Saturday, September 15, 2012

An Oscar it is not.

In the world of movie making, most of us choose to only watch the cream of the crop. Those films that make it to the cinemas across the nation, where we drop some heavy coin to get in, drink 2 gallons of sugary soda, and bury our heads in a $7 bucket of butter soaked popcorn. (Do you think the native Americans of yore could have envisioned the truckloads of popcorn that a single movie theater can crank out?) And those films are (usually) worthy of our hard earned money. Then there is the second tier of films, that abolish all hopes of giant screen greatness and go straight to DVD. You've seen them. Well, maybe not actually seen any of the films per se, but you've seen them. In the vast bins of Wal-Mart and Walgeens, and all of the other Wal -like stores out there. $5.99. $3.99. Get one free with the purchase of a carton of cigarettes. They are generally bad. Bad acting, bad script, bad effects. But if you think any film you have ever wasted money on was bad, be it a box office bomb, or a cellophane wrapped straight-to-DVD waste of space, then you ain't seen nuthin' yet if you haven't seen clips of the now famous "Anti-Islam" film that is sparking world unrest.

Now when you hear the word "unrest", you think of the struggles of the demoralized masses, rising up against oppression in their own countries. Plenty of that to go around. But we have Americans dying, being assassinated for just being American, all because of a movie some anarchistic dumb shit decided to release. And when I call it a movie, that is like calling a go-cart a luxury automobile. It's like calling moonshine a fine wine. It's like saying Keanu Reeves a good actor. You get my drift? The film is bad.

I decided this morning that it was time The Guitarman took a look at what all the ruckus was about. YouTube provides us with instant 24 hour access to anything some goof with a camera decides is web worthy. And the guy that made "Innocence of Muslims" is definitely the king of all goofs with a camera. The industry standard for bad acting has previously been bestowed upon those actors that let their anatomy do the talking. You know what I am saying. One does not watch a porn movie for the acting. But the monotonal hacks actors that appear in the Islam film are to acting what hungry lions are to eating. The special effects require us to rethink the word "special". The script must have been written on bar napkins. In a word, the entire film, or at least the few snippets I found on YouTube, are laughable. No, they are ridiculously insulting to anyone who has ever watched a movie.

But from the actors, to the director, to the make-up artists, and to the grips, none of it matters to the entire Muslim world. The only thing that matters to them is the message. Rising up across the globe, in a feel good million Muslim march, American flags are being burned, embassies are being over-run, American soldiers and diplomats are being murdered, all in the name of religion. You insulted our God, therefore we our within our rights to murder you. What kind of fucked up religion is that? Granted, the message that the film sends, that of a womanizing, blood lusting Mohammed rising to power to kill all infidels, ie. all people that don't worship him, is not the kind of thing the peace loving Muslims of the world want to hear. The idiot that made this film, excuse me, this piece of propoganda, must have known the outrage it would create. Outrage not only from the Al-Qaeda and Taliban fanatics out there, but from the rest of the Muslim world as well.

Listen, killing someone in the name of your God is downright barbaric. It's wrong. It's evil. It's freaking insane! But there are parts of the world that still seem to live in the biblical age. You know, where stoning and beheading are acceptable norms. Guys with flowing robes and ZZTop beards tending to herds of goats in the desert. Where no one, and I mean no one has a sense of humor. Was this film meant as a joke? To me, I was laughing. Not at Mohammed, but at the film itself. It is laughable in a sense that I could take an iPhone in my back yard and make something that would seem more plausible than what this goofball did.

Maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe we, have it all wrong. Maybe the swarming locust-like masses aren't out there getting their mob on in defense of their prophet. Maybe they are just really angry that they wasted money on a really bad movie. Without the popcorn. But angry they are, over something that someone half a world away decided to bestow upon society. I once had a neighbor from hell. Everything she did pissed me off. When she breathed, she was stealing my air. Then she moved half a world away. Well, at least half a state away, but I let her live her life, and I got to live mine, without interference from each other. Her dogs got to shit all over her new neighborhood and it didn't bother me in the least. Get what I am driving at?

Gotta quote one of my favorite lines from an actual movie, uttered by the infamous Sgt. Hulka. Lighten up Francis. Maybe that's the ticket. Send copies of Stripes to the American hating lunatics of the world in hopes that one day they may develop a sense of humor.