In the above video, comedian Louis CK talks about how, despite modern advances in technology, human beings are more miserable than ever. He makes strong points in favor of going back to the Stone Ages, or at least the 70s, when we had rotary telephones. He claims that having our needs met instantaneously has only made us more angry and less appreciative, that our expectations for immediacy are unwarranted and unhealthy.

As a counterpoint, I bring to you the trailer from the painfully suspenseful 70′s film Aloha Bobby and Rose. I share this with you because it is a slice of life from thirty years ago, more or less, with rotary telephones and coffee served in styrofoam cups, in an age when littering was still a completely legitimate way to dispose of refuse.

The storyline is not completely clear in the trailer, however, so I shall summarize. It’s about a ’68 Camaro. It has no speaking part, and, unlike David Hasselhoff’s KITT from the 80′s Knight Rider,it has no soul, no mind of its own, and yet it is in every scene of the film, either as a subtle backdrop in which the dialogue is almost important, or as an action figure itself, performing donuts in front of dumbfounded cops. It is a symbol of the fashion and the ground pounding badness of the of the time, with little regard to the burgeoning gas shortage, emitting instead a brute and primal 8-cylinder sexiness completely lost on the Prius.

There is a secondary plot to the film, not immediately obvious, and that’s how the film’s protagonist, Bobby, a rebel with feathered hair, finds himself in deep doo doo with the Mexican Mafia because he lost a round of pool and he’s hard up for cash. Then he meets this girl, Rose, who wears embroidered jeans with a waist line up to her armpits, and they accidentally kill two people in a botched liquor store robbery (to pay off the Mexican Mafia), and then, what do they do, they run off to Mexico in Bobby’s Camaro.

I know, it’s predictable, and I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, so I will instead jump straight to my point, which is that all of the problems in the film could have been avoided if Bobby and Rose just had an ATM card and/or a cell phone — modern conveniences of our time, in other words – though my vote would be for an iPhone.

If Bobby just had an ATM, he could have told the Mexican Mafia, “Hey, I’m short 80 bucks, so I’ll just walk to the ATM machine.” While he might not have had enough money in his account, he likely would have had overdraft protection. Added fees be damned, his and his buddy’s physical well beings were on the line, and I think the fees, whatever they might be, would be worth incurring.

Even without the advent of the ATM, if he had a cell phone, he could have, at a minimum, called his buddy the next night to say, ”Look, I just messed up a liquor store robbery and two people are dead, I’m wanted for murder, I’m probably not going to make it back to the pool hall tonight, can you handle the Mexican Mafia on your own?”

As I think about it, in these delicate social situations, probably a text would be more succinct, again affirming my argument in favor of the iPhone: “Killed 2 peeps,  r u cool on ur own?”

While running from the law, Rose could have called her mother, or at least sent her an e-mail, so she wouldn’t worry.

In short, this story could not happen in modern times. Everything would have been resolved with a mere push of a button. There wouldn’t have been the misunderstandings. Lives would not have been lost. There would have been less misery.

It would have been a much shorter film, and we could just watch the Camaro do donuts, and likely be just as entertained.

The end.

Thanks to Jacquie Phelan for telling me about this.

For years, I had heard that this was one of the best movies ever made that starred a bicycle. Heartwrenching was a word to describe the film. Moving. Touching.

I thought it was okay, if not a little soft in the ending. The thing I can’t stand about movies is when they spell out the plot for you, so you don’t even have to think. And that’s exactly what happens in the Bicycle Thief.

In the film, Antonio Ricci and his son Bruno spend more than half the story-line chasing down the villain who stole Antonio’s bicycle. Without the bicycle, Antonio cannot work.

Here, the bicycle takes on its own character; it is not just a means of transportation. We are in post-war Italy now, where the bicycle is a symbol of sustenance, of survival, of work. Just to get his bicycle back from the pawn shop, his wife Maria pawns the very sheets from their bed.

Once it is clear that Antonio will not get his bicycle back, we are shown the true depths of a man’s desperation, as he who was once robbed becomes a thief himself.

I want to tell you that this movie was a disappointment to me, because just before I had a chance to revel in what I thought was going to be sadness and despair, up the screen appeared one word, a ridiculous stylistic tool used to explain to us that all would work out. This is filmmaking at its absolute lowest. That word was:

FINE

I walked out because, basically, the movie was freaking me out. There were several times that I had to look away from the screen, particularly during the scene with the woman with the screwdriver in her abdomen. I am sure this scene was a specific component in the film’s complex tapestry, but I left before I’d ever really know for sure.

I am not going to say that this was a bad film, in the classical sense of the word. I thought it seemed very true to life, in a nightmarishly freakish sort of way. There were several moments when I thought I might cry.

And I’ll have you know that I deliberated for a good ten minutes before I finally made my move. And I left when it became apparent that if I ever did make sense of the plot, it would not protect me from the potential emotional scarring.

Basically, it’s about this actress, Nikki Grace, who ever-so-slowly becomes the character she’s portraying in a film currently in production. And somehow, as I read the review at home, I became fixated on the fact that she lives in the desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles. I thought that alone was scary enough. I didn’t know that Lynch could take this so many degrees further.

I know you’re going to say, Tsk, tsk, it’s a a David Lynch movie, what did you expect? Well, the movie’s description on the Rafael website sounded so compelling:

 “A woman in trouble” is David Lynch’s plot summary of his first feature film in five years. Laura Dern stars in INLAND EMPIRE, named for the residential area bordering the desert near Los Angeles, but also a title redolent of dreams, the mind and the imagination.

That’s my problem. I didn’t know what redolent means. So I looked it up. Merriam-Webster on-line says it means:

1: exuding fragrance : aromatic2 a: full of a specified fragrance : scented <air redolent of seaweed> b: evocative, suggestive <a city redolent of antiquity>

I think they meant to say that this movie stinks.