Everyman, First Impressions

9:56 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 1 Comments

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS:

            For the last half a year, the boys at Reflection Films have put their time, money, passion, thought and life into their latest movie Everyman. I’m not going to give you a run down of the plot or the characters. Watch the movie. I will however cease to call it a movie, and from hensforth I shall refer to Everyman as a “film”—that is, until I remove the hat of film critic. In any case, these are my first impressions.
            Kevin McCaffrey’s impression of a Russian Mob boss totally made that film. From the close up of turtles swimming in a tank through his exit, every scene with him in it was film genius. Seriously. Who came up with the chicken monologue? Frikkin hilarious. I could watch him and Mark Wallace run their mob three hours and be totally psyched. Sadly, they were not on screen for three hours. I found its drama to be not altogether un-enjoyable, but I do have some issues with its conception and methodology.
            Here’s what I didn’t like about it: Everyman was obviously written by a philosophy major. As hard as I try, looking back over that film, the most unifying thesis I can come up with for the philosophical dialectic that is Everyman is drawn from the first and last scenes in the movie.
            Everyman opens with the sound of waves crashing in and out and then you see those waves lapping up against five bodies lying motionless on a beach. Fast forward three hours and a lot of dramatic dialogue later: “Steve,” the “ordinary” man who ends up being a serial killer, corrects his son for hitting his brother.
            The kid protests “but I want to!”
            Steve retorts: “But you can’t!”
            The kid again: “But why?”
            Steve then pauses, looks down with a horrifying look of realization, and then the credits roll. He frikkin killed his family! What the hell!??

This guy? A Serial Killer? NO!

            The point, it seems to me, is that every man who obeys his most base instincts and desires is no different than Steve, the family murdering bastard.
            Most of us, as well educated Catholic university students, know that the biggest problem in the world is, beyond a doubt, the absolute hedonism of modern culture; the massive orgies! Everyone is drugged up and having sex everywhere, and its all defended under the other greatest evil: relativism. The bumper sticker version of our Catholic fear is as follows: “Free sex, and its ok because freedom is doing what you want when you want!” Everyman attempted to tell the audience—and I say tell for a reason—that everyone who does what they want is no different than a psychopathic serial killer. And they are right, it really isn’t that different. The honest relativist cannot condemn Steve’s character in any way. What’s the problem then? The issue is, damnit, that no one is an honest relativist.
            Son of a Bitch! People! The issue with the world now is not the same issue that the world had in the “free sex” 60’s, nor the closely following “STD” 70’s. We’ve become disenchanted with our hippy idealism. At that time, we humans had some sort of an ideal left. We thought that “all you need is love” and we’ve since realized that leads to AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, and plush carpets covered in human feces and throwup. In this millennial century, we have woken up after the weekend’s drunken debauchery. Our heads are pounding and we still have our shoes on. We have what looks like a cigarette burn on our elbow, an empty “Magic Horse” condom packet stuck to our collective face, and we can’t remember anything about last night. And its time to go to work. That is the story of the millennial age. We just have one huge collective hangover.

The 21st Century

“Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs and flaming hair,
But desire gratified
Plants fruits of life and beauty there.”[1]

And the Catechism:
“The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for”[2]

            We need to stop fighting the wrong battles, stop trying to kill the passions, and start trying to re-awaken them. Everyman focused on trying to restrain desire, and it didn’t even do it that well. Every character in that –I can’t take it anymore—MOVIE, is Socrates in disguise, and every word spoken is philosophical dialectic with a splash of emotion thrown in for good measure. Everyman was a Platonic Dialogue in disguise. For this reason, the audience couldn’t sympathize with any of the characters. To be honest, I couldn’t care less when Rebecca got shot. She didn’t mean anything to me because Marcus didn’t mean anything to me. As a matter of fact, the only real human moment between her and Marcus was the awkward one when they meet in the hallway. That was human. That was realistic. No one said: “This is awkward,” it just was supremely uncomfortable. If the task of the film maker is not to tell the story through dialogue, but to show it movingly, we have something less than perfect here.
            I’m not going to go through every character, but “Dorman” the detective is the best example of this. What was his motivation? It didn’t appear clear. We could tell that he had a bad relationship with his father. That probably played into it. And we know he was a cop. That was probably important too. But there wasn’t anything substantial that defined him other than “Zach Harned.” He was a mouth for the dialogue to be spoken through. It didn’t come from his character’s heart, but from the page entitled “script.” On the one hand we got the impression that he was supposed to be a “lawful good” cop who is hypnotically good at getting confessions from criminals. On the other hand, he doesn’t ever follow protocol, call for backup, or go through “the proper channels.” On the third hand, he isn’t really a man of action ether. He lets Marcus go twice, he lets Steve go, and even promises to be friends with him so that he could “understand” how to fix him. I’m sorry to tell you this Dorman, but you don’t need to understand a psychopathic killer to put a bullet in his head OR to arrest him. If you had done either, maybe Steve’s whole freaking family wouldn’t have had their brains leaking out of their sad skulls and mixing with the sea water.

Mmmm…. BRAINS!

Bottom line is that I don’t get Dorman because he’s inconsistent. I also don’t get him because he talks way too much, but all of the characters talked too much, so I can’t assign all of the blame to Dorman.
           However, the cinematography and acting was freakin’ amazing. Again, the turtles in the introducing scene of the Russian were fantastic. Marcus oozed intensity with every moment on scene. And Steve was very deeply unsettling, and very believable. The only criticism I have is that Mikey just wasn’t crazy enough, and I know that he has it in him to be a crazy SOB. I know. He is my brother. Lawless. Be jealous.
           With all this said, the quality of this work was Herculean task, especially all the professor’s cameos, made for a pleasant evening. As a confession, I think Zach probably payed Joe Donavan off (the cinematographer) to make him look as model like as possible, because I was attracted to him when he first walks into Philumina's office. It was the lighting! I swear!
Don't judge me.

[1] Poems from Blake’s Notebook 1791.
[2]  CCC Paragraph 27

1 comments:

The Answer to the Drinking Problem: More Alcohol (Amendum)

4:43 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 0 Comments


            I wrote the following note two years ago, and posted it on facebook, generating some heavily contencious arguments. I’ve decided to add to my previous commentary. If you have read my note already, feel free to skip to my Amendum.

The Answer To the Drinking Problem: More Alcohol
Under Age Drinking on Ave Maria’s campus, as many of you know, has been the subject of much contention, probably more so than at most other Universities. As an RA, I am charged with enforcing the University’s zero tolerance policy. I am supposed to actively pursue and write up any underage student if they are in possession of alcohol, if they are consuming alcohol, or if they consumed alcohol a year ago at a new year’s party and someone put their picture up on facebook. I have been present when several students were written up, and more often than not it looks something like the following:

                Five freshmen are drinking Natty Light (little better than fermented urine) in their dorm room. At first, they where very paranoid and careful, but after they littered their floor with crushed aluminum cans, the atmosphere unavoidable grew conspicuously loud. At about two in the morning one of these amateurs decides to go out for a smoke. He walks down the hall to the elevator, and one of the—let us call them “concerned citizens”—smells the alcohol on our freshman as he passes by, and immediately goes to the RA on duty. This RA marches up to the room, inserts his proverbial badge into the keycard reader and busts into the room with his pen and paper ready. This is the first time he has ever been in this room, and does not know the students names, so he must ask each of them to produce their student ID’s. The next day they will have to talk to the RD and the Dean of students, and will all be handed major infractions.
After once such incident, I supported one of these freshmen while he stumbled through the bushes wrenching his guts out, a deed which, might I add, neither the concerned citizen, nor the RA had thought to perform, and got him all the way up the stairs to his dorm room. While I threw his covers over his still fully dressed body—there is really only so far one’s charity can go—he said something to me that really struck me. He grabbed my hand and slurred: “I’ve really shtupid Marshy, I’ve been really dumb, but I definitely learned my lesshon this time, didn’t I.” I asked him what lesson that was, thinking that he was about to rebuke his deeds of drunken debauchery by way of a philosophical discourse. He would probably quote Aquinas on how Reason and Will constitute the human spirit, and possibly throw in a passage from the Confessions for good measure.

                I guess I was just a little too optimistic.

                “I learned my lesshion,” he said, “I’m never drinking on campush ever again!”
One semester later, this same student was written up for being in a picture that was posted on facebook in which he held up a profane gesture to the camera along with a red cup filled with foamy yellow liquid—probably more fermented piss.
                Bravo Ave Maria! You’ve done it again, RA’s and Concerned Citizens! It looks like our policy and has effectively taught this student two life changing lessons. One, don’t drink on campus, and two, when you are drinking off campus, don’t take pictures of yourself and put them on facebook. Brilliant. AMU has succeeded in changing lives and fulfilled her mission once again. Forgive my sarcasm, but it seems to me like the Universities zero tolerance enforcement has really only succeeded in perpetuating the same issue that plagues every collage campus in America.
                The law of this country deems eighteen the age of adulthood. Eighteen year olds are old enough to get married, start a family, and die in battle. Yet, these same adults, who can be sentenced to death under our judicial system, are not deemed old enough to make a reasonable decision about alcohol. Apparently they can’t be trusted to have a beer while sitting in a booth at Chilies or the English Pub, or in any other controllable and supervised public area for that matter. So, therefore, all 18 to 20 year olds decided to follow the law and stop drinking.
                No.
 They drink in private, remote locations where they are less likely to be caught, or they “pre-game.” They get as drunk as they possibly can as fast as they possibly can, and then go out to the dance or the concert, totally wasted and uncontrolled. The climate that surrounds underage drinking is in many ways analogous to the prohibition culture of the 20’s. The code words remind one of speakeasies, while the rum runners and bathtub gin remind one of our keggers and pre-gaming. Just like in the 20’s, those who drink outside of the law’s peramiters are much more likely to abuse alcohol. According to a study published in the National Academies Press, 90% of the alcohol consumed by the 18-20 age group is consumed by individuals engaged in binge drinking. That is a frightening statistic, especially when considering that underage drinking is so socially acceptable.
                It is time to face the facts my friends. The drinking age is not working. Heavy enforcement of the drinking age results in the opposite of its intended effect. Just like last time around, instead of encouraging responsible use and respect of alcohol, prohibition drives drinkers further and further away from any concept of moderation. The only way to solve the drinking problem—and there is a problem—is not through strict enforcement of pseudo-prohibition. It didn’t work in the twenties, and it doesn’t work now. The answer to this issue is education. By education, I don’t mean the pithy, overly dramatic drunk driving videos shown in public school health classrooms. The education I speak of is a hands on, experiential. What I would like to suggest is, quite frankly, more frequent drinking. More frequent drinking within the home, more frequent drinking at family dinner, more frequent drinking at church functions. We will teach our children this subject, like any good parents, just as we teach them everything else: By example.
The response to the current problem, then, is more drinking: More drinking, within the home, moderated by the teachers given by God.

            In amendum, with a few more years of experience, disillusionment, and after quitting my RA job, I’ve decided to add another proposition to my previous post. So, in celebration of Sebastian Hall’s two new RD’s, Edward Heffernan and Travis Spier, I extend the following comment:
           
            It seems to that it is not uncurious that Ave Maria, along with Franciscan, Benedictine, and every other real Catholic school takes the enforcement of state law far more seriously than state schools. Now that just seems stupid.

            I ask you:
            Why do we make it a moral imperative to stop legal adults from drinking when we have so many more pressing laws that need similar enforcement, such as the Florida State Law which prohibits anyone from cutting hair outside of a legally licensed salon or barbershop? It is appalling to see such blatant disregard for the law as when one stumbles into Goretti Lobby to see Joe Bouchey mauling Joel Arranda’s head with a pair of clippers—that he no doubt bought in a dark alley deal behind Publix. How can we allow such illicit acts at our beloved University when we profess to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s?”

Joe Bouchey, you belong in jail my friend, along Kevin Doran, who broke four dishes in the cafeteria last Thursday (the legal limit for dish breaking in Florida is only three). But don’t worry, you ought to be accompanied by Jessica Plate, who was seen “throwing her hands up in the air sometimes” and singing “Ehy oh, baby let’s go” at the pool while wearing a swimsuit. Sorry Jessica, but that is against Florida State Law! I don’t care what your “plans” are, but I told you once and now I’ve told you twice that you are a criminal!

As the good book says, “Varying weights, varying measures, both are an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs ). Ave Maria Residence Life, it is high time that you hang up a “No Singing in a Swimsuit” sign on that pool gate and higher the adequate number of staff to ensure that no one is illegally cutting hair.

That, or we could just disregard the drinking age, because it’s pretty much the same thing.

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Humans vs Zombies! The Child Lives On!

8:37 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 4 Comments

            Coming up this Monday, my household, “The Lawless Heirs of God the Father,” is hosting their second annual game of “Humans vs Zombies,” a high powered, highly addictive game of adult tag. Here is the basic concept described by the Humans vs Zombies official website:

            “Humans vs. Zombies (HvZ) is a game of moderated tag commonly played on college campuses. A group of human players attempts to survive a “zombie outbreak” by outsmarting a growing group of zombie players”

Basically, in our version of the game, one player is selected to be the original zombie (Patient Zero) and as he tags players, they turn into zombies and attempt to “eat” the remaining humans. The humans attempt to survive long enough to reach the end of the timeline. There are missions, there are socks, and there is large scale mayhem throughout the duration of the week long game.  Here is a picture to describe said mayhem:

            We had a total of about 40 players come out to the first mission last year. By the end of the week, that number had grown to 60, and people got so into it that a game that was intended to last for a month lasted for five days. It was an unbelievable success at AMU, but it has been even more successful elsewhere. When we started playing, we knew that “HvZ” was on several college campuses across the country, but we had no idea the extent to which it has spread. Just to give you some background on this growing phenomenon, in addition to the hundreds of HvZ games hosted by universities and neighborhoods across the US, recently there was a city wide game of “HvZ” in Melbourne that drew six thousand players. SIX THOUSAND! Can you even IMAGINE what it would be like to be the last person alive being attacked by six thousand brain-hungry zombies? There have been countless videos, documentaries, and trailers put up on youtube, and “Nerf” has even sponsored some of the larger scale “HvZ” clubs. Here’s one of the most epic videos to get your blood pumping:



                                                                 



            The media has caught on to the growing “HvZ” craze, and like most things that aren’t sports, have been shocked by the game’s resilience and ability to draw men and women on the cusp of adulthood on such a large scale. Professional and well socialized grown ups all over the US are asking questions like the following comment left on this fox article (the opening of that article is priceless, by the way):

                     "What? Are you serious?? This is what our youth is doing with their time at
                     college (instead of actually getting an education)? And this is our future... great.           
                    We're screwed."
I wonder what this same well socialized grown up might think about a football recruit going to college simply to play football, but I digress.
Our good friends at “HvZ” have treated this sort of “concern,” along with many others in the press section on the “HvZ” website. It reads:
“Part of going to college is learning to take yourself more seriously, be it through developing your opinions, honing your discipline or by many other means. When we look at the professional world, we see many intelligent, disciplined, serious people, but we’re worried that it comes at a price. It’s easy to become so wrapped up in your own professional serious image that you forget how to have fun. That idea is simply unacceptable to us. Humans vs Zombies is a way of holding on to one’s inner child, of allowing one’s self to have fun for no other reason than to have fun. Participation forces you to re-evaluate your life. The simple task of walking to class becomes a life or death situation. If you commit yourself to the game and allow yourself to play earnestly, you eventually come to a point in which you realize just how ridiculous you seem to the outside observer. This idea sounds, to put it modestly, unpalatable to most people. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt in our minds as to the benefits in playing. We notice these benefits even when returning to our professional lives.”

At the top of their website, there is a quote that I think really dovetails into the purpose of this blogging experiment:

"The antidote for the ailments of a generation.”
                                    - International Herald Tribune


As one player with a cool hat eloquently put during an interview:
“I play zombies because they outlawed dodgeball when I was in middleschool, and there is no other way for me to pretend to be a commando anymore and it be real.”

They have taken away our dodgeball, they have taken away our toy guns, they’ve taken away our monkey bars and our slides, and our swingsets and even our sticks. This generation has been raised in a sterile environment, driven by the fear that someone might get hurt, or worse, dirty. And whatever we did have when we were young, we’ve been told that we must grow out of our play, that the mantra to live by is “sobriety and seriousness always and everywhere. Some of us millennials, however, are fighting back. This generation has fathered the “flash mob,” “Assassins,” and countless other large scale social phenomena’s in the same playful spirit of HvZ. Though we do want to grow up, and have families and houses and cars and everything else that entails, we do not want to be “grown ups.” I don’t know about you guys, but I refuse to believe that growing up means selling my attic full of costumes, my nerf guns, and my soul along with them. My love for life is contingent upon the fact that I can go out, dressed up like a zombie and chase humans around if I want to. Or maybe I want to grab a bottle of wine and write a poem. The whole point of working is so that I can do ether.

Here are a couple more thoughts to tie this whole thing up: As another player said: Humans verse Zombies is “everything you ever wanted to do when since you were seven.” The whole experience of “HvZ” is a more mature version of the times when you used to play make believe with your brother in the creek behind your house. Back then we may have been happy with  tag, but now that we have matured, instead of putting tag away, we simply make it more awesome. That is my generation. The makers of the game said on the “Who are You” section of their website: “We’re college students and professionals who think that play is part of adulthood.” Amen brothers! May your nerf guns never jam and your hearts never falter!


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