turning away from a popular piece of entertainment and loving it later.  (The Simpsons comes to mind). This is not based on a belief that pop culture is shallow or hollow or without any merit at all.  There is something inside me that just does not want to get sucked into a thing that will be gone in a few weeks.  I prefer the long term relationship. I am a committer. 

This does not leave room for spontaneity and fun.  Also understood.  I am trying to be honest.  If you inspect my iTunes music list, my Netflix queue or my collection of DVD’s, there is a reason for all of that to be there.  I like to fall in love with stuff.  It is difficult to understand unless you have the same affliction.  Either I want it to be a part of me or I usually don’t give a shit.  The same goes for comedy.  I have a higher bar than a lot of people.  Yeah, it needs to be funny.  But I have seen so much in my life that the threshold is tougher to harder to determine, and some run of the mill Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson flick won’t cut it.  But what does it need to be?  Not sure.  I just know it when I see it.

YouTube videos do next to nothing for me.  I have giggled at a few babies and laughed at the dog running in his sleep.  But I never troll the site clicking on everything to get another piece of bite-size piece of input.  Maybe my brain is conditioned to engage in hourly purges of extraneous information.  A lifetime of having sharp memory and a million hours of commercials flash in front of your face may do that.  The experience is of little interest and is almost always forgettable.   I like silliness for sure.  I like dumb physical comedy and fart jokes now and then.  I like it all, but apparently I will not accept it unless there is some kind of context other than “Hey, look at this dumb guy.”

This has recently spilled over into watching TV.  My wife and I were adrift for years with what was out there.  There was a long time where I thought my way of sticking with something would have to be abandoned.  All of TV was reality-based, jobs shows, competition shows, family life. None of it was based on a story and the quality and commitment level did not interest me at all.  About four or five years ago, genuinely fine programming reappeared and pulled me in.  I love to have a continuing story my wife and I can check in with every season.   In the last year or so though, with so many options, I have to cut a few cords.  My standards have gone up and I have to kick a few shows to the curb.  They had plenty of time to hook me, but something went wrong. 

It is not the art or the entertainment, but the delivery system.  Maybe I have an innate protection system against what I think will be a waste of my time.  It could be ego; it could be that I am lame.  I am wired to ignore extraneous information unless it is in a framework that I take seriously. I shy away from snacks.  I like meals.

I Love Time Travel - Part 14 - About Time

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I am going to spoil this movie.  Brace yourself.

If you are familiar with Richard Curtis’ work, you know how sticky-sweet it is.  Love Actually, Bridget Jones, and Notting Hill are all date movies in the Nora Ephron tradition.  White professionals falling in love surrounded by ancillary kooky characters.  They are harmless and sometimes they are just what you need when the news on TV makes you want to crawl under your couch.  In About Time, Curtis took a familiar formula and mixed it with a time travel element.  It worked…mostly well.

I must get a few observations out of the way.  Rachel McAdams is insanely gorgeous.  She has barely aged since Mean Girls and I think she could pass for 23 years old, which may very well be what she is doing in this movie.  It is probably difficult for some people to concentrate clearly when she is onscreen.  She could be one of those actresses that might not be as talented as their marquee name would suggest; but people still love her because of her looks.  The rest of the cast is British. Enough said.

Also, the main character Tim is a 21-year-old man who has never encountered a problem.  His family lives on the shore at Cornwall, in what an American would describe as a mansion. Tim grew up with loving, devoted parents and a sister whom he loves dearly.  I am never sure why this is such a standard in modern film. How can your average viewer relate to a guy who literally has everything?  Apparently he’s a bit shy with the ladies, and being a mix between Martin Freeman and Ron Weasley is a little tough on him.  Boo-hoo.

On his 21^st birthday, Tim’s dad tells him that the men in his family can time travel.  It is a simple as going into a small dark place, like a closet, clenching fists and thinking about where you want to go.  You stay in your own life and you emerge from the closet as the person you were at that time.  Your clothes and hair change and you have all the knowledge as before.  What I like about the conversation is that his father tells him he should have a good reason for going back.  His grandfather went back for money and he was miserable.  Tim’s dad was a scholar so he went back for more time to read.  (Lame.  I mean, I love to read but…lame.)  Tim decides the only reason he would go back is to help get a girl.  Well, mostly for that.

Here’s how it goes:  Tim meets Mary on a blind date.  Tim has to go back in time and help a friend (for something rather trivial) so he ends up erasing his first meeting with Mary.  He finds her a gain at a different point and starts over.  He wins her over again.  He marries her. They have a kid. Okay, so perfect childhood, job as a lawyer and you’ve married Rachel Fucking McAdams.  Oh, I forgot, you can time travel as easily as other people take a piss.  So, fuck Tim.

Now, we encounter some problems.  This is where I liked a few refreshing turns with the genre.  The time travel genre, not the romantic comedy genre.   Tim tries to undo his sister’s crappy relationship by taking he back to the moment she met her dirtbag boyfriend.  However, when he returns home after fixing things, he goes to see his one-year old daughter and discovers she does not exist.  He has a son instead.  He finds his dad for a time travel rules update and discovers that disturbing the timeline before a child’s birth will change the child, because the likelihood of the right sperm at the right time changes.  I like the use of the subtle ripple effect here.  I would think that this would happen if backwards time travel was real.  It is the smaller changes most people overlook.  So Tim undoes his trip with his sister to get his daughter back.

Truthfully, the Sperm Rule exists to set up the end where Tim’s father is dying.  He can only spend a certain amount of time with him before his next child is born. To go back and visit his dad before he dies would change the baby or babies. It’s lovely, but I don’t feel too bad for Tim.  He father gives his some thoughtful time travel advice in his last weeks:  Live each day twice.  Live it the first time with all the tension and worry and doubt, and live it again since you know how things will go.  I like that, too.  Time travel is used as a tool for life lessons, not to better one’s life or bank account.

Of course, the rules for the time travel are a little twisted and glaringly broken a few times.  It makes for a cute ending, but you are dealing with rules here.  A film can be forgiven for one or two slips, but when the core of the movie’s premise is changed, viewers will start to scratch their heads.  About Time is still a date movie after all, and joyful but bittersweet endings overrule any time travel monkeywrenches. 

What Makes A Good Superhero Movie?

He helps.

I count 29 major superhero-themed movies from 2000 that are worth examining.  (Error of omission: The Incredibles) These are the major heroes from Marvel and DC, sometimes with bankable stars, that have either exploded or tanked at the box office.  That’s an average of two a year.  I spent some time trolling the internet looking at the myriad of reviews by dedicated nerds and they have mostly have similar takes on the worthiness of each film.  They point out inconsistencies with the source material, and adherence to traditional lore as a sticking point to the success of a movie.  I confess I am not well-versed in comic books.  I’m actually more well-versed in the cartoons that sprung from those original ideas.  But I am also a summer movie fan, and I think I have a few ideas that make or break these movies when I’m planking down an obscene amount of cash for tickets at the movie theater.

It is a waste of your time to nitpick these films scene by scene.  It is a waste of time to nitpick The Godfather scene by scene.  Historically, we look back at these releases as successes or failures as a whole.  There are dozens of criteria we internalize and use to form our overall opinion.  It is our emotional reaction, despite a flawed script or shaky directing, that truly means the most to us.  Even though the acting was weak, the film made up for it with action. Or, the action was sparse but the casting was awesome.  I realize I am one-billionth in line to talk about movies on the internet.  However, I do not see reviewers with fresh eyes very often.  I usually see the same old bitching and moaning.

I am not stepping out on a limb to say that The Avengers and The Dark Knight are the two best superhero movies ever.  Both made billions, both were very popular and for different reasons.  The Avengers is the superhero movie everyone has always wanted.  Chock full of different heroes, interacting with each other in costume and out, with tons of well-edited action.  The Dark Knight was the superhero movie no one expected.  Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning turn as the Joker and the overall crime-drama feel and eerie tension of the movie made for a seriously memorable experience.  If someone wants to fight over positioning them at 1 or 2, that’s fine.  There is nothing I can find out there that surpassed these two, so far.

Now that the easy part is out of the way, I want to see what knocks down the rest of the pack and why the emotional resonance is not as strong.

Too many baddies.  For some reason, movie studios up the ante with sequels by giving two huge scoops of villain in every bowl of summer superhero fun.  It is the go-to formula, but it usually does not work out.  The most disappointing superhero movie is Spider-Man 3, and they tried to squeeze in three major villains into one lump of shit.  Everything seemed rushed and silly. There are some producers that believe these are just flashy pictures for nerds and kids to throw money at.  But they are still movies, and there has to be some type of coherency.  What great movie has three villains to one hero, each one vying for equal weight in a story?  That is a freshman’s creative writing error.  An invading army is one villain.  Three separate guys with masks and individual vendettas is just a mess.  I’m not so sure about the upcoming sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man.

CGI up the ass.  These are magical beings.  These are aliens or humans with superpowers.  Sometimes they are guys with expensive utility belts.  But they are all played by human actors.  The reason original costumes aren’t used often is that they look so much better on the page of a comic book.  Have you seen Electro from the Spider-Man comics?  He looks ridiculous. A lightning-bolt Halloween costume in lovely yellow and green.  It needs to be changed.  But there is a delicate balance between reality and what will we accept.  Mutant fights scenes, super powers, and web shooting are all from fantasy, but when they appear on screen we have to believe this could really happen, even in the frame of the story.  I think the acceptable recipe would be to use CGI as a spice, not as the main ingredient.  But if it is the main ingredient, we should not be able to tell the difference.

Too much suspension of disbelief.  Thor is from Asgard, a magical realm in deep space.  Asgardians have super strength, magical weapons and powers.  But why do they speak English?  We as an audience have to make the leap with aliens and their technology that shoots them through space, but the fact that Thor can share a beer with a human and speak English is jarring.  It should at least be addressed, and not assumed, that he speaks two languages.  It is nitpicking, but it would barely register at all if we did not have so much fantasy to allow in the first place.  Also, heroes are heroes, but people are just people.  They will react to the fantastic in different ways; but all of those ways have to seem genuine.  The one reaction people should not have in superhero movies is immediate acceptance. It’s a giant green monster!  You should immediately evacuate your bowels and curl up in a fetal position. One minor trope that always irks me is everyone’s innate ability to use martial arts.  I know why Batman can kick ass.  We’ve seen the training.  But every villain and goon that goes up against a hero is also a black belt? 

This familiar character is now unfamiliar.  True comic book fans will debate adherence to source material.  However, some of these characters have been around since WWII or so and general audiences have a few established notions of how they should behave.  Superman is a boy scout.  Batman is the brooding billionaire.  Spider-Man is youthful, wise-cracking and struggling to make rent.  In Man of Steel, Superman was rebooted into something very different.  The famous moral compass was replaced by an inward-thinking and moody Clark Kent, and the collateral damage of Superman’s presence was noticeably high.  Peter Parker was just not himself in Spider-Man 3.  Even though he was supposed to be infected by the outer space ooze, it turned him less into someone out of control and more of goofy douchebag. Audiences will only allow so many changes to something they know and love.  There is an invisible line of character updates that just can’t be crossed.

Not enough hero, or not enough action.  To me, this is the major measuring stick.  We watch these movies for action.  The character development makes the film well-rounded and satisfying.  However, if it eats up more screen time than the bread and butter action scenes, I think the superhero movie fails.  I love Sam Rockwell, but I’m willing to bet he had as much screen time as Robert Downey, Jr in Iron Man 2.  Way too much chit chat.  The first X-Men had the same problem, and both of the two Hulk movies also misfired.  It is difficult to make the right balance, but what you can do is err on the side of more action.  Only in Nolan’s Batman films and Downey’s Tony Stark do we have out–of-suit scenes comparable to the action.  Incidentally, Downey is also the reason this list exists.  It was his performance that made Iron Man an irresistible superhero movie.

My list. I asked a friend and esteemed comic book fan to give me his favorite out of the list, and we both shared the same top five.  All the rest are debatable. In fact, order these around as you will, but #19 through #27 should be considered bad movies.  The last three are shit. (Confession:  Never will see the second Fantastic Four.  Not sad about it either.)

      1.       The Avengers   

2.      The Dark Knight

3.      Iron Man

4.      Spider-Man 2

5.      Batman Begins

6.      Spider-Man

7.      X-Men 2

8.     Captain America

9.      X-Men - First Class

10.  The Dark Knight Rises

11.   Iron Man 3

12.  X-Men

13.  Amazing Spider-Man

14.  Iron Man 2

15.   The Incredible Hulk

16.  Thor

17.   The Wolverine

18.  Wolverine – Origins

19.  Fantastic Four

20. Hulk

21.  Superman Returns

22. Watchmen

23. Man of Steel

24. Daredevil

25.  Green Lantern

26. X-Men 3

27.  Spider-Man 3

Did not see:

Thor 2

            Fantastic Four – Silver Surfer

            

I Love Time Travel - Part 13 - The Animated Variety

I was a Saturday morning cartoon kid.  So many were absolute garbage, but a select few stuck in my brain and helped form a sense of humor and an imagination that decorates my daily life.  Somewhere in there I found the beginnings of timing and outsider attitude and the will to do the right thing.  Yes, it happened that way.  I watch them still, although I am much more selective.

Ok, so there is a Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie out. My kids are too old to care and I’m sure Mr. Peabody will make sassy comments and probably have a rap battle with Galileo or something.  That is the world we live in.  I loved the cartoon as a kid which is not surprising.  Sandwiched in the middle of Bullwinkle cartoons, I‘m sure it was my first time seeing time travel put to use.  I don’t remember much about it other than horrible puns at the end of each episode, and I always love the acronym WABAC for a time machine.  (Who are we kidding?  I’ll end up seeing the movie.)

If you withhold the classic era of Warner Brothers cartoons and a handful of others that came out in the 60’s (including the aforementioned Bullwinkle), the cartoons of my kids’ era are superior in every way imaginable.  There, I said it.  Among those was a short-lived series called Samurai Jack, by Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of Dexter’s Laboratory and Powerpuff Girls.  The premise was so simple, but I am not sure if I was ever exposed to this use of time travel before.  Jack is a warrior and has to face the evil (sorcerer?) Aku.  In the first episode, Aku throws Jack through a time portal to the future, where Aku has already taken over the world.  Instead of fighting Jack, Aku instantly created a world without him, one that he could control. I just loved that idea.   Jack’s quest is to find a way home and defeat Aku. The episodes were wildly imaginative and beautiful; it was the animation style that carried the show and I’m sure it ended too soon. 

I’m not sure why the writers at Family Guy decided to let Stewie Griffin invent a time machine.  The old Stewie, the one who wanted to kill his mother was long over with, and the more mature Stewie had better places to go.  The time travelling in this long-running and controversial animated series both celebrated the genre and satirized it; which is what you want a genius baby in suspenders and a talking dog to do.

There are 5 or 6 episodes that feature the time machine over the past few years: “Road To Germany”, “The Big Bang Theory”, “Back To the Pilot”, “Yug Ylimaf”, “Life of Brian” and “Christmas Guy”.  There is also a small bit in a viewer mail episode where Stewie, just to kill some time before he is put to bed, goes back in time to save Kurt Cobain before his suicide.  He tells Cobain, “There is another way.” and hands him a pint of Haagen Dazs.  Stewie transports back home to find a live LP of Nirvana and still living, but obese Kurt Cobain.  He concludes: “You’re still alive, you fat fuck.”

Because time travel is an invention of fiction it is begging to be satirized.  I think I’ve seen enough of horror, vampire and dramatic satire out there.  The first line when Stewie and Brian travel to 1939 Poland is a great dig at bad time travel fiction:

“Where are we?” asks Stewie.

“You mean, when are we?” Brian adds.

“That’s such a douche time travel thing to say.”

Stewie and Brian inadvertently destroyed and created the universe in “The Big Bang Theory”.  When Stewie’s arch-nemesis Bertram discovers the time machine he tried to go back in time to undo Stewie’s existence, but since he was the impetus of the Big Bang, Bertram would be undoing the universe itself.  They traveled to multiple universes.  Brian prevented of 9/11 but inadvertently ended world.  I think they covered both loop and single string time travel plot devices.  Each adventure tackled a separate trope. They also reversed time, and recently, Stewie saved Brian’s life. (Such a strange story arch.  Brian was replaced by a new dog and then returned again.  But, truthfully, no one misses the new dog anyway.)

Family Guy used the device in different ways to explore different angles of time travel fiction.  The show does not get enough credit for clever writing because 50 percent of it involves fart humor and dumpster babies.  With these later time travel episodes, the writers found interesting wrinkles for the characters to exploit and satire. So much fun stuff.

Art Is Time Travel and Vice Versa

No, there are no machines yet that can propel back or forward through time. I’ve  dreamt of it 1000 times, but it’s just not happening.  It may never happen because it is merely an imaginative effort and not a scientific one.  I’m cool with that.  But versions of time travel exist in real life, or at least close approximations, that are important to recognize.

The idea sprang from Stephen King’s On Writing, a nonfiction book about King’s background, process, and views on the medium.  At the close of the book he writes a letter to the reader, the actual reader of the book at that moment.  He describes what he is doing as the closest thing to time travel we’ll ever experience.  He writes the message from 1998 or so at his house in Maine.  But I read it about ten years later in my house in Oregon in 2008.  King explains this as a form of time travel.  The reader is able to experience descriptions, emotions, reactions, from ten years before.  It is a report of what is happening instead of a first-person account, but it is an experience of another place at another time.  All writing is like this.  In fact, when I later thought about it, all art is time travel.

I’ve told my kids to write in a journal.  Only one or two have dived in; one regularly, one occasionally. It is a great way to sort out thoughts and understand stress and how you feel about the events around you.  But, years later, when you have the time to take a look at what you’ve written, you will be astonished (and horrified) at what is in there.  Without journals we are lucky if we can remember times, dates, locations, cars, clothes, jobs, people and ancillary details.  We usually can’t remember what we thought or felt.  With a journal, it’s all there, trapped in amber on paper or some word document.  It was an honest account of events that you may have already forgotten.  You forgot how much you hated that job, or loved that girl.  You forgot when you got the flu for a week and read five novels and reevaluated your life.  You forgot your obsession with Final Fantasy. You got to experience yourself years before and gain a new perspective. Isn’t that what all the time travel stories are about, anyway?

Cave paintings to Andy Warhol, Neil Young to A Tribe Called Quest; all artistic endeavors are truly frozen in time.  We can access a lot of these but understanding the time that they were made is essential to understanding the piece itself.  What you grasp is human expression, in whatever form it is presented.  I assume this falls under the umbrella of historic or artistic appreciation.  I like to think of all of this falling under the multi-colored, plutonium-powered umbrella of time travel.  If you look at a Van Gogh print, and you can feel something, what has happened?  From the dead, an artist has touched you even in the most miniscule way.  If the viewer is more knowledgeable about Van Gogh and can zero on what was happening in his life when he created the painting, the connection is even stronger.  In some tiny way you were transported back to the nineteenth century. 

I think I’ve never been content with the present.  This is the type of thing I’ve thought of since I watched Bugs Bunny cartoons as a little kid.  I tell everyone that I know that watching old cartoons was how I got into history.  Those wartime cartoons are littered with windows into another era; one that predated my parents but was also whitewashed through oversimplified movies at the time.  But it got me thinking.  What was 4F, hoarding, and what the hell was a war bond?  That stuff did not exist for the nine-year-old me, so where did it come from?  I was time traveling and I was too young to interpret the data. (Luckily, I got a degree in history and now I understand WWII, but my education is mostly useless.  Kind of wish I was into math and finance.)

Old movies and reruns, classic novels, dusty record albums and documentaries.  All of these serve as windows to the past.  The sincere efforts can tell you so much, but even the corny bullshit can give you a clue at what life was like back then.  Classic TV was full of married couples in twin beds.  We know that was not reflective of real life.  But why did they do it, then?  What was it about the culture, or what the television producers thought about our culture, which indicated Americans could not handle a married couple in the same bed discussing everyday bullshit?  Sometimes the lens with which we view the art is also time travel. 

You can’t customize your Subaru with a flux capacitor.  Well, you can, but instead of a time machine you will have created a pathetic eyesore.  Time travel just ain’t happenin’, people.  However time travel through art reminds me that the theories and rationale are very real; it’s just all that pesky bending the laws of the universe that gets in the way.

I Love Time Travel - Part 12 - Primer

           What does one say about a movie that is so unbelievably confusing that even a die-hard time travel nerd like myself had trouble putting the plot together?  Primer is a true science fiction film; in that the emphasis is on the scientific part of that equation.  It is an incredibly well-edited and effective movie wrapped up in a tight 87 minutes.  It is regarded as an impressive independent film and an excellent debut for creator Shane Carruth, but to this nerd, it was lacking in a few key areas to make it an enjoyable experience overall.

As simply as I can explain it, there are four young engineers working on a project in a garage.  The first 20-30 minutes is almost padding for the rest of the film, because all of the techno-babble is inconsequential, other than setting up the documentary-like feel.  It works well, but soon, the story of the two main engineers screwing the other two engineers out of the project is abandoned.  Abe and Aaron accidentally stumble on a use for their machine to send an object into a time loop.  The experiment is furthered when they insert themselves into bigger versions of the machines to manually leave the loop, thereby experiencing the same block of time twice.  This is time travel.

The boxes work like this: You turn the box on.  You stay out of contact with the rest of the world (Abe and Aaron went to a hotel room and unplugged the phones and TV) for six hours.  After six hours, you climb into the box and wait it out for six hours. After that time, you emerge as a double of yourself, six hours earlier, while the previous version of you is waiting it out in the hotel. 

It actually makes sense in the context of the movie.  Through he original experimentation, you follow how the box works fairly clearly.  The engineers use their time travel time to check stock prices and invest on the big winner of the day.  They begin to make a lot of money.  They think of publishing and creating new lives for one another.  The trouble is, Aaron is kind of a dick.  What happens if the doubles interfere with the originals?  Aaron manipulates Abe during the trips because it is difficult to know which version of a person you are talking to.  He uses the machine for personal reasons, increasingly edging Abe out of his plans.  The loops become incredibly convoluted and there are no tips to guide you through the process.  It is intentionally confusing, which can be considered intellectual respectful but it loses some entertainment value.

At this point, detailing the plot really would not reveal anything.  This movie was shot on a $7000 budget with the help of Carruth’s friends so, confusing or not, it is impressive. It just lacks a tight story.  I love this stuff, but even I need an underlying struggle to overcome, or a love story, or a plot to kill Hitler’s grandma or something.  Realistic time travel is very cool, but without a human connection it can be as dry as a high school physics lecture.  Aaron is a selfish jerk whose aim seems to be to screw over his friend and leave his wife and daughter.  There is some conflict there, but we really did not get to know him well enough in the beginning of the film so we really don’t know what to think. 

Primer is worth a Netflix rental simply because it is one of a kind. The acting is quite good for a bunch of no-names in a film that cost less than a used Toyota.  The science is meticulous, sound, and fascinating, but to me it lacked the spirit of the fun, summertime time travel films or the darker, pessimistic ones.  It was somewhere in the middle, and my fuzziness after watching it was not due to the twisted timelines. It was a very good try. However, if there is one underlying theme of Primer, it is above all else, do not time travel with an asshole.

The Morning Person

I know. Gross, right?

I am a rare bird.  I am one of those people who are not monsters when they roll out of bed and face the inevitable responsibility of having to be awake for an entire day.  I do not wish to sleep more than I need.  There is nothing in me that wants to stay in the toasty warm cinnamon bun of blankets for hours on end.  I am a sick, twisted freak.  I am…a morning person.

It was only recently that it occurred to me that the world is not evenly divided up between morning people and night people.  The overwhelming majority of people are night people.   Just a precious few weirdos are able to wake up and immediately get moving without the feeling of life crushing your every move.  There is also a popular misunderstanding about morning people.  They are not happy and cheerful; they are just functional in the morning.  It is only through the prism of being a grouch in the morning that anyone who isn’t miserable is some cheery Ned Flanders-like cretin that should be shot on sight.  We are merely awake and moving around, and we aren’t bitching about it every morning.  We take a lot of shit from night people.

Morning people do not choose their lot in life.  They are born that way.  I have often longed to sleep a little more or enjoy staying up to the wee hours.  My body rejects it over and over.  There comes a time when you have to listen to your brain and accept who you are.  You get shit done while others consume caffeine.  You go to bed early because there is no such thing as catching up on sleep.  You and the sun are simpatico.  Where he goes, you go.

Sure, a morning person can enjoy late-night fun.  Most likely they will pay for it more severely than a night person.  Along with the hangover and regret comes a sense of missing something because you may have slept forty-five minutes later than normal.  This feeling is buried deep in the DNA.  Maybe is a gene for ancient warriors on a dawn patrol, or protectors of the homestead.  Maybe we were the first chefs, ready to nourish the village before everyone else awakened to do whatever people in villages did back then.

Night people have more fun, for sure.  The fun industry is targeted to them.  But we of the early day persuasion have a few benefits that night people do not share.  Most of them have to do with enjoying peace and quiet.  There is nothing quite like a crisp, early Sunday morning with a coffee and warm socks while most of the world is sleeping it off. If you live in the country, the animals are out and in full throat.  If you are closer to the city, traffic is barely a whisper.  I love taking a walk during those hours.  I also love writing and chatting with whoever’s up and around.  And even if I’m alone, I enjoy a book or a crossword.  It’s a little stiff, and it lacks the excitement of nightlife, but it has its own rewards.

More importantly, I think night people and morning people need each other.  Lots of people have trouble getting out of bed and focusing, others need help getting out after dark and enjoying life.  Some have their best creative moments before noon, others have these moments at midnight.  Nature has provided humanity with those in both camps; those who greet the day and those who tell it to fuck off.  It is a symbiotic relationship that is as old as civilization itself.  Morning people are not freaks, they have a place in the natural order.

So, get off our goddamned backs!

I Love Time Travel - Part 11 - Groundhog Day

There's only three words I think of...

(I wrote this a few weeks ago before the death of Harold Ramis.  When I first heard the news, I was as nonplussed as I am with most celebrity deaths.  But as I thought about it more, I realized he had a hand in so many of the best and most memorable comedies in the late 70’s and 80’s.  Caddyshack, Stripes, Animal House, Ghostbusters…those movies help shape my sense of humor.  He truly influenced me more than I understood.  Rest in peace.)

Groundhog Day is not a time travel movie.  Except, it is. 

First, most people remember this 1993 film as a passable Bill Murray comedy.  Funny; not a lot of quotable lines, but a good movie.  I saw it in the theater and liked it, and years later they played the hell out of it on cable.  When you really take a step back and consider the character’s true journey beyond the goof ball antics, this is an amazing movie.

Regarded as one of the best scripts ever, Groundhog Day is about Phil, a weatherman in Pennsylvania who awakens every single morning to the same day, Groundhog Day, in Punxatawney.  No matter what has transpired, it is always that day.  For time travel purposes, this is more of an in-between concept.  Phil only goes back in time one day, and his knowledge of the future extends to one day; and it is a day he has already lived.  He retains all of the knowledge of the repeating February 2^nd’s, but no one else knows what Phil is experiencing.

            This very well could have been a drama, and I think somewhere in the movie it does switch to dramatic gears.  The process that Phil goes through makes the film exceptional.  This could have been some slapsticky horsecrap about winning poker hands or showing off, and Phil goes in that direction, but it goes a lot further.  At first he is perplexed and a little horrified by where and when he is forced to endure this daily reset.  After a while, he has some fun with it.  He gets laid, robs an armored car, memorizes the answers to Jeopardy! questions.  But this drains on him.  Soon, he falls for the producer, Rita, and tries to trick her into bed with information he learned previously about her to no avail.  He is dejected.  He begins to lose control.  He attempts suicide.  Over and over and over.  No matter what, he keeps waking up in the same bed at the same time.

            Right here is where the movie could have gone astray.  The fact that Phil accepts his plight and just tries to make the best of his life is so satisfying. He doesn’t just live it; he slowly becomes the man he always wanted to be, which in turn gains Rita’s eventual affections He learns piano, ice-sculpting, and performs acts of heroism and kindness to everyone in the tiny little town.  Eventually, he and Rita have a perfect day together and they wake up together on February 3^rd. 

            Director Harold Ramis has stated that Phil was in a loop for at least ten years, maybe even triple that, before he woke up to a new day.  Something about that statement made me sit back and imagine what a hell that was for the character.  It was done in the guise of a comedy and cast the perfect lead actor for the role. But the reality of a repeating day, and years of knowledge without aging, or being away from the rest of the world for decades is serious time travel fiction.  The warping of our knowledge of how time passes is so integral to our view of reality.  To have it skip like a scratched record is too maddening to imagine. Imprisonment is one thing, but to not have the passing of time to age you is torturous. No one around you is aware of what you already know, and Phil has no idea how this happened or when it would ever end.

            The theme of the film is to fix yourself. Phil was a miserable self-centered bastard at the beginning of the film, but through self-awareness and kindness and giving and caring and all that stuff that Fox News doesn’t like brought him around.  It is almost as if Phil needed to earn another day on earth.  How he was proceeding may have been even worse.