The everyman

So if you asked me who my favourite member of The Beatles was you would be suprised to know the answer is longer than you think. It shows i distinct different between who "the best" is and which beatles i form a connection with. That in itself is 2 seperate questions.

The question of who is the best is obvious, Paul Mccartney. He is the best one objectively, best musician, best singer and questionably best song writer. But which Beatle resonates with me?

The long and short of it is that my favourite beatle isn't really all that important, it's what it says about my character. Who i consider the everyman.

In fiction the everyman is there to give the audience someone to relate to, most likely an observer, acting as an audience surrogate (that's probably the best way to figure out the target audience of a film).

I'm a believer that the best things come in 4, sometimes instead of giving us an everyman as an audience surrogate we are given 4 to choose from, a sort of "pin the everyman on the character." Four manufactured personalites creating a net, as if audience members were fish to be caught. A large enough range so a larger chunk of people identify with at least one person in the piece of work.

Lets take Seinfeld as an example, you have Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine. Jerry for the egotistical, George for the self loathing, Kramer for the eccentric and Elaine for the nuerotic.

So who is my favourite beatle? It's probably George, as a lover of the obscure.How could i not admire the talented introvert in the shadows. The world loves an underdog and i'm no different. Although that might change later as i can be quite fickle.

Also Pin The Everyman On The Character is available at stores for $19.99.........

Movies

So as anyone close to me will tell you i love movies, well in general works of fiction, i guess you could tell with my long discussion of my love of animation and my opinion on the stigma being a 23 year old and watching things that are considered childish may carry.

It's actually funny my choices of movies are most likely the most mature part of me (well and music) i'm a sucker for things that are depressing or comedys that are dark, and unfortunately my pretentiousness does leak into my movie viewing.

My cynisism also leaks in as i am always weary of anything big budget and blockbustery (is that a word?), the moment i found out they were making another Fast and Furious movie i just had to groan.

So as a change of pace i figured i'd take a personal look into some of my favourite movies (for lack of other ideas) these aren't in any particular order because honestly creating and honest top 10 would just take me hours.


Monty Python and the Holy Grail
As someone who was a british schoolboy for an earlier part of my life it was always commonplace that you would hear the 'knights of ni' routine as a regular occurence (that sentence was so run on it's not even funny). As a 10 year old this is probably the funniest thing that you have ever seen, and it you're the precosious enough it has enough quote to tire out your whole family (even if you're from a big family).

Also don't misinterpret my 10 year old school boy jabber this is by no means a kids movie, there are some very adult jokes in it (both the sophisticated kind and the oh i didn't realise that was so rude kind),

Finally as a lover of comedy and movies how could i not love a movie that sticks a middle finger up at climaxes.


Stranger Than Fiction
I adore this movie. I am the kind of person who loves when an actor can step up and do a movie that is not his regular forte, and boy does Will Ferrell do well here, and in such a wonderful story, such a unique, creative and heartwarming story (oh my god i'm actually gushing). Dustin Hoffman is always a class act and is believable as someone who is skeptical but intruiged and in some ways altruistic.

This is a truely wonderful film start to finish and i love how the protagantist has to really work for his happy ending (ok gushing over).


Labrynth 
So i watched this movie recently to see if this movie still held up (because i enjoyed this movie as a kid) and what i found was that a) the special effects were really aged (not that special effects are that important if the story is good) and b) the story was really simple and childish (and if you're just tuning in i'm mature with movies).

So you'd think it wouldn't hold up, but you know what, I STILL LIKED IT. Yeah i said it, this is one of my guilty pleasures and this is for 2 reasons.

1) It so wonderfully campy and 80s

2) David motherfrosting Bowie

Honestly who doesn't want to dance magic dance with the goblin king!


Charlie Bartlett
Every generation has a high school movie that they can truely call their own, and when i was 17 just coming out of high school, 2 movies came out which i consider to be our generations high school movies (that is so corny). The first is Charlie Bartlett and the other will be mentioned below (no cheating and scrolling down!)

The main character is so endering and the teenagers actually act like teenagers, there's no sugar coating, they have problems, anxieties and some feel damn well alienated. This is one of those movies that feels so upbeat but has undertones or darkness and that is refreshing for something made for teenagers.


Superbad
I'll be honest, when devising this list 3 movies with Michael Cera popped up (i don't have a man crush!).

When you go to a video store and it has a comedy sticker on it alot of the time it's going to be something the is laugh a minute flick but lacks substance and there is a movie full of substance but the laughs are few and far between, but sometimes there is the diamond in the rough, the gem that while was laugh out loud funny, and can make you use your brain and sometimes your heart (ugh that is really corny).

It is a wonderful journey, the character are realistic (especially for anyone not particularly popular at high school) and as someone who finds happy endings passe i thought the bitter sweet ending was a nice way to top it all off, an implicit happy ending but with shades of grey (less than 50)


Blues Brother
Hey boys and girls, do you like music, movies, car chase scenes, pissed of hillbillies and nazis! Well you're in luck!

This movie is on the right side of both hilarious and action pact, the songs are just freaking awesome and anyone who is a fan of blues and jazz will love cameos from Cab Calloway and Ray Charles. In my opinion the special effects have not aged one bit, and is proof that with all the great new technology directors have at their disposal if you can write and good story and funny jokes then fancy shmancy sfx does not make a lick of difference.

Feel good celebration of music with an iconic car chase in the mall which i'm sure has been parodied countless times.


Hook
Another movie close to the ol childhood, this was at a time where people gave a crap what they sold to kids, this sort of sequel/retelling of a classic story that didn't suck! 

Dustin Hoffman was a great Captain James Hook and Robin Williams found himself on the right side of subtle playing Peter Pan. This is a nice realistic and modern look at a Peter that has fallen into the mediocrity of adult life, and i must say the irony was not lost on me.

Also the action scenes weren't bad either (remember when fantasy movies weren't 3 hours long?).


Movies that are probably my top 3

Number 3: Little Miss Sunshine
It's so wonderfully dysfunctional! This is a family of rejects who never really get what they want and they usually end up humiliate themselves trying to get it, and i love that.

This movie is hilarious, wonderfully acted and is conceptually sound. The family in this movie are stuff in a van with eachother on a road trip across America and they all hate eachother, these people would not be in this situation were they not family.

The harsh realism is refreshing and sometimes the toil, misadventure and failure of someone else is unfortunately funny.


Number 2: Fight Club
 The quintisential cult classic. This is the catalyst for my love affair with indie and obscure films, i don't think i know anyone who doesn't like this movie unless they haven't seen it, this movie is a masterpiece.

This movie set the bar for twists and is another one of those movies that implies that there is a happy ending somewhere there, but there is still work to do. This is a movie that requires you to use your brain and left me captivated from start to finish.

I fear i broke some rules talking about Fight Club.....


Number 1: Pulp Fiction
Tarantino is most likely my favourite director, he is a man who has created his own quirky fictional universe in which Hitler gets shot into oblivion by pissed off Jewish assassins, and Pulp Fiction is his magnum opus, this boys and girls is my hands down favourite movie of all time.

It's story telling style is unique and when you think ensemble cast, you think of this movie. The dialogue is entertaining, the seperate stories meld in so wonderfully together and there is not a single wasted character in this movie.

Oh and Christopher Walken, that is all.

So those are some of my favourite movies, i highly recommend these to anyone who is a lover of movies. I swear i had a list of 20 movies before i started writing but to have done all 20 would have drained me and would have been (more) boring.

So that's me and if you can find 20 spelling mistake in that i'll buy you a cookie, peace.

Censorship

So hey...... readers? I forget how i start these things, i guess that's the blessing and the curse of informal writing, you have so much choice! But you also have so much choice with no direction, no benchmarks or conventions. So while i like writing in free form and seeing where inspiration takes me it's always hard for me to get the ball rolling (that and i don't put pen to paper the moment inspiration hits) But today inspiration hit! Like a cup cake out of a catapult!  No freedom of speech and expression is a big issue for me and i absolutly believe in the right to speak your mind without being taken into a white van and never being seen again.

However that first paragraph may be a little misleading, i am not talking about censorship in regards to the right to critisize the government or the multi nationals (i guess if the multi nationals took you away it would be in a black lexus) This is about censorship in art.

By this i do not mean high brow art or low brow art. Art is subjective, in some ways that is the beauty of art, one mans treasure is anothers trash. I consider comic books art as some consider films, people call Citizen Kane art, why can't i call The Killing Joke art?

I feel i'm out of focus, so censorship. Censorship in art is usually brought on by offence, someone could be offended so we have to censor it. This is because art produced for the mass market will get more funding than is not intended for the mass market, as much as this pains me to say art is not usually done for arts sake, art is made to sell. That's the price to pay, while there is an incentive to produce art it doesn't mean good art is always created (Michael Bay!)

Do i oppose all censorship? No some is necessary. There is a point to be made that music videos that are played at a time where children could be watching maybe shouldn't contain swear words.

But sometimes it's just silly, there's one song that comes to mind by My Chemical Romance that contains the line "what you got under your shirt." and they censored out "shirt.", never mind it making an apt point in context. But seriously how petty are these people that they have to censor out the word shirt because it's vaguely suggestive.

More seriously it can stifle an artform, hays code for example. Brought on by a few stuffy old men's notion of decency. Basically these codes were rules for movie makers (i.e no swearing, no nudity) to maintain the decency of hollywood.

Never mind that these people were bigots who included the rules no white and black relationships or "sex perversion" (homosexuality) and nevermind that decency like art is subjective.

So now the offended control art, nothing can really push the envolope as long as "someone can be offended" (i mean it's not as if you can change the channel or not rent that dvd or not go to see that movie) which is a shame.

Like i said not all censorship is bad, and it's not as bad as it was in the 50s. But the damage has been done, i read somewhere that the hays code conditioned movie viewers into prefering less thought provoking movies as this was all writers were limited to by the tough restrictions. I've also noticed that tv stations really buy into the notion of "if you are offended please write in and tell us."

So i implore you, the stuffy ones, the soccer moms, the moralists! Put down your pens! Put down your pens and just don't watch it, and if you think it's innapropriate for children, don't let your child watch it, my parents didn't approve of watching South Park as a child, so did they write to someone to say it's offensive? No! They just told me not to watch it.

Rule of thumb, if you're not enjoying it, you're not the intended audience. Thanks you and goodnight.
 

Maturity

So it's been a while.......... this blog was put onto hiatus a few years ago (well i say hiatus, because with an ego like mine, who needs realism!) i neglected this blog which is a real shame because it was an absolute joy to write, so i've decided to give it another shot, with my grand return, an older more worldly refreshingly cynical! I think that's the first time i've refered to myself as my username on anything, but i digress. But i find that however mature i find my beliefs  and knowledge i still like very immature things. Which is a pretty nice segway into the topic.

I am going to make an admission, possibly even a confession..... ready? here it comes. I like cartoon, i'm not only one of course, heck on the internet there are people in my age group that enjoy a recent my little pony cartoon, i still haven't quite worked out if it's all a big joke, it doesn't make a difference to me, it's hilarious either way!

Is it nostalgia? I think that forms part of it, i mean can anyone really say that they don't have some sort of attachment to the things that they enjoyed in the important development stages of their lives, personally the things that i love, music, media, sport and interest, are usually things that i enjoyed between the age of 10 and 18. So much now that it's hard for me to get into new music, which some big exceptions.

I also personally think that these cartoons while entertaining are a great source of social commentary, from the cartoon in the 40s that had Popeye fighting the yellow peril, to those crazy 80s outfits and consumerist culture in the 90s.

You might find it odd that in a blog titled maturity i write about my own immaturity, well immaturity is from the same coin, just on a different side.

Marketing

Now for the third blog i once again come to the topic of the world cup. Now once again i am not necassarily about the football. But the world cup as an event ties in very closely to the idea of marketing.

I mean think about it (think think about it) it is impossible to watch the full 90 minutes of a world cup match without some kind of corperate idea put into your mind. Well obviously because of the ads but then you get back to the main feature and what do you get, little boards! With Nike and Adidas and Lynx and whatever some guy sitting at home scratching his ass with a solid gold ass scratcher wants you to buy. Now i know this seems a little like a broken record coming from me (what do you mean Oliver you love rich business owners and libertarianism?) and you would be right. Waheey

At the same time it is an interesting fact that marketers don't just need to use traditional media or advertising channels to entice the average rational consumer (as well as the other 90% of consumers) This other form of advertising is cheap, it spreads out far within the community and heck it could be considered good for the environment (none of those pesky flyers) It's out on the streets this marketing occurs (i sound so gangsta right now) it occurs between you and me, it's on t shirts and styrofoam cups (so not so good for the environment), it's on wrappers and shoes. It's on the feet of football players as they prance around the field (looking at you Italy)

When you buy a shirt, or boots or a cup of coffee you are buying for a corperate image, perhaps that's the image you associate with, heck you might like the taste of the coffee! (Yeah that is a bit of a stretch) It's not just visual, you can hear people talk about a cd, about a concert (if you're an eavedropper) you hear people sing (now that really is a stretch). Ultimately my point is it's hard to go down you're local high street, main street, shopping mall etc, without getting some sort of corperate image that the slick guy with a bluetooth headset and a ponytail (in other words a marketer) didn't directly make for you to see (well maybe he did) but indirectly benefited from)

To finish i put to you a marketing challenge, next time you go to a high street, main street, shopping mall or any urban area (the streets yo) look out for any corperate image not created through normal media or advertising channels. But pure viral marketing (i think that's what it's called) perhaps write them down, i planned to do that in a little notebook, we'll see.

Anyway, peace out

Mistakes

So i'm sitting here listening to one of my favourite Pink Floyd song, now those of you who know me would assume it would be something written by Roger Waters one of my favourite song writers. However that would be a mistake (ah the links write themselves) it's actually a David Gilmour number, from Momentry Lapse of Reason(which some Pink Floyd fans might call a mistake in itself). The song is One Slip which i think is increadibly relevant to the topic in hand.

I also think it should be the soundtrack of this years world cup. To list the mistakes i have seen; Green vs USA, The Algerian keeper vs Slovenia, the Serbian defender that gave a penalty against Ghana, the Australians for being Australian, the Argentina defender who basically gave Korea a goal and finally me for making bad picks on my Jimungo account.

We all have our perfect world cups set out in our heads, how games should go, which teams are better than the others and we never really account for the little mistakes that can go wrong, how can we i guess, we can never predict that one slip that tends to happen, only make a little contingency in the back of our heads that something bad will happen, best laid plans of mice (yes cheesy plans) and men gang aft agley (can go wrong) yada yada yada.

The best we can do is not be suprised when it does happen (i've been an England supporter since i could think so i've gotten rather good at it) and ultimatly not get too disheartened when things finally go wrong.

Now i when i say we all have our perfect world cups i don't just mean the competition, in life we have our own little event, very important to us, planned out in a way that would be perfect to us. Not only in football but in life can we shrug off those "one slips" and do our best to push through.

Peace out and hopefully you won't feel that reading this was a mistake

The World Cup

It is i back from obscurity asking the tough question, does anyone blog anymore? It appears not i guess i well and truely missed the wave.

Aside from that pessimistic notion (which i guess if anyone is reading this would come to expect anyway) i do actually have a topic on my mind right now The World Cup! Which is expected i mean day two and the competition is in full swing, but funnily enough it's not the football i want to discuss, it's what the World Cup represents to me, it's not very often in life where we get to take a static mental snapshot of a period in time of how your life was at that moment. I mean there are the usuals, weddings, graduations, family holidays. You remember who you friends were and what they looked like at that very moment in time. But they're not regular, i mean birthdays are a nice regular look at your life once a year. But that's once a year, there is regular time to look at changes in your life but too short of a time period, changes can be taken for granted.

Then there's the World cup, how many other times can you say, this is how i have changed in the last 4 years, especially in the life of a young man. So many young men can say "i know where i was when Brazil won in 2002" or "when Italy won in 2006" (and it was all against Vialoux). I have been watching the World Cup since 1998, this has let me share the joy of triumph, the dispair of (another bloody shoot out) loss and the perspective to see how much my life has changed in the last 4 years.

So those of you enjoying the football, waiting with baited breath on the performance of your respective countries, take a second to look at how your life has changed in the last 4 years and hopefully enjoy the same perspective that i have enjoyed from 1998.

And now a joke

"What do you call an Scottishman in the second round of the world cup final?"
A Referee!

Peace!