Old And Busted

Well, I guess I'm pretty old now....
I turned 30 in August (August fourth, to be exact -- the same birthday as such illustrious personalities as US President Barrack Obama, Queen Mother Of England Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, and Hollywood legend Billy Bob Thornton), and that's a pretty lousy thought. I mean, I'd never planned on living this long, and every decision I made between the ages of maybe twelve and 27 were based off the assumption that I'd die in some gloriously awesome way before hitting the halfway mark of my 29th year. Being old wasn't on the agenda for me, man! What am I supposed to do with all of these credit card bills?!?

(What old people might look like.)

Yup, it seems that I somehow pulled through, and became the sad, broken down shell of a blogger that you see today. The adolescent rage is all gone and the hopeful excitement of youth has faded. You know, my fiance often tells me that I'm like a child inside (what with all the video game playing and watching of cartoons to which I still cling), but I gotta admit that I'm showing certain traits that are consistent with someone who ought to be placed on an iceberg and disposed of by the tribe. Although I tried to avoid thinking about it for a while, recent uncontrollable circumstances have forced me to consider the implications of my own physical and psychological age.

For example, I can now no longer consume an entire case of beer in one night and wake up four hours later feeling perfectly fine and ready for a full work day. I may have engaged in such behavior on a regular basis when I was 25, but now, it's not even an option. Also, I've noticed that I am less likely to make a mistake and blame someone else for it. Hey, when I was 19, I'd get fired from some job and feel no shame at all, attributing the problem to some random thing my MOM did when I was eleven. NOW, I'd probably blame myself and wallow in self-loathing for a week before seeking professional help and additional job skills training. Maturity sucks!

But the biggest problem is my attitude towards music. See, when I was about 22, I stopped listening to modern radio when that rap-metal tripe became all the rage. My favorite radio station, The New Rock Alternative 89X, was playing less Smashing Pumpkins and more Limp Bizkit (screw THAT!), so I just kind of gradually switched over to NPR, vaguely thinking that I'd go back to the music station when popular tastes returned to normal. Of course, months turned into years and I barley noticed that I'd been sticking exclusively to my trusty old cassette collection and newsradio while the rock n roll landscape continued to shift in dramatic ways. To make matters worse, I moved to a small town in the middle of nowhere for a few years, and lost touch almost completely with everything in modern pop culture.


Yes, friends, by the time I returned, the world was a new place. I floated by obliviously until about a year ago, when I was reintroduced to the world of modern music by my fiance. She's always listening to some rock station out of Chicago that actually plays a lot of the good stuff from the glory years of the 90s, but ALSO a lot of NEW crap from whatever decade this is...and I gotta say, the latter category is thoroughly boring to me. I mean, have you HEARD these new bands that the teenagers are listening to??? I feel sorry for America's youngsters, getting so much generic and meaningless music. Each group somehow sounds identical to me; it's like they're all fronted by the same lousy singer. For instance, what in God's good name is NICKLEBACK all about? Oh, and then there's the whole matter of emo, which is like a wimpier version of both goth and punk. The weird thing about that movement is that the emo bands all sound to me like some horrible molestation of Blink 182, which in turn was just a low-rent version of Green Day. High-energy, punk-pop music coupled with dark-looking goth types in eye liner??? I just can't get past that mind-bending, oxymoronic formula. You can tell that some record label forces emo bands to sound the way they do; no real artist would voluntarily churn out a product so bland, and such music couldn't possibly be developed naturally in true rock n roll's birthplace, the suburban garage. These emo shills are just corporate moles, I tell you! It's so obvious!!!

I now understand what the adults in my life were feeling when I was about 15 and deeply into the whole grunge thing. At the time, I had aunts and uncles telling me that "those Seattle bands all sound alike!" and I just thought they were nuts. "CLEARLY, Nirvana and Alice in Chains have NOTHING IN COMMON," I snickered. I figured that the grown-ups couldn't tell the difference between Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam simply because they were old and dumb (the grown-ups, not the bands). Now, I believe I can grasp what they were trying to communicate -- the bands may have been quite distinct TO ME, but to their tired ears, the tunes genuinely all blended. A shift apparently happens every so often in the world of music that forces new generation gaps upon listeners. The change, whatever it may be, is only perceptible to one side of the divide -- the one that insists things used to be better, and stops following new artists. It's around that time that oldies stations start to sound appealing, and the subject loses interest completely in modern trends (by the way, when will new "Rock of the 90s" oldies stations finally pop up?). Without knowing it, I've apparently hit that point and started following in the footsteps of so many others before me. The old cliches are true -- I really HAVE turned into my dad!

In fact, I find the modern music scene so boring that I've actually resorted to revisiting OLD bands that I didn't pay attention to the first time around. For example, Oasis. When they first hit the big time back in the 90s, I sort of just passed on them. I mean, sure -- they had some good songs, but the 17 year-old me dismissed Oasis as little more than an overconfident Beatles rip-off, and didn't even notice when they fell out of public consciousness. Whatever. The 1990s were a smorgasbord of fantastic rock n roll, and in those days a fella had the option of just entirely skipping a good band if he didn't want to bother with them at the moment. That's me and Oasis.

Well, a few months ago, I just happened to catch an Oasis tune at random on the radio, and that got me feeling slightly nostalgic. I YouTubed the old blokes, and the weirdest thing happened: while watching the video for Champagne Supernova, I almost started weeping (note that I said almost...ALMOST!). It came out of nowhere -- emotion suddenly overwhelmed me, and I instantly acquired a new understanding of the band and its music.


Since then, I've been kind of obsessed, downloading random tracks, borrowing my fiance's CDs, and learning more about the group than I would ever need to know. Oasis is still huge in England, and their new stuff is even better than the classics us Americans might remember, so I've been pretty occupied with catching up on the catalog. My life for the past few months has been like a blur of constant Oasis music, just as it was at different points with Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Sex Pistols, and Cake when I was a youngin'. Man, that's how far gone I really am -- the first new band I've gotten into in about ten years isn't really a new band at all; it's a left-over from the friggin' 90s!

Anyway, speaking of things from the UK, here's the first film ever made by Christopher Nolan. Enjoy moderately!

Following (1998)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0154506/


Netflix description:
Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) writes and directs this odd, claustrophobic neo-noir film about a seedy young Brit (Jeremy Theobald) who's obsessed with following people -- albeit harmlessly at first. After meeting a like-minded bloke (Alex Haw), the twosome graduate to breaking and entering -- but meet their match in a tough blonde dame (Lucy Russell) who may have dubious plans of her own.

Following certainly has an interesting concept behind it: a bored young man becomes obsessed with trailing random pedestrians around London, just to see where they go. As we learn in the film's opening scene, he doesn't mean these people any harm, and even has a set of strict rules in place to prevent himself from taking the hobby too far (for example, he never follows the same subject twice). Our hero is an aimless outcast; unemployed and broke, he's really just looking for something to do. Since Following writer-director Christopher Nolan didn't bother giving this guy a name, I'll call him Nigel for the purposes of this review....

Anyway, Nigel one day gets caught when a random subject finally notices him. During the ensuing confrontation, we learn that this fellow is a burglar named Jeremy, and the two actually hit it off rather quick. Just for thrills, Jeremy starts bringing Nigel along on various home break-ins...the two have some fascinating conversations...a guy gets murdered...a blond woman somehow becomes involved...there's a double-cross of some kind...yada yada yada.

As noted, I thought Following had an excellent idea at its core. Simple and creative, this film's premise seemed like it'd be perfect for a promising young filmmaker's first full-length production. I've said before that an independent movie (especially one made by a rookie) should be kept as SIMPLE as possible, and this picture at first appeared to meet that standard. I mean, it's about a guy who likes to follow people around for no real reason. Hey, great idea! Something like that could be taken in a lot of easy directions. Too bad Chris Nolan chose the wrong one.


See, Following's first act is highly engaging, as we learn more about our strange heroes, and marvel at the cool recklessness of Jeremy in particular. His insights into the human mind are humorous and original, and although the man is obviously a dodgy sort, I really liked him. The movie is GREAT while we're still following this guy and his pal, Nigel. Problems emerge, however, once a murder conspiracy is introduced. It's all too confusing and disjointed; I barely understood exactly what was going on, and you're better off being spared the details. The point is that the film completely unravels from that moment on.

I was hoping that Following would be to Christopher Nolan what Pi was to Darren Aronovsky: an impressively-constructed and ambitious low-budget first effort showcasing a brilliant filmmaker's early potential. Instead, it's more like a well-intentioned misfire. The film is worth checking out if you're curious about the obscure. Otherwise, you're advised to continue thinking of Memento as Nolan's first movie.

2 out of 5.

b.