Thursday, August 9, 2007

Now They've Taken the Ducks from Me, Too

I won't say that Jacques Cluzaud, Michel Debats and Jacques Perrin's Winged Migration is one of my favorite documentaries, and I won't say that it's terribly groundbreaking. I won't even say it's really a documentary, as it feels and behaves more like a poem. About birds.

But I still rather liked it, when I saw it. It's sort of like March of the Penguins with mercifully less Morgan Freeman. And I won't lie, I thought I was reasonably hip for having seen it (I was in college, we ambled over to the art theater and "caught a flick", whatever).

Well, that world has come crashing down.

I was watching Weeds* last night, and one of the characters insinuated that he was out of pot because Winged Migration was playing at "The Plex"** that week and that STONERS JUST LOVE THIS MOVIE.

I'm all for recontextualizing art, I really am. I just want art to be recontextualized in a way that I can participate in it. For now, I can't enjoy:



Or this:


And, apparently, I also am not fully experiencing The Big Lebowski.

Wait. Listen to me. I've just wasted thirty minutes of my life complaining--on the internet--about something that doesn't need to be complained about. I'm miffed because it's one more club that I'm left out of, and this time it's a club that I didn't even know existed.

I'm just cranky because I'm tired and my crankiness is enhancing my natural uptightness.

In conclusion, it's my birthday and you can go ahead and skip Weeds.


*Kind of shitty and boring. Just a quirky suburban farce in which people smoke pot. Yawn. Also, Kevin Nealon is not funny in this show. Not even a little bit.
**Goddamit.

5 comments:

Remi said...

I hate to do this on your birthday, but . . . Jesus fucking christ, Joe, grow up.

Seriously. I'm a big believer that the importance of a message in art is NOT what the artist intended, but rather what the audience takes away (cf. Minor Threat's 'Guilty of Being White'). Thus, there will be certain contextualizations of art that you will never be able to access. This should not bother you, as it is part of the fundamental nature of art.

Just because people like something for a dumb reason doesn't invalidate your reasons for liking something. The Big Lebowski is so rich and complex, it cannot possible be a simple 'stoner movie'. It's also a meditation on friendship, the corrupting influence of power (sexual, political, monetary, and social), a sun-baked California send-up of noir, or westerns, or buddy movies. It's just damn funny.

Don't get down. Enjoy stuff because you enjoy it, don't sweat it if other people enjoy it for different reasons (or don't enjoy it at all).

Happy birthday!

joe stanton said...

Remi: You're right. I came into this post thinking that it would end up funny, but it didn't turn out that way, and I felt bad for working hard on it, so I posted it. I also didn't have any coffee this morning. Chalk it up for lazy criticism.

I should have just written a review of weeds with a sidenote about how certain references will always be inaccessible to me.

Wait...maybe I will.

Remi said...

Either that or I'm a humorless bastard pooping on yer fun.

I am all pukey today. It has put me in a poor mood.

Nick Faber said...

Oh shit man, happy birthday.

You should get high.

4Real

joe stanton said...

Yeah. I know.

Thanks for the b-day wishes!