At some point last night at the Newport Center AMC during Batman v Superman, which my date wanted to enjoy and whom I worry I irritated, and I do worry, I was overtaken, mentally, by a terrifying sense of misanthropy, futility and hopelessness. I wish I could say what was happening exactly onscreen when this feeling took me but I could only occasionally understand anything anyone was doing in this movie and now I'm quite sure I can't be very specific about that- only that it was over an hour into the thing - near the end of the second hour- I think.
To be clear, the movie opens with little baby Bruce Wayne's parents being killed in front of him- that scene again- with this stylized, extreme close up of a gun placed through a pearl necklace and then firing and then close-up pearls flying everywhere and then "pretty" blood spots on the dead mother's face. That got me started. I thought, "Right, okay, this is some kind of wish fulfillment and this is the best we've got nowadays. This is romantic. This is what passes for romantic; this is what we are being given now as romantic- sick meaningless death. Do we think it's 'cool'? It's cool how the director dramatized the action of murder with objects in extreme close-up? A gun discharging, pearls flying- Are we detached? - as in, we think, 'That's creative.' 'Inventive storytelling.'? Are we MOVED because something about this symbolism strikes a chord? (If "we" is me, then no. Well, I said, "That's horrible. That's sick." - this marks, possibly, the beginning of my date thinking he might have done better to just come to see this movie alone. )
And then there's the set up of the basic premise which we got from the last Superman movie which is that when he fights he's so strong he wrecks cities, making lots of buildings topple just like the twin towers on September 11th, 2001. Are we, again I ask, expected to be detached? Are we, somehow, MATURE, that we watch such a thing now aware that it really happens (though not because of Superman! I mean...) and still enjoy it as entertainment, that we purposely sign up for shock and awe that happened in real life repackaged as special effects in Superman's story? What is this ASSUMPTION, director of Batman v Superman Zach Snyder? I am trying to parse it. Is it like, "C'mon, you can admit it. This is a kind of wish fulfilment." I am insulted. I am worried for us all.
Then we go to some terrorist cell thing happening in a desert and I think- okay so yes, I am supposed to be mature- this is supposed to be a mature superhero movie- because there's even terrorism just like real life.
Then Batman brands a guy.
Maybe the terrible disdain for mankind overcame me after Capitol Hill got blown up with everyone in it and then, as a plot point, was never revisited. (Me to date who really doesn't want me to talk in the movie anymore: "So they're all dead now?")
I think it wasn't then though- because I think then I went to the bathroom. Not sure.
So I don't know when it was, exactly, in the course of the movie's action, like I said.
But I'm worried that Batman v Superman put a maybe-I'm-finally-dating-someone-who-is-genuinely-kind-and-much-much-less-neurotic-than-myself-but-praise-the-lord-he-is-sweet upward GOOD progression on a rockier course. Fuck this horrible movie. It makes me feel, damn it, bereft for humanity, and honestly as if humanity is past tense, that something this cynical is being served as entertainment blockbuster fare. The characters aren't cynical. The movie is cynical. The movie thinks I'm a monster.
And then I have to feel like a snob for having this terrible set of thoughts? I can't blame that on the director I GUESS, but I think I kind of blame that on the director.
Friday, April 1, 2016
Friday, March 4, 2016
CHEAP PEOPLE or great moments in rolling over in bed and it's snowing; you imagine if you could afford to still go to therapy with the same therapist who gave you analysis
I have quit the latest in secretarial jobs.
I'm writing a play, I like it, about a woman who quits her latest in secretarial jobs but in a more dangerous set of circumstances.
Anyway, when I worked there, oh- there is an Investment Bank, eventually my desk was moved to be beside this British man with an extremely wide ass and a very posh accent... 's office.
This poor man wanted to be cool. I took him drinking with myself (duh) and myfriendS (who crashed the holiday party) after the holiday party. He bragged (pitifully) that the Junior Associates liked the novelty (as if) of his drinking. He bummed one of my cigarettes - he told me way too much about infertility treatments with his wife. He wanted to be told he was different from the other bankers which I obliged. I know how to act at corporate after party drinks. I know a lot of things. And I don't think I can get as drunk as a banker. I am a writer! Through and through!
At any rate, we said we'd drink together more, and we did. The last time was after he came by my desk on a Friday before the big winter snowstorm was expected to hit, saying "Well Alexis, is it beer o'clock?"
MyfriendS thinks the Brit is great. He loves the accent. I think he's not so great and here's why: I think he should pay for everything we do, should ever we do anything, 100% of the time, 100% on him no question about it. He's a "Director" at the bank. I am a temporary secretary.
I spent months at this bank I worked for with no benefits at all on an hourly basis gunning to have my hourly rate moved from $23.00 to $25.50 (before taxes), and then unsuccessfully spent months gunning to be hired as a permanent employee.
So going out for a drink with this Brit can cost me, easily, my whole day of pay. If I take a taxi home to Jersey City because I'm tired and drunk and can't stand to wait for and experience the PATH train - easily.
I'd say easily the whole day's pay after taxes- just to pay for drinking, eating, and getting home.
He is practically suicidal. I see that. I am a perceptive woman after all. His teacher wife is asleep. He wants to drink with exciting me and exciting S. Poor artists are a lot more fun? Well, no kidding.
Man up and pay for everything.
Maybe it will even help with the misery.
That's what I say.
So the last time we went for a drink before this blizzard was to land, I said 'sure!' - I had nothing to do but maybe try to get groceries on this Friday night. And he awaited a text from his wife or this visiting acquaintance to let him know he needed to leave and get back to Brooklyn.
He paid for somewhat more than what he had. I paid for somewhat less than what I had.
He left eventually, concerned to have heard from neither acquaintance nor wife.
I said "go- go - it's fine. Go ahead. See you Monday".
The waiter said to me, as I gave him my credit card to pay what was uncovered by the Brit's cash, "he left you here?"
I said "Well- He's a work acquaintance- and a married man also".
Still, said the waiter, "I would never do that. I would never leave you."
Now I would say to my therapist, "What do you think? Do you agree with the waiter that he shouldn't have left? Do you agree with me that he should have paid the whole tab? If you were me, would you like him, as a friend, any longer - I did pay less than I owed if it's all even Stevens. But do you agree it's somehow repellant- for me to pay at all?"
She would wonder why I'd care what she thinks.
I don't really NEED to go back tbecause I'm onto the analysis answers pretty well. :-) But I would love to go back because it's very bonding to have someone listen to you THAT MUCH.
Lots of love,
Alexis
I'm writing a play, I like it, about a woman who quits her latest in secretarial jobs but in a more dangerous set of circumstances.
Anyway, when I worked there, oh- there is an Investment Bank, eventually my desk was moved to be beside this British man with an extremely wide ass and a very posh accent... 's office.
This poor man wanted to be cool. I took him drinking with myself (duh) and myfriendS (who crashed the holiday party) after the holiday party. He bragged (pitifully) that the Junior Associates liked the novelty (as if) of his drinking. He bummed one of my cigarettes - he told me way too much about infertility treatments with his wife. He wanted to be told he was different from the other bankers which I obliged. I know how to act at corporate after party drinks. I know a lot of things. And I don't think I can get as drunk as a banker. I am a writer! Through and through!
At any rate, we said we'd drink together more, and we did. The last time was after he came by my desk on a Friday before the big winter snowstorm was expected to hit, saying "Well Alexis, is it beer o'clock?"
MyfriendS thinks the Brit is great. He loves the accent. I think he's not so great and here's why: I think he should pay for everything we do, should ever we do anything, 100% of the time, 100% on him no question about it. He's a "Director" at the bank. I am a temporary secretary.
I spent months at this bank I worked for with no benefits at all on an hourly basis gunning to have my hourly rate moved from $23.00 to $25.50 (before taxes), and then unsuccessfully spent months gunning to be hired as a permanent employee.
So going out for a drink with this Brit can cost me, easily, my whole day of pay. If I take a taxi home to Jersey City because I'm tired and drunk and can't stand to wait for and experience the PATH train - easily.
I'd say easily the whole day's pay after taxes- just to pay for drinking, eating, and getting home.
He is practically suicidal. I see that. I am a perceptive woman after all. His teacher wife is asleep. He wants to drink with exciting me and exciting S. Poor artists are a lot more fun? Well, no kidding.
Man up and pay for everything.
Maybe it will even help with the misery.
That's what I say.
So the last time we went for a drink before this blizzard was to land, I said 'sure!' - I had nothing to do but maybe try to get groceries on this Friday night. And he awaited a text from his wife or this visiting acquaintance to let him know he needed to leave and get back to Brooklyn.
He paid for somewhat more than what he had. I paid for somewhat less than what I had.
He left eventually, concerned to have heard from neither acquaintance nor wife.
I said "go- go - it's fine. Go ahead. See you Monday".
The waiter said to me, as I gave him my credit card to pay what was uncovered by the Brit's cash, "he left you here?"
I said "Well- He's a work acquaintance- and a married man also".
Still, said the waiter, "I would never do that. I would never leave you."
Now I would say to my therapist, "What do you think? Do you agree with the waiter that he shouldn't have left? Do you agree with me that he should have paid the whole tab? If you were me, would you like him, as a friend, any longer - I did pay less than I owed if it's all even Stevens. But do you agree it's somehow repellant- for me to pay at all?"
She would wonder why I'd care what she thinks.
I don't really NEED to go back tbecause I'm onto the analysis answers pretty well. :-) But I would love to go back because it's very bonding to have someone listen to you THAT MUCH.
Lots of love,
Alexis
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