A Retraction

So I went to see Kingdom of Heaven last night. I must admit I was wrong. My feelings about the movie can best be expressed using the words of Cam: "Yo, that shit's tight. That shit's legit, bra".

If you didn't like the movie, you either hate religion (George), or are a critic without much respect for history or culture. Or maybe it just wasn't your thing. It wasn't an all time favourite, but nonetheless Kingdom of Heaven was worth my time and money.

Now that things are looking up for the week, I have chosen a new horoscope to follow:

Comedian Steven Wright says, "Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy." He has a point, and that point is not lost on you. It's one of those days when less effort adds up to much, much more.


That's goddamn vindication for my life right there.

Kingdom of Ridley Scott

Yo. I know it's been a long time since I rapped at 'cha, but this class thing is really cramping my style. This week's going to be a bad one. I can just tell. My horoscope for the next seven days reads:

"You thought it was only people in movies that were tied to railroad tracks by mustachioed villains, but your upcoming experience on Walt Disney World's monorail will prove otherwise."

Ominous.

Despite the fact that last night was a definite low point of the quarter, I know things are only going to get worse. The reincarnation of the epic film makes this as much of a lock as the Freshmen potheads getting the Lodge kicked off campus next year. Epics used to be film's Midas... you really can't be a movie fan without loving classics such as Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Lawrence of Arabia, Spartacus, etc. Unfortunately, epics ceased to be produced in the 60s and 70s. Once again, this is the fault of fucking Hippie potheads. Apocalypse Now may be a great movie to come out of that generation, but if I were a betting man (which I am), I would say that movie has induced about as many suicides as the Japanese honor system. So epics, as a legitimate genre, had died for about thirty years.

Only to be resurrected by Ridley Scott. Gladiator was a good movie. It wasn't great, but certainly enjoyable and worthy of seeing more than once. What really excited me about that film was the idea that its enormous box office success would mean the production of more epics. I was right, which is fairly typical. A couple of years later, a movie would come out that looked so incredible that I actually made an effort to see it on its first day of release (the only other movie I did this for was Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace). This movie was to be so great that it would forever change American society, 'cause we would all start respecting Classics again; this in turn would usher in a new age of American renaissance.

The movie, which was Troy, scarred me for life. I'm serious. I've never looked at an epic the same way again. The film was so amazingly bad that I puked that night (that may have been the beer, but I'd prefer to blame it on Troy). Troy was followed by Alexander, a movie which also should have been an instant classic on the level of the Yankees/Sox 2004 ALCS. It sucked. Actually, I never saw it, but everyone I respect said it was awful, and I was unwilling to put myself through something like Troy again. And for those of you out there saying "don't knock it 'till" you try it... we have critics for a reason. And friends with taste.

The latest offering is another Ridley Scott affair, Kingdom Of Heaven. It sucks too. Once again, I haven't seen it yet. George said it was bad though, and that's good enough for me. Apparently it only has one battle scene. ONE BATTLE!!!! They've got to be kidding me. You'd think they're making movies with Hugh Grant, Renee Zellweger and the asthmatic kid from Jerry Maguire. But no. They're ruining the best genre that film has to offer. I hope Zeus kills everyone involved with these last three films. Failing that, Jesus could do it.

Money and Liberal Arts

Most kids love to rag on Northwestern. It's a bonding activity here - we all take out our teenaged angst by saying that our school sucks at everything. We're not as smart as Harvard. We're not as fun or as athletic as Ohio State. Apparently the only thing we have going for us is that we're not BYU.

Well, Mr. "$40,000 a year is not {insert pithy comment here}", you're a fucking wanker. Shut up. Of course NU isn't worth the price you pay, 'cause you can't be drawn from the latest episode of 'The Fabulous Life Of...' on VH1 to do anything worthwhile. This person grudgingly goes to class. Perhaps they even participate in discussion, whether or not they have any clue what they are talking about (and it's shocking to find someone who does). That last comment was directed at practically everyone in the History of the Holocaust; where people can feign taking shit seriously, but can't quite figure out that no, Communist parties are not allowed in reactionary right-wing states.

But I digress. The point is that you can say that we pay 'x' amount of dollars for each credit we take here and evaluate our classes based on whether or not they lived up to this monetary standard. That's not college, though. We bring tons of great speakers to campus every year. Getting involved with on-campus groups can give you access to resources that seem absurdly far out of reach otherwise. Tomorow, I'm going to have a steak dinner with one of America's leading intellectuals, David Horowitz. What did I do to deserve this privilege? Sent an e-mail to the president of a club offering to help out with flyering. I never had to actually flyer, but I'm going to get a chance to dine with one of the world's elite. Opportunity is all over the place around here. So is NU worth it? Yes. If you do something other than go to class.


PS Everyone should go to David Horowitz today, THURSDAY May 5th @ 7:30 in Fisk 217. He's the guy who wrote that ASG bill that the Liberals were whining about.