Jumper

When I saw the first trailer for Jumper I was very excited . . . and appalled. The special effects were clearly top-shelf and the story line promised a departure from the mundane; but in that I was horrified! I had written a story just like that when I was 15! Someone had stolen my idea! As it is, no one actually stole anything from me, so all I can assume is that Steven Gould and I are great minds and we must have been thinking alike.

In the summer of 1995 I wrote a short story about a group of teenagers who could jump through time and space. I entitled the story The Wall Jumpers because of the “scientific” phenomenon of jumping “the wall” between this space-time continuum to the next. Anyway, I never did anything with the story, but when I started a band later that year I adopted the name. You can learn more about
The WaLL JuMPeRs all throughout my site and at Pure Volume.

Anyway, in my story the protagonists were good guys who policed the world. In Doug Liman’s Jumper, David Rice (Hayden Christensen) is less than an upstanding citizen. After running away from his home at the age of fifteen, he quickly turns to robbing banks to stay alive. The film has certain coming-of-age elements, but few were expanded and even less were resolved. This may have to do with the director’s vision of a Jumper trilogy, but if Liman’sdreams aren’t realized he’s going to wish he’d done more with Rice’s character to show that he really did grow and change. The very first time we see “grown-up” Rice he’s jumping around his apartment as if in a casual, daily routine. At one point he turns on the news and watches, in apparent annoyance, as hundreds of people are stranded in torrents of flooding water. The announcer says it would take a “miracle” to save these people, and Rice changes the channel. This is clearly a hint as to where Liman wants to take the character in future installments . . . I only hope he has the opportunity to do so.

The basic gist of the film is that there’s a thousand year old feud between Jumpers and Palladins. Jumpers can transport themselves instantly to almost any place in the world. Palladins believe only God should have the power of omnipresence. Though I doubt it had anything to do with the their faulty theology, the Palladin’s motivation for hunting down and brutally murdering Jumpers (with the occasional friend and family member thrown in for good measure) was barely believable. It’s one thing to be jealous of someones powers. It’s another thing to do your best to protect the world from those who would misuse their special abilities. But it’s a completely different thing when your motivation is tied up in your view of God: “I’ll gladly brake God’s 6th commandment (don’t murder) because I don’t think He’d want you disappearing from one place and appearing in another without having to use a door.” I don’t know . . . it seemed a little hypocritical and superficial. 

I’m not going to say a lot about the special effects. It’s true they’re first-rate, but I was more impressed by what they went through to createthe effects. First of all, though it may seem hard to believe, they didn’t rely on any more CGI than they had to. I always appreciate that in a special effects movie. Second of all, the people in charge all sat down months before and devoted countless hours to create the effect from a real-world standpoint. What kind of things influence a jump? Would there be reciprocal effects in the atmosphere after a jump? Do things like emotions, distance, and weather variables have an effect on the way the jump looks and the amount of damage created. For example, one of David’s most violent jumps (causing a supreme amount of damage) occurred as he jumped his murdered father to the hospital. A close examination of each of the jumps in the context of the scene show how the director and crew put a lot of emphasis on consistency. Their attention to detail is refreshing in a world of fly-by-night films.

I was extremely leery about the quality of acting when I saw their line up. First of all there was Rachel, a relative newcomer who didn’t really appear on the Hollywood scene until 2003, and hasn’t done too many movies since. Then there’s Sam. Good ol’ Samuel L. Jackson, the words greatest supporting actor. I wasn’t concerned with his screen presence, but I knew he wouldn’t deliver any Oscar winning performances. And lastly the much debated Hayden Christensen. I was sorely disappointed withhis acting in Star Wars II, and he just barely redeemed himself with his performance in Star Wars III. Let’s just say I was curious to see if he’d grown much as an actor or if he still relied on his Australian Soap training to carry him through.

                 

                  

Overall I say the movie delivered. There were fantastic effects, a decent plot, refreshing acting, and lovable characters (Griffen and Milly particularly). I honestly look forward to future installments: I’m curious what they do between Rice and his mother. Oh, you didn’t know? Rice is a Jumper. His mom is a Palladin. That makes for unique family reunions.

A New Twist in Advertising

A long time ago my mother found an encyclopedia in the bathroom. She asked my father if he was doing “some light reading” while using the facilities. He told her he didn’t know anything about it, so she decided to ask me, and what she found out surprised her very much.

It was I who’d been reading the encyclopedia in the bathroom . . . and I was 6.

I don’t know about you, but the bathroom is just plain boring. Sitting there, hanging out with nothing to do (and rarely something to look at) wears at my productive/efficient side. I feel the same way about working out. I hate going to gyms because it’s so mindless. P.S. That’s why I study the martial arts; you have to think to survive, you lose weight while building muscle, and you get to beat people up!

Anyway, so I found a way around being bored in the bathroom . . . just pick up a good book. Ever since I was six I’ve read tons of things on the porcelain throne; everything from magazines to encyclopedias to novels (no, I didn’t read the entire novel in one sitting). In fact, I’ve read the entire collected works of Shakespeare . . . in the bathroom. I was in college, I was really busy with school and work, but I wanted to read Shakespeare too, so I found the most opportune time. There’s nothing wrong with a little Bard in the Bathroom!

Anyway, since I’ve been reading in the bathroom my ENTIRE life, I’ve formed quite a habit. It’s hard to have a seat and not immediately reach for the nearest copy of Writer’s Digest or the next volume of Calvin and Hobbes. This does present a problem, though, when using bathrooms that are not my own. Many times you get lucky and the owner of the aforementioned water closet has their own reading material close at hand, but from time to desperate-time you find yourself in a public stall or in the lavatory of someone who’s illiterate.

This is what I do: if it’s a public bathroom you can use your iPod or cell phone to play games. You can also peruse the stall walls and bulk up on your ghetto slang and pithy perversions. But if you’re visiting relatives with no reading material you have to stoop pretty low. And boy do I ever.

I’ve read the backs of almost every shampoo bottle, can of hair spray, toothpaste tube, bathroom cleaner, and tissue box ever made. I can tell you how much fluoride Colgate has in it compared to Close Up. Did you know that tampons . . . ? Well, never mind.

Like I said, I get bored.

So I’m in my Aunt’s bathroom trying very hard to not give in to my Obsessive Bathroom Reading Behavior (OBRB). I fail miserably. So after reading her hairspray and toothpaste I move on to the contents of her shower, and it’s there that I stumbled upon a very annoying advertising tactic.

You knew I’d get to the point eventually.

I pick up a bottle of shampoo and find an interesting question on the back. Q: What percentage of women wear the wrong bra size?  I must admit the question intrigued me. I casually scanned the bottle for the answer but, to my dismay, I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t there. Instead of the answer I desperately wanted to know there were written very little words that read, “to find out the answer look on the back of our Conditioner.”

I couldn’t believe it! What kind of a pathetic ploy was that. The only way you can know the answer is to purchase the shampoo andthe conditioner together? Granted, I was in a very vulnerable state at the time: I was in a frilly bathroom with no reading material and I’d just been hoodwinked by a shampoo company’s marketing department.

Needless to say I scoured her shower in hopes of finding the conditioner bottle, but apparently the answer hadn’t been important to my Aunt. When I looked at the shampoo bottle again I did find an answer there, but it was obviously the answer to the question on the back of the conditioner tube! Grrr.

So, in the end, I finished my bathroom session highly annoyed. First of all, my Aunt seriously needs a magazine rack or library shelf in her bathroom (preferably with books listed using the Dewey Decimal System). Second of all, that shampoo company needs to get a life. If that’s the best you can do to get people to buy your conditioner I think you need to have a better product.

So just to spite the Big Bad Shampoo ExecsI’m not only NOT going to buy the shampoo or the conditioner, I’m also not even going to look at the bottle as I walk past it in Wal-Mart. Hmph. So there. That’s what they get for taking advantage of me in a compromising situation.

So, in retrospect, all I have to ask is, does anyone know “what percentage of women wear the wrong size bra?”

Green?

I go green . . . I don’t use my air conditioning.

Unfortunately, in my situation “green” means “greenbacks.” By not using my AC I save a lot of moo-la, not necessarily the environment.

But let’s consider for a moment the “go green” phenomenon we’re being smacked in the face with these days. First, I think it’s a great idea. Saving nonrenewable resources, cutting back on unnecessary waste and mindless consuming is a fantastic idea, but when do we cross the line from idealists to hypocrites?

For example: let’s consider The Green Network? Is their T.V. station going to use less electricity and water than Fox or the Playboy station? Can you really dedicate an entire station to eco-friendly news and shows, all the while burning through just as much jet fuel as everyone else does when they cart their camera crews to Uganda? Is The Green Network’s footprint really going to be smaller than everyone else’s, or are we missing the lumberjack for the trees?

A local radio station in Chicago is having a Green radio show. They’re riding their bikes to downtown Chicago where they plan to interview the pop-rock band Maroon 5. Okay, so you’re riding your bikes. Okay, so the price of admittance is a plastic bag. But c’mon people! Are you telling me Maroon 5 is going to ride their bikes to Chicago too? What about all those people driving downtown with their plastic bags? Great, you recycled 300 plastic bags, but how many gallons of fuel (car and jet alike) did you burn through in the process?

It’s like having to drive 10 miles to get to the nearest recycling plant. Yeah, that makes sense.

Here’s my point: By all means, please preserve our planet . . . but don’t undo what you’re doing. We need to be careful that we don’t pull an Oedipus Rex: to save ourselves we become the tool of our own undoing.

Untraceable

 

I’m a pretty decent digital user. I can manage my computer, find almost anything on the web, and occasionally outwit a nasty virus or “hack” my own programs to make them do what I want them to do. That’s about it. Pretty normal stuff.

So when I watch movies like Untraceable, my imagination gets really fired because I don’t get any of the computer jargon they’re tossing around. And while it’s fun to believe they can do that kind of stuff, it’s also extremely scary. Can people infiltrate my computer that easily? Can they steal my life, frame me, or involve me in crime I know nothing about? Can people use the Internet to kill a person?

The thing I really liked about the movie was its platform. The message that the Internet is a dangerous place where twisted and scary things take place every single second of every single day, is a pregnant and timely message. It’s no longer about making bombs or looking at dirty pictures. It’s worse than that. You can watch people participating in the most gruesome and vial practices from bestiality, to rape; murder, to incest. It’s like the whole world is either killing someone or having sex with another. The Internet is a place for anonymous illegal activity and base animal-like behavior. It’s extreme voyeurism at its worst.

During the film a main character is tortured and killed, but in a last ditch attempt to catch the murderer he is able to pass a message to his partner who’s watching the streaming broadcast of his death. His message: “Our Suicide.” In the movie this clue helped the FBI to unravel the killer’s motive and track the perverted SOB down. But the implication of that clue for the real world is cunvulsingly potent.

“Our Suicide.”

As a people, a nation, a generation, we are actively participating in our own suicide. We are killing ourselves by allowing our families, and children, and leaders to become desensitized to the scum of the planet. I used to say that T.V. violence was nothing compared to the Coliseums of old. The ancient Romans were worse than we are because they gloried in stealing the life of innocent people. At least the actors on our plasma screens aren’t actually dying; that’s not their blood; they’ll finish the shoot, receive their check, and head home. But I believe our society won’t tolerate that for much longer. They crave real carnage, and websites like Death.com provide a forum for perverted, sado-masochistic, detestable miscreants who thrive on death and decay.

How long will it be before we start sacrificing our own Christians and televise the whole thing for all to see?

Are we really improving as a society? I don’t really think so. I think technology is revealing our truest fantasies for everyone to see . . . and many of those fantasies are very scary. In Untraceable millions and millions of people actively participated in the murder of three individuals and the attempted murder of a fourth. I believe the director’s portrayal was accurate. I fully believe that people all over the US and the world would log-on and watch every bloody second.

What can we do to stop it? Is there an answer? I believe there is, and it all starts in the home. The government needs to control the world wide web, I think that’s completely legal and necessary. But the first line of defense is to stop rearing a blood-thirsty nation. Parents, monitor your kids. Buy firewalls and filters, block the evil flowing through the fire-wire. There are plenty of people who will continue to promote and view those sights, but hopefully they’ll manage to kill themselves off and a new generation of real Americans who respect each other and are united in the success of humanity will take control.

Then instead of billions of people lusting for gore, those creators of death will find no audience and will be shunned like the vial, twisted, detestable, awful, perverted, sick, excuses for human beings they are.

By the way, if you stumbled upon this blog because you were googling ”bestiality, incest, rape, murder, killwithme.com, death, porn, sex,” or any other sick site . . . this is a message for you:

You are ”our suicide.”