Martin's Movie Marathon Monday

Being that I'm white, and have had everything I've ever wanted handed to me on a silver platter, Martin Luther King Jr. hasn't done a whole lot for me, specifically.

Jesus Christ, yes, hold on a second! Yes, he has bettered the world, and I am a part of that world, but honestly, I'd be the biggest poser who ever lived if I didn't say that the most direct effect impacted upon my life from Dr. King's work is the day off. But don't worry! I made sure to spend the day doing something multicultural:

I went to the movies. All day.

What's multicultural about that? Well, I went to see them at Universal City Walk.

I learned a lot , and even exacted a few lessons from Dr. MLKJR himself.

Maybe you will too.

Movie #1 - Children of Men

Synopsis: Clive Owens plays an unconventionally handsome man in a world without children or razor blades. He and his five o'clock shadow are charged with securing the safety of the first woman in 18 years able to conceive a child. The movie does require a bit of suspension of disbelief, considering the science fiction-esque subject matter, though it's not at all difficult to believe that the first chick to get pregnant in two decades is an unwed black woman.

Review: I'm almost positive that there were at least 10-12 people attending this showing who weren't aware that we were in public. Their reviews were as follows "Oh my God, I love this song!" "Gross." "Cute!" "Can you pass the popcorn?"

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Life Lessons Learned: From the title, I originally thought buying a ticket for this movie would put me on some sort of FBI/NAMBLA watch list. After seeing it, I learned that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Thank you, Dr. King.

Additionally, the chick behind me who talked incessantly actually said "bless you" to me when I sneezed. I am not complaining about this, even though I think she only said it because she hadn't said anything for nearly three and a half minutes, and I think she was happy for the free pass. Regardless, a "bless you" is a-ok in my book, and it totally wiped the slate clean.

I don't know much about his sneezing policies, but I'm 90% positive Dr. King would have agreed with this as well.

Movie #2 - Stomp The Yard

Synopsis: Someone took the "They're Breakdance Fighting!" scene from Zoolander and made a movie about it. Totally unbelieveable "kid from the streets" of rough and tumble LA seeks to make good at "Truth University." (which apparently is not only a presitigious fictional school for African Americans, but also wages war, guerilla style against "Big Tobacco") He's also got his sights set on avenging his brother's death by being the best tap dancer in all of Georgia.

Review: I'm going to let my roommate Sam handle this one. "Children of Men? Didn't really do anything for me. This movie, though. This movie got me really pumped. I'll probably buy it."

Sam's Top Five Favorite Movies:

#5 - Jack Johnson Live in Concert
#4 - Dude Where's My Car?
#3 - Armageddon
#2 - Out Cold
#1 - Rad

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Life Lessons Learned: I'm not going to lie. This movie had me just a bit out of my element. Had I rented this, I would not known when and where to react. However, as I mentioned before, since I saw this at Universal City Walk I viewed this picture while surrounded by people of various (pun intended!) "walks" of life. These people served as my multicultural guides as to when I should laugh, cheer, applaud, or yell "Oh, snap!" The audience was so animated, in fact, that in the middle of the movie, Michael Richards got up and walked out.

I also learned that if you dance better than someone, you could get MURDERED.


Movie #3 - Alpha Dog

Synopsis: Two of the kids from "The Girl Next Door," the kid from "Outside Providence," and one of the kids from 'N Sync get into some trouble when they get cooked on the wacky tobbacc-y and decide it'll be a good idea to kidnap the younger brother of a guy who forgot to chip in for his share of a pizza.

Review: All you have to do is have rich, negligent parents who place no boundaries on you whatsoever. If you can't do that, get kidnapped by children of said parents (even the kid who gets kidnapped makes it with two chicks at the same time)! All in all, this movie was pretty damn interesting, and is a fantastic how-to for having fun and getting laid in your youth.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Life Lessons Learned: This movie was a real wakeup call for me. Even though they were just visual afterthoughts expressed by way of title cards at the end of a two hours peek into a glamorous life of crime, the movie eventually explains that most of the people involved went to jail - thereby proving that even in America, someone can commit a crime so heinous that they can go to prison - no matter how rich or how white they are.

Movie #4 - Pan's Labyrinth

Synopsis: Set in the 1940's Spanish countryside, in the aftermath of civil war, a little girl finds escape from her ruthless, militant step father by losing herself in a real-life fairy tale.

Review: I was just happy to finally see a movie with the word Labyrinth in the title that didn't star David Bowie's member. Honestly, ask any girl, aged 22-28, what her favorite childhood movies are, and she will list "Labyrinth." Some might say that's because it's a great movie, but I contest that it is, in fact, largely due to David Bowie's dominating "presence" on screen. Yes, of course I know that the girls watching that movie were way to young to be aware of any sort of sexual nature within them. I know that. That's how powerful it is. Seriously.

Oh, yeah, Pan's Labyrinth was pretty decent.



Martin Luther King Jr. Day Life Lessons Learned: I found myself getting really mad at the Mexican girl who got into a shooshing match with someone who had shooshed her chatty ass. At first I thought "Hey, it's a movie with subtitles, maybe the noise won't matter."

Turns out it did, so then I thought "Man, I wish I that Mexican chick would just SHUT UP."

And then I remembered it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It's a day for us all to be a little more tolerant, and a little more open minded. So, I took a moment to rethink my previous statement, and I ended up going with "Man, I wish that fat chick would just shut up."

Dr. King would have been proud.