Everyone has their "voodoo cures" when they get sick. For some people, it's Emergen-C, others insist upon chicken soup or mom-made meals; I knew of one guy who, at the first sign of illness, would suck on a penny for an hour (???). Even I've been known to have my methods--all during high school I swore by what I called a "health potion":
1 bottle of Vault energy drink, purchased from vending machine
1 small carton orange juice
1 Airborne tablet
2 ibuprofen
Directions: Chug half the Vault as quickly as possible. Break Airborne tablet in two, drop into the half empty bottle and allow to fizz for 1 minute. Add orange juice. Take 2 ibuprofen with this mixture, and sip periodically, but be sure to have it finished by first period or it'll get all flat and gross.
Yeah. Pretty much an insane amount of vitamin C going into my body. At the time, to me, it was a miracle cure. I could get over any cold in two days flat, and the reason my pee was bright yellow certainly wasn't due to excess vitamin elimination, it was "toxins" being eliminated from my body. I probably should have taken into account the magical powers of youth lending themselves to my bodily recovery, but I was a little busy being in 4 AP classes, National Honors Society, Peer Leadership, FBLA, concurrent enrollment, chess club, and repertory theatre. This might explain how I got so many colds in the first place.
Luckily, I experienced a sharp dropoff in how frequently I got sick over the next five years (due to the onset of becoming a lazy procrastinator), and I never had to use my "health potion" again.
Unluckily, this now means that on the rare occasions I do get sick, the viruses pretty much take over the whole works for about a week. I shamble around the house mumbling nonsense, seeking sustenance in weird forms before retreating to the comfort of my room, there to cocoon myself in a comfortably large pile of blankets and hide from the sun.
Which brings me to the film I'd like to discuss (somehow).
Everyone remembers I Am Legend, right? You know--ultimate apocalyptic scenario, Will Smith, weird CG'd vampire zombie things, questioning what it means to be human, all that stuff?
It's a great example of a film that draws my least favorite form of film criticism: the book comparison. Not because it isn't a valid form of criticism, but because it immediately curtails any sort of discussion as to the actual merits of the film, or at best reframes them under a format that is impossible to score well in.
It makes sense, if you think about it. Writing is a form of communication whose themes can take any number of interpretations, each catapulted into different territory by the power of our imaginations. Film, on the other hand, is a medium whose intent must be made at least relatively clear if the story is to progress any further. Inviting comparison to literature is inviting comparison to any one of thousands of mental constructs, and still won't answer the question, Was it a good film? It can only answer the question, Was the film an accurate representation of the view I have of this book?
And yes, that question is one which is perfectly valid to ask, and one that should be addressed... preferably at a time when it won't hijack the conversation I'm trying to have.
Someday I will have a long discussion about whether or not the film succeeded on its own merits without anyone mentioning the novel by Richard Matheson (or, for that matter, the two previous versions of the film based on the book made in 1964 and 1971). We will talk about the story arc, the characterization, the acting, the technical aspects, and then we will hash out each point until there is nothing more to discuss. Then I'll look over and say, "So what did you think about the Chronicles of Narnia films?"
No comments:
Post a Comment