Four Boys

I am teaching in the second 6-week summer session. Since this session begins right after the high schools turn loose their wards, it attracts recent graduates and dual enrollment students looking to earn some college credit before the next academic year. The students are generally good—in attitude or in skills, sometimes both. But they are so young, and their youth and inexperience always surprise me. I wouldn't want their thoughts buzzing around in my own head, I know that for sure.

Boy 1

"Can you tell me how to calculate my average?" asked Rudy, a potential 2011 valedictorian from a nearby high school. Rudy is in competition for the top honor with a number of other rivals who also have perfect GPAs. Rudy hopes A's in a couple of college courses will help distinguish him from this crowd, so here he is, slaving away at the local community college. And Rudy is making an A in my class. He is careful and competent; mechanically, his writing is flawless, though long-winded and too safe to be interesting.

My question is why would he need to calculate an average when everything I have marked is an A? Is he so competitive that he must know that he has a 99.8 in case he has heard someone else might have a 99.7? I can imagine how hard it must be to live in his head, where he constantly measures himself against everyone else. Only the numbers matter, not repartee with peers before class, not the joy of running with an idea even if it takes him over a cliff. I hope his parents would say, "We wish he'd relax." I hope they are not applauding this super-competitiveness.

Boy 2

At the opposite extreme is Paul, who refuses to accept that he's not passing the course. Despite the frequent absences [and ensuing zeros from missing work] and a steady stream of Ds and Fs on assignments, Paul keeps asking, "But I'm doing okay, right?" No, sweetheart, you're not. "What if I make A's on everything else? Then I'll be okay, right?" Perhaps, I say. But then Paul misses yet another class, and I just shrug my shoulders. I would hate that heavy blanket of denial trapping my brain.

Boy 3

In an essay, Timothy wrote, "I'm a Christian and still a vurgeon, but it's hard with all these girls and their tits bursting out of their shirts ... " A vurgeon? I wouldn't be able to spell either if I lived in a young male body unable to get any release because my religion had such unrealistic expectations of me. Timothy's Christianity requires no fornicating, but it's summer in Florida—highs every day in the mid 90s—so exposed skin abounds. This poor young man doesn't have enough of an independent spirit to disregard the rules of his religion, so when temptation finally wins, he'll have all that unnecessary guilt and self-recrimination for a biological imperative millions of years in the making.

Boy 4

Before submitting his first essay, confident Bradley told his classmates, "To make a paper good, all you have to do is add enough literary devices. They're impressive!" Bradley learned this trick in AP English, though he did not score high enough on the exam for college credit. Now he's taking freshman composition to earn those three hours. Despite his failure at the AP exam, he blindly believes what Dr. High School English Teacher has said. I'm hoping that this PhD actually taught that certain devices used with skill and care are impressive, not to hang similes at the ends of sentences like ornaments on a Christmas tree. I'm hoping that this PhD explained the value of clear communication, not faking a reader out with "devices." During one short paragraph describing his love of soccer, I learned that athleticism smiles on Bradley "like a mother on her newborn baby," that his skills get the attention of coaches "like a child grabbing a cookie from a cookie jar," and that scoring goals is "as easy as a Sunday morning breeze."

I have gotten Bradley to stop his nonsense—but only because continuing the practice negatively affects his grade, not because he believes that I have any real writing wisdom. On the first day of class, he asked, "Should we call you Dr. Lightbulb?" When I said no, he concluded that I was thus inferior to Dr. High School English Teacher.

Oh, well. Eventually Bradley will figure out that clear communication, not decorated writing, is what impresses readers. And college is, after all, the opportunity to try out new ideas and learn what works best, just like a teenage girl shopping for a new pair of jeans at the mall—ha!

Not Necessarily Laziness

I know, I have ignored this space for months. Chalk up my absence to responsibilities at my real job and that I seem capable of only one creative project at a time. I have not been out with the camera, for example, for over a year.

But I have been writing for Trade It in for Twinkies, where I have composed three new movie reviews:

• Just Looking
• Black Day Blue Night
• Escape from L. A.

And I have done four labor-intensive TV series:

• Guiding Light
• Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 5
• Seinfeld, Season 6
• The Outer Limits: Time Travel & Infinity

But I miss writing here. Summer break is around the corner, and I hope to divide my energies between this blog and the other.

Swimming with Sharks

I just posted my review of Swimming with Sharks. Because this project is training to write reviews, I did what the professionals do and did not give away the ending.

This post, however, is not the review, so I want to talk about Guy's decision here.

>> Spoiler Alert << I believe that Buddy offers power while Dawn champions art [Michelle Forbes makes a kick-ass muse]. Guy snaps at the end of the movie because Buddy is about to fire him [= loss of power], not because he learns that Dawn has agreed to a midnight rendezvous with Buddy. Guy has already picked power over art. He breaks up with Dawn because he wants to please Buddy more than her. And we have seen him imitating Buddy's style: once on the phone in Buddy's office chair and then in the restaurant regaling the wannabes with insider stories.

For me, Guy's murder of Dawn is logical and consistent. During the evening of torture, Guy learns that Buddy lost his wife in a senseless, horrifying gang rape/murder. When Guy shoots Dawn, he is trying to prove to Buddy that he can suffer that same loss. Buddy must like the homage because he is complicit in the story he and Guy concoct to explain Dawn's death.

You can read the review here.

The Road Killers

Of the three Michelle Forbes movies I've watched and reviewed, The Road Killers is my least favorite. I wouldn't have finished the DVD if I wasn't committed to this project. I felt bad trashing a movie with my favorite celebrity in it. Everything I know about movie making I learned while watching Entourage, so I could have gotten wrong all the reasons why this movie failed.

You can read the review here.

Crumbageddon

I don't have children, so I do not have first-hand knowledge of how difficult they are to raise. I was a child years ago, and although my upbringing was painful and imperfect, my rearing was, in my opinion, better than the cushy, entitled lives I see so many children experiencing today.

The evening was too chilly to sit outside, so Elizabeth and I chose a tiny table in our favorite (crowded) Starbucks. A young couple with two children sat beside us. Unfortunately, a second glance their way revealed they were neighbors, so stupid small talk ensued. Elizabeth knows these neighbors better than I, for the mother has had to "rescue" my friend from 4-year-old Reagan, the little girl, who likes to run after Elizabeth, grab her clothes, and insist that she go into "time-out" whenever Elizabeth walks past their house. So I let Elizabeth do the talking while I sat quietly and observed the girl.

The parents had stopped at Starbucks at Reagan's request. The little girl wanted a slice of lemon pound cake, and her demand for dessert delayed four people in their evening plans. Their only purchase was the pound cake, which they handed over to Alpha Girl, who grabbed the whole slice and began eating down the center. Two towers of pound cake collapsed on either side of her mouth like the World Trade Center on 9/11. Crumbs and bigger chunks fell on the table, the chair, and the floor. When Alpha Girl had enough, her mother poked through the debris—telling Alpha Girl that she was so good to share—and gave pieces to the 2-year-old boy who crushed them in his little fist and, like Jackson Pollock flinging paint on canvas, further decorated the area. "He's much less verbal than Reagan was at his age," the father remarked, "but he's well above average!" Whatever you have to tell yourself, I thought.

A third adult joined the family, a bad-boy hipster with elaborate sideburns. Wolverine sneered at the mess and noted that they would be late if they didn't hurry up. Jackets were donned, bags and children grabbed, and then the five of them headed for the door. When the father discovered that the boy was still clutching a piece of pound cake, he slapped the kid's hand, sending a final spray of crumbs in our direction. Dad looked back and said, "I'll be right back to clean that up!" Of course, he never returned.

I know that wiping tables and mopping floors are responsibilities of the Starbucks crew, but I was appalled that three adults felt entitled to leave a table that messy. New arrivals couldn't sit there unless they took on the job of cleaning up the disaster these assholes thoughtlessly made. Elizabeth and I were stuck looking at it, and, because we had been talking to them, were getting looks from other patrons as if the eyesore was our responsibility.

As a child, I would have loved parents who always let me have my way and who held me accountable for nothing. I can only imagine how much my confidence would have grown if my desires and happiness made a difference to Mom and Dad. I couldn't get my parents to stop to let me pee—"Hold it until we get home," my father would have growled—let alone divert them for food I alone desired. My parents would never have allowed me to make such a mess in public; I remember orders to brush the salt grains off Burger King tables so that the minimum-wage staff wouldn't think my family and I were pigs. As a result of my raising, I know that I am not the center of the universe, and I am glad that I learned that fact early. I feel sorry for Reagan, who might have alpha status right now but will learn soon enough that the rest of the world won't cater to her whims as Mom and Dad do.

Kalifornia

I just posted the review for Kalifornia. I remember seeing this movie in the theater when it first came out. I went for David Duchovny as I was a big X-Files fan. I remember that I found it very disturbing, but I don't recall if what bothered me was the violence or Brian Kessler not being Fox Mulder enough.

I was not looking forward to seeing the film again, but 16 years later—this time studying a different character as the action unfolded—I really enjoyed it. I like movies that show we are not affixed to one place on a continuum like violence. Sure, Early is at one extreme end, but he moves more to the center when he pistol whips Brian instead of shooting him and then handcuffs Carrie to the bed instead of killing her after she embeds that shard of glass in his side. Brian and Carrie—both at the opposite end of the continuum since they have never held guns, let alone used them—have to slide over to violence if they hope to survive. The movie is an interesting study in adaptability—Early who tries to adapt to friendship, Brian and Carrie who have to accept their animal instincts.

You can read the review here.

Love Bites: The Reluctant Vampire

I have begun a new project which, at this early stage, seems intimidating and impossible: I am going to review all of the work of the actress Michelle Forbes. [I will berate myself less for the silliness of a celebrity crush if I can point to the hard work of analysis and writing that these reviews will require.]

After much difficulty, I finally tracked down a copy of Love Bites: The Reluctant Vampire and composed my first movie review. I think this one is too heavy on summary; I'll try to be more careful of that problem with the next film.

You can read the review here.