...Aaand a good middle of August to everyone out there, wherever you may be.  I hope things are going swimmingly well and that all your long and short-term plans and goals are coming along just the way you like it.

 
        So there I was sitting in the middle of a movie theater a few days ago, waiting for The Bourne Ultimatum to start while half-dozing through the seemingly requisite endless stream of commercials for various brands of junk food being shown on the screen when an "interview" with a tv executive comes up on the screen as he tries to shill (oh, sorry. I meant to say) praise an upcoming tv show which is apparently a remake of the old Bionic Woman series.  He was saying something to the effect that the new series will represent the perfect American Woman, or something along those lines.  What caught my attention though was that the leading lady was the one that was interviewed next, and she turns out to be British!  There was just something that was unintentionally funny going on in there which finally got me all wide awake and alert looking out for hopefully more of the same types of golden entertainment along the same vein.  You can't script any of that, folks.  The irony will just go over their heads.

        Unfortunately the remainder of the trailers that they showed were not of the humorous variety, unintentional or not.  First there was this upcoming movie about a peace-loving family man with a normal, peace-loving perfect son about to go to college on a scholarship or somesuch when the son happened to walk into the middle of a convenience store robbery.  The trailer wasn't really clear about what happened to the son afterwards... I guess for dramatic effect, to keep us all on our seats, wanting for more so we'll be tempted to actually go in and watch it when it comes out so we can find out what really happened.  Anyway, the trailer gave enough clues to show that something bad, something really baad happened to the kid, and now the father is on the warpath intent on revenge, to hunt down the evil criminals one by one like the diseased vermin that they are, and make them pay dearly for what they did.  Oh, and Russell Crowe apparently is a police detective with a Neyw Yahk accent in this one, as he tries to make heads and tails over the recent tide of violence sweeping the city, while keeping one eye suspiciously trained on the dad the entire time.  And the suspense builds.

        And then the next trailer showed an upcoming movie starring Jodie Foster, playing a normal, peace-loving wife or girlfriend with a dog, living her normal, perfect, peace-loving life with her husband or partner, when they were viciously attacked while they were walking her dog through a tunnel late one night.  The trailer wasn't really clear about what happened to the husband / lover afterwards... I guess for dramatic effect, to keep us all on our seats, wanting for more so we'll be tempted to actually go in and watch it when it comes out so we can find out.  Anyway, the trailer gave enough clues to show that something bad, something really baad happened to the guy.  Being a peace-loving, law-abiding citizen, Jodie tried to go to the police to ask for help.  One of the scenes showed her all beat up and bloodied in the police station pleading for assistance while the cops at the other end of the counter listening to her were shrugging their shoulders in a bit of a semi-unsympathetic manner and basically saying I guess that there's nothing they can do about it.  And so now Jodie is left with no other choice but to go on the warpath intent on revenge, to hunt down the evil criminals one by one like the diseased vermin that they are, and make them pay dearly for what they did.  Incidentally, there happens to be a police detective that apparently does somewhat seem to care so he tries his best to make heads and tails over the recent tide of violence sweeping the city, while keeping one eye suspiciously trained on Jodie the entire time.  The final scene of the trailer showed Jodie briskly walking towards one of the bad guys then pointing a pistol at his head and then saying, "I want my dog back!!!" And the suspense builds.

        And so there I was sitting there, thinking to my self: What's up with all the vigilantism going on with all the trailers?  I mean, when you think about it even the Bionic Woman trailer to a certain extent displays elements of extra-judicial mayhem in them — she uses her bionic powers to take the law into her own hands and beat up on the evil people.  Okay, the violent content or theme going through all of them I suppose is because the movie being shown fits in with the type of moviegoing crowd that they wanted to advertise to, and so there's a connection there.  But unless I just haven't really been paying attention, I think I haven't really seen a pattern before where an entire block of movies coming out seems to have a message saying: Okay, I'm going to take care of things myself.  No sense going to the authorities for help, if you need something done right ya gotta handle things on your own.

        Perhaps I'm splitting hairs here so maybe it's just me nitpicking, but I somehow feel that there's a bit a difference between: (a) secret agents with super-cool gadgets and ultra-expensive cars with license to kill; or wizards with magic spells and potions that can turn you into into a petrified tree stump; or even spaceships with laser-blaster cannons that can obliterate you to smithereens; as opposed to (b) Ordinary-looking protagonists with ordinary lives (i.e., they could very well just be you and me), set in a present-day situation, dealing with present day troubles, but deciding on their own to become violent and let the chips fall where they may.

        Is this a sign of the times?  Is art accurately reflecting the pulse of the society at large? And if so, what does this say about us? About how we feel? About what we think?  Is this a manifestation of a pervading sense of collective helplessness that's prevalent among us?  Are we, in effect, saying: What is this world coming to? Why are things the way they are?  Why doesn't anyone do anything about it?  Do I actually have to go out and take matters into my own hands? If it really has gotten to that point, then it is quite worrisome, indeed.

 
        All of this just somehow made me think about the times when everything seemed so simple; back in my childhood days, when the most critical concern I had to deal with the entire day would be which neighborhood kid I would like to play with.

        When I first started going to school, one of the earliest activities that I can remember was doing these coloring exercises using crayons on these activity sheets that had prism-like patterns printed on them that you're supposed to color (between the lines, of course).  I loved looking at the finished result once I got through painting them, what with how it seems to resemble the twinkling glow of a dew hanging off a leaf during the early morning hours.  The dew drops almost look like a collection of miniature stained glass windows scattered along the plants when you see them refracting the early morning sunlight if you happen to wake up early enough and find yourself outside at just the right place and time.

        I remember visiting my mom's relatives out in the province.  They lived in the countryside and the people there didn't have electricity which means no street lights, no flourescent lights, no light bulbs that could interfere with the night sky.  And so one of the fondest memories I can recall at the time was me standing in the middle of an empty field, close to around midnight, looking up at a clear sky and seeing a full moon.  The entire surrounding area was bathed in this calm, soothing reflection of the moonlight.  No artificial light can ever replicate that same effect, and the subsequent emotion that one gets just standing there while marveling at the soft, almost caressing, glow of light on your surroundings was quite profound.  I heartily recommend this experience if you ever get the opportunity.  It's quite peaceful on a totally different plane of peacefulness, almost to the point of being spiritual, really.

        One of the things I remember when I moved on to elementary school was the time I experienced my first-ever instance of puppy love, with me wanting oh so desperately to talk to this girl that I realized I had a crush on — or at the very least walking up to introduce myself to her so she would at least know that I exist — but then finding my feet melting like hot wax every time I tried to muster up the courage to walk up to her, so for the longest time all I ended up doing was stealing discreet glances toward her direction whenever I thought that she wouldn't notice.  Another thing going against me was the fact that I was painfully shy at the time and wouldn't even normally dare ask someone next to me what time of day it was even if my life depended on it, so finding the nerve to even approach this cute, cute, gorgeous girl whose image seemed to be permanently etched on my mind every single waking hour from that point on then seemed pretty much next to impossible.  And as if that weren't enough, she also happens to have a best friend that she hung around with all the time; they look like Siamese twins, really, because wherever one goes, the other one can be found as well. They were quite inseperable.  So simply saying hi is hard enough as it is, but telling someone you like them — while in the presence of a third party? — now that's just plain goofy.

        Funny thing is, the next thing I know I was actually walking her home every afternoon after school!  Just the two of us! I honestly don't remember how it all came together — I'm almost positive though that she probably made the first move and introduced herself to me considering I was so shy.  And so the arrangement about walking her home I guess just naturally came about during one of our subsequent conversations.  But there's still that one tricky hurdle to overcome due to the presence of her "twin", though.  I may have finally gotten my crush's attention, but I'm positive that I would still not have had the courage to accompany her home if her best friend were hanging around accompanying us or hovering in the general vicinity of where we were.  But the strangest of strangest things, her best friend happens to conveniently disappear from view from that point on, and my crush always just happens to be standing by herself whenever it's time for me to approach her so I can walk her home.

        Tender mercies.

        One of the memorable things I remember in high school was the sight of my "hip" male classmates running around the classroom in a panic all of a sudden, screaming out at each other in consternation, after one of them started waving a magazine article in his hand, yelling at the top of his voice and saying something along the lines of:

        "It can't be! It isn't true! Boy George is a guy! AAAAAHHHH!!!!"

        "What?! No way! You're lying!"

        "It says it right here!!!"

        "NOOOOOO!!!!"
 
 
 

        Ah, the innocence of youth.  Things seemed all so simple back then...