No matter how crippled, female, or black.

Remember being a kid, and your parents would take you to rated R movies? Oh, man, maybe you had the cool parents that would drop you off at an R rated movie, and you thought you were so cool (like talking about dirty things in the concession line with your fellow school boy cool). I mean, come on, your parents are allowing you to break the f-cking law. Ok, that's not what they are really doing (unless they drop you off, then that's exactly what they are doing), but man. I can only think of one rated R movie that I got to see, without an adult. Hannibal. I was eleven.
     I could go on about this topic for a while, but let's face it. I'm a whopping 21. Children, especially prepubesent ones fear and revere me. So on Sunday, I did the ticket buying. I got my own snacks (ok, I got my own popcorn, and my friend bought most of our snacks at a Bartells down the road). I watched The Dictator. I didn't see Bruno, but I did see Borat. Seeing as how this is Sacha Baron Cohen's...thing...I expected a movie that my brothers and friends would remind me that you can't unsee things. I guess, because of that, I went in with expectations that were..a bit..high. And no, silly billy, I'm not making a marijuana reference, but truth be told, it might have made the movie funnier.
     For the first part of the movie, our main man Admiral General Aladeen is the dictator of Wadiya. As an awful, self-absorbed douchebag, he's not very offensive. His humor is dark, yes, executing people left and right like he's just trying to swat a fly out of the air, but it is still simply comedic. All the little boys in the audience thought he was hilarious. I found his dialogue...Aladeen.

There aren't a lot of jokes that don't include his index finger.

      But the magic wore off fast. As soon as he lost his beard and donned a feminism whateverthefuck shirt that he found in a bin somewhere off screen, I was no longer impressed. Look, this doesn't mean I didn't laugh. Because I did! As a regular comedy, this movie is pretty alright! I enjoy slapstick (especially sudden slapstick) to be friggen hilarious. I could watch him throw (and I'm positive this was in the trailer) that trash can into that taxi forever. When he is both offensive and abusive, I laughed the most. I mean, come on, is this a boy or an abortion? 
You know what? Props to the entire pregnant scene. That was a bit offensive. 

I think that's about it. Oh, I would also like to give a huge props to the writers for making a movie about current events that even I could follow. To be frank (but you can call me Aunty), I don't...exactly read the news every day. Ok? Ok. I said it. There.
One last thing: Wost Edward Norton cameo ever.

He's adopted.

This was my face the whole movie

GO SEE THE AVENGERS.

You know how dudes like to look at boobs? Same thing for me. Same thing.

Note: There are two scenes after the credits. I missed the second one.

MAXIMUM DELIGHTS!

Yes, on a much lighter note, during my absence I saw Mad Max and Road Warrior on the big screen, as well as 2001: A Space Odyessy. Seattle was having the Science Fiction Film Festival (The sifff), and I couldn't turn down some of those movies. For example, 2001 was twenty fucking dollars a person! The two Mad Max's together were twenty four!


Holy crap, though, guys. I almost shit during 2001, and Mad Max was a ball. There were a ton of movies that I had to miss due to unpaid job/San Fransisco, but golly, what a fun time.

Maybe he wanted to fly one time.

I've been gone for a while. Sorry about that. In this month, I have moved from Boston to Seattle, and from Seattle, I took a road trip to San Fransisco. I've been to San Fransisco a few times, but I never really enjoyed it. It's alright. It's nice, but there hasn't ever been anything about that city that would come home with me. Nothing about it I ever really...wanted to talk about.
     Then I walked across the Bridge.
     I hadn't seen the documentary before hand. I knew that it existed. I knew what it was about. I assumed that it was something people used to talk about, but not any more. No one jumps anymore.
     No no, they still do. I get it now.
If this were a travel blog, I would talk about my walk. But it's not. This is a movie blog.


     In 2004, Eric Steel filmed the Golden Gate Bridge for a year. He captured a number of suicides on film, then interviewed the families and friends, not telling them he had the footage. He released these last moments and their stories in his 2006 film The Bridge. 
     Strictly as a documentary, and completely disregarding the subject at hand, this movie isn't ideal. I felt the music choice was really horrible. It caused me to laugh a few times and I really, with all of my heart, felt it was inappropriate to do so. Some of the camera work was unimpressive as well. And I'm not talking about the actual footage of jumps. Christ Almighty I would never complain about watching an actual person actually die but just out of shot, but a lot of the shots of the Bridge itself where boring. They weren't menacing. They weren't serene. They weren't geometrically alive. They were just bland, sped-up shots. Not all of them, but some of them. I also really really hate to include this, but remember in Paranormal Activity, when something scary was going to happen, there was that sound? That..reverberating..sound? This movie kind of did that. It kind of made you anticipate it. Those scenes turned the documentary into a home-made horror movie. It was awful. Also, including a little girls' soccer team named "SPLASH" isn't a good idea either. Ugh. I wanted to knock all of Eric Steel's teeth out and make a bracelet.
Another downfall (I have already slapped myself for the use of this word) of this movie was that they didn't give you a lot of statistics, or history, or anything. The movie is strictly about suicide and not enough about the Bridge itself. I had to do (not "had to do" per se, but more of " was possessed by the Bridge and felt the need to know everything about it, making me willing to do") a lot of research behind the creation of the Bridge, a more in depth history of the suicides (the movie doesn't tell you that one woman jumped, survived, then jumped again years later and died), and what the city is doing for means of suicidal prevention. They kind of just skim the surface of it all.
     I'm sorry! Just because the movie is about suicide, doesn't mean you can't do a good job! Look, there were times when I gasped (the first jump is awful). There were times when I screamed, like the second jump. The second jump was the worst for me. And the last jump? Steel built up to this for the entire movie. At times, I was bawling. My god, I haven't cried from a movie in a long time.
    
But I don't know how to exactly rate this movie. I don't know how to talk about it. I haven't figured out how to talk about The Golden Gate Bridge in any fashion since I stepped foot onto it.


But I get it.