I decided to sit inside the break room and actually eat something for once instead of going outside to blacken my lungs and add a trivial amounts of monoxide and CO2 into the air during one of my breaks at work. One of my co-workers left a book on the table. The book was just as barren as the author of the book was. It was a black, hard cover book, and all it had was the authors name proudly emblazoned upon the spine with the title "Gone" gingerly left in the corner. I may have gotten it wrong and the author was calling herself "Gone" and the title was whatever her forgettable name was. Getting to the point and avoiding cursing as much as possible, the book was awful. The "hook" was so contrived that I was sure that effing paperclip from Microsoft word showed me the same thing in an example back in '95 when MS realized that notepad was not an efficient way to produce written word. Oh no, some grouchy post-menstrual woman had a nightmare, and she saw things she didn't WANT TO SEE! The windows were angry or some crap like that, and when she looked in her fridge for something to eat, she realized her eggs expired 2 weeks ago! Those are foreshadowing signs that her life is falling apart like egg shells or some contrived shit like that. Oh but that wasn't it, now some grumbly cop gets called at 3 am but he's so tired from being over worked I am compelled to read now, I never heard of anything that started like this... God DAMNIT seriously. How do these people get published? What dumbass sitting behind a desk read that first paragraph and thought "Golly gee willickers, the public will LooOOoove this!". Literature is so fucking dead. It's just getting so damn depressing seeing this kind of garbage getting published and people actually reading this crap. I understand it might be hard to come up with something new to write about since story telling has been around since we found out that opposable thumbs were good for holding tools and wanking, but can't modern writers rip off a decent story for an idea? I'd like to see someone write a modern day Paradise Lost. Actually, someone did. I made the mistake of seeing the title of a book "Paradise Lost", grabbing it, and heading home. Too late did I realize that some elderly woman's picture was on the inside sleeve of the book, and not John Milton. I thought I'd humour (hyuk) her and read the book. It started out with some sad lonely woman and her life not being so great after her husband left her and and... then the book was on fire, and I realized I had a lighter in the hand opposite the one holding the book- how could I make that mistake! Then I had to pay the library back for the book I lost. The problem is is that people accept this kind of bullshit. We can whine and complain all we want about how dumbed down everything is. The media only reports on pop news blah blah blah, the school systems don't educate the kids blah blah blah and yaddah yaddah yaddah whatever the hell else you can think of. We accept this kind of garbage, we buy into it, so they keep shoveling as much of this shit as possible down our ready and willing gullets. This rant will go on forever. But here's the gist of it- we're stupid, so everything given to us is stupid. The end.
It's this kind of BS that pushed me to reading classic Graphic Novels. And I can honestly say despite having read several HG Wells novels and half the Harry Potter saga (Just No, Never Again!!!), Watchmen is the greatest piece of literature I have read. Yet there will be so many people that haven't read it because it's a "Graphic Novel" and is for kids. If there was ever a Graphic Novel that wasn't for children, it would be Watchmen. That book is so deep, twisting and complex that you've really got to focus and concentrate on the plot. It's also very violent so out-of-the-question, and contextual so it takes some intelligence or age to understand all the references and such. I doubt a huge amount of people who went to see the film had read the book so they were missing out on a lot of details and seeing all the history at the beginning of the film rather than slowly through the course of the book alongside the chapters is far better to the plot and smoother. And yet books like the Twilight saga sell by the buckets. Who in god's name cares about Tween vampires who fall in love and worry about irritating pubescent problems (they are irritating, i know about them as it's where I am now). The film as well, just don't get me started on how a film like that could get more watchers than 30 Days of Night which is a brilliant vampire film and shows them PROPERLY!!! This world, it's just pure utter and complete bullcrap that the world works like this. Why is it that we are the only point in history where culture has gone completely backwards and dumbed down? It's these times I'd love to see some sort of new Renaissance just so intelligent people or those people who don't care about Jerry Springer and such can actually have something to their level to entertain them. Less BOOMBOOM, more Clever Monologues and Dramatic Scenes. Closer to those scenes in classic films where everyone knows them because they're just perfect.
so what if 95% of humankind enjoys stupid things? That should be none of your concern. If you don't like a book, don't read it. If you don't like a movie, don't watch it. Why does it anger you that something that you consider bullcrap is more popular then something you think is better?
Why? Look back at what the other gent said about Watchmen. It is deep, engrossing, and has a lot to say about the world at large, and makes you actually THINK. Unfortunately, hardly anyway gave a damn about it until it hit the big screens, and even then most of its message is lost on the populous and most people probably only cared about the explosions, blue penis, and a little bit of shadowy side boob. Our market is flooded with utter bullcrap that doesn't stimulate any type of thinking leaving us all pretty much dead in the head. Hardly anything written that is meaningful is popularized as it is drowning in a sea of drab, empty minded literature. If the world was the way it is now a few hundred years ago, how many great author's works would have been lost in history, never to see the light of day past their life time? Back then, people used to give a damn about what was going on in the world because of what they did as entertainment was intellectually stimulating. Now, we're mostly a bunch of zombie consumerist idiots who idly drift through life watching society waste away to nothing. It's not a matter of what I think is "better" than something else, it's a matter of something being relevant to our life, or for the matter decently written. I could accept that guys could grab a guitar, mash power chords all day and making millions, but when someone takes a bunch of overdone ideas, crams it into a books with the sole intent of churning out dollars, it just really worries and disgusts me. And ah, x9x9x, like a kindred spirit- I do think we need a renaissance as well. I guess there needs to be another French Revolution. I just wonder if they'll be up to having another one.
Hi 5 to northofpolaris there for his continuation of this epic point! Maybe even a Hi10!!! But yeah, It's possible to live with bullcrap music because there's always been and always will be great pieces out there to counter it. The same can be said with most eras of movies (not so much now; far too much bullcrap for classics like The Dark Knight and other critic's faves to counteract) and our current point in gaming. However, literature is the one area where this ISNT happening. We are being flooded constantly by celebrity biographies and books with titles like "Touched, But Not By An Angel" (Anyone who notices that gets a Hi 5 too) and as consumerist zombies, we buy it because people like Oprah or Richard and Judy "recommend" it. The real problem is the fact that our authors nowadays are completely void of imagination and if they have an idea they insist upon dragging it out over a whole series so they can make plenty of cash. Look at the Harry Potter series; what was a middle-of-the-road idea was made popular by some great writing and endorsement from EVERYONE which made a great book. There was a sequel which was alright, not as good or original as the first but still decent enough. Then JK Rowling continued to make it into a 7 book saga. I got bored of the same old bullshit after the 4Th book. While I'm still open to watching the films as they've provided a decent enough translation of the books, they are nothing special anymore. If you look at classic series (books as in sagas, trilogies etc.), they have come up with something original and made sure there was some variety and continuity behind the stories so it felt like it could work as one book. Lord Of The Rings tells 1 singular epic story with many smaller branches to the plot; however returning to my previous example, Harry Potter just follows an incredibly samey plot (Goes back to school, new Dark Arts teacher, gets on alright with schooling, Voldemort returns per usual, fights back against Voldemort, finds out a "Horrible" secret, fin.) every single book with an underlying continuing plot which really provides very little in the book. It's this kind of lazy-ass plot development, where the author copies, remakes or continues a previously created idea that did very well, that's destroying a LOT of our culture as we know it. Northofpolaris is right with the Revolution; we could do with leaders who give a damn about our national pride and spirit (and in the UK's case, don't abuse the taxpayer with "second home allowances" and such).
Hey I'm normal but twilight ain't half bad its just one of those things you just sigh and start reading... like harry potter =)
I couldn't stand the twilight movie let alone even attempt to read the books, think its aimed at the girls.
MadmanNero has hit the bullseye there. Most girls in my classes at school enjoy the bullshit known as Twilight. They were (I've since then avoided these discussions) it seemed competing on who could finish the books first in a Harry Potter-esque way. Red_Manflame isn't a real human, so I say we get our torches and pitchforks, then we do some witch-testing... Also, Twilight isn't the only horrifically poor book that still somehow sold so they made an even worse film out of it so everyone else found out about how horrifically bad it was but the film was somehow successful so they decided to make the entire series into films, Stormbreaker anyone? (That series is effectively James Bond dumbed down for teenagers, so BS!)
Hey don't compare Harry Potter to Twilight, it's a disgrace to J.K Rowling Oh yeah I remember the Alex Rider series, you know the books weren't that bad, but the movie was just as you said, a spy movie with a teenager
I can't agree with the idea that we are being flooded with crap. Yes, children's books tend to get more publicity, movies are rarely thought provoking, and pop hits tend to be annoyingly repetitive. But that is far from everything that is out there. There are hundreds of great books being written all the time. I can recommend G.R.R Martin, or Terry Pratchett as good authors, but find the authors in your favorite genre or topic. Read some autobiographies, there are quiet a few amazing ones. Look into independently produced films, or foreign films, not just the big budget films in the theaters. Look past popular music. Do some research, find out who really appeals to you - because all it is, is perception and opinion.. and complaining because the popular trends in entertainment don't meet your tastes is a waste of time. edit: spizelin
It's a rant, I had nothing else better to do with my name, and so I did. I do know there are good, thought provoking books out there to read, but my problem is the fact that poorly written books are published and churned out there like no other. I'm not complaining about how popular reading doesn't meet my criteria, I'm going on about how it contributes nothing intellectually to the community. I'd get more in depth with this, but to my chagrin, I turned me tasting some new wines I've purchased and received into wine drinking and my current state is much too hard to work with to be legible at this point.
In terms of your book and music comments, i personally do (Terry Pratchett OWNS!). I've got to admit though, I do typically rely on Block-Busters for movies, but i've at least watched some genius though (Million Dollar Baby is cinema at it's best
You'd have to have a heart of stone and your tear ducts removed to have not at least shed a single tear when watching Million Dollar Baby. Gran Torino was also extremely excellent, a great movie to end a career on. The end reminded me of Omega Man quite a bit though...
Yeah i wanted to see Gran Torino at the cinema but I never got round to it. I think the worst current culprit of underdeveloped story in favour of action is Terminator Salvation. The film has a replicator that believes it's a human even after it discovers it's own identity, which could raise moral themes etc, yet they barely touch upon it. I'm personally waiting for District 9 in August and Up in October, as both combine great technology with an amazingly clever plot that raises contextual themes (District 9 repeats apartheid with aliens)
