YOU CAN'T SPELL 'ACERBIC' WITHOUT ERIC:

Borrowed Stuff

I was in the midst of writing a column about exploitative music business practices and song licensing, but I scrapped it. As angry as these things make me, I’d rather keep this thing at least semi-positive, while retaining my irreverent and amateurish sensibilities. So instead of a big long screed about things I hate, I’m gonna write a column about things I like—specifically, things I like that I’ve borrowed from people at work.

I always thought I was kind of a geek. That was until I started working at a video game company. Turns out that, aside from my Star Wars fixation, I am practically a goddamn high school quarterback. I have some serious holes in my geek armor. So, people at work have loaned me some stuff. Here are some of the things I’ve liked:
1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I really have no idea why I never watched this show when it was on TV. It’s great. It has practically everything I need in it; specifically, girls and violence and the undead. Apparently Joss Whedon knows his audience. I am actually embarrassed now that I did not watch this show before it came out on DVD. I had a girlfriend who always tried to get me to watch it when it was on, and I think I probably refused just to be a dick. Hell, I even know a guy whose songs are featured in season four. I’ve played music with him lots of times. I am…ashamed of myself.

2) Idiocracy: Luke Wilson plays an average guy in an America populated with the really stupid. Naturally, in the land of the brain-dead, the guy with one firing neuron is king. Sure, the premise alone isn’t really enough to sustain this movie for a full hour and a half. But the first half-hour of this movie is brilliant. I’ve discussed it with a few people since seeing it, and most of ‘em say something along the lines of “Yeah, the country’s really heading in that direction…” I disagree. I think we’re basically there. I think Mike Judge’s view of stupidity run amok in 2505 is pretty much a mirror, not a warning. The restaurant may not actually be called “Buttfuckers,” and we might not have a show that’s actually called “Ow, My Balls,” but…close enough for discomfort.

3) Battle Royale: This is a movie about a bunch of Japanese teenagers forced to kill each other to determine who can graduate from high school. It reminded me a lot of a novella by Stephen King called The Long Walk, only with violence instead of walking. But the really fascinating thing about it isn’t the violence (though there is quite a bit of it, and creatively done). It’s the relationships that develop between characters, all of whom know that only one of them can survive. Good movie. The director’s name escapes me, since he’s Japanese, and I don’t feel like looking it up, but it’s definitely worth watching.

4) Ong-Bak: This movie is from Thailand. The plot is paper-fucking-thin. In fact, I was able to obtain a copy of the original script and I translated it myself, just for you. Here it is:

GUY IN VILLAGE
Somebody stole the head off our religious totem!

TING
I’ll go get it.

GUY IN VILLAGE
OK.

[Ting kicks everybody’s ass for 90 minutes]

Seriously. I am not making that up. That is the entire plot. Which turns out to be a good thing, since it leaves plenty of room for some of the best action and fighting sequences I have ever seen. It’s brutal and non-wire-assisted and amazing, and I heard production on the movie was seriously delayed because of all the injuries. Awesome. Also, they probably only had to film about 45 minutes of action, since you get to see every really cool bit three or four times from three or four different angles—first normal, then slow-mo, then super-slo-mo, then normal speed again.

5) The Wire: I’d borrowed Season 1 over a year ago, but only just got around to watching it. Mostly because everybody’s description of it was along the lines of “Yeah, it’s the best show on TV, ever! It starts out kinda slow, and then you have to push through some plot stuff and figure out who the characters are, and then by midway through the second season you’ll start getting into it, but then it slows down and you have to wait for blah blah blah,” and it always sounded like waaay too much work for a passive form of entertainment. But I’ve watched it, and goddamn if it doesn’t live up to all the hype. Every facet of this show works, all the time.

6) Star Wars: I’m kidding. I didn’t borrow this from anybody. But I’d just like to say that the three Star Wars movies rule. I heard that not too long ago they made three more movies based on some bad fan fiction or something, but I don’t know anything about that.