Lazy Saturday.

Good morning everyone! Hope the weekend is treating you well thus-far.

So last night I decided to do some film-watching and was able to watch "Giant" and "There Will Be Blood". Interestingly, both movies dealt with oil but that's about the extent of their similarities.

 First off, in searching for a James Dean movie I could actually stand I was directed to "Giant". Don't get me wrong, James Dean was phenomenal in this movie, and it definitely made me see his untimely demise as a robbery to audiences everywhere more than a simple tragedy, but the movie itself was dull and outdated. Most of the movie dealt with racism, and female independence. What I'd really have liked from this movie, however, was an exploration of James Dean's character. 

Basically the kid is a nobody and ends up inheriting a large plot of land that he eventually finds oil on. I was expecting him to rise from the shadows and become the focus of the movie towards the end, but it just didn't happen. The movie had established it's theme too rigidly by the time we see Dean strike oil.

It was a book-adaptation though, so it's not like they had a choice story-wise.

Anyhow, on to "There Will Be Blood". I really didn't get this movie when I first saw it back in 2007. I thought it was bland, and lacked story and emotional depth. Now I don't know exactly what happened in my brain since then, but when I watched it last night I sure did enjoy it. I found it riveting and incredibly deep; it also felt like reading a book, which made it very involving indeed.

Basically the movie follows a man who goes from prospector to oil-man in a very short amount of time, and then the movie slows down and we get to study the character and the changes he goes through. Ultimately, I'd say the movie is a statement against greed, but it also touches on shadow elements that Dr. Carl G. Jung discovered in his study of the human psyche.

Overall, watching the movie was incredibly inspirational and I wrote throughout it's entirety. The finished product of that inspiration is below, hope you enjoy.



The year was nineteen hundred and fifty two; the monogamous facade was in full swing. Through fear, people turned to their priests for protection and punishment.

Why anybody preached anything, especially in those days, was beyond me. I suspect they had to temper their fortune with it's own misfortune... guilt had a way of making you punish yourself, especially when you believed you deserved it. The thing I began to realize was this:
We all get what we deserve, but mostly, we get what we think we deserve.

I never lost any sleep.

I knew people, men mostly, who complained of insomnia. Sleeplessness that hung around you like death. On the bed, they said it even stank, but a man's gotta sleep, and the couch didn't cut it.
But me, I never lost any sleep. Men envied me for that, though the women said I was heartless. It didn't matter either way, I slept like a baby.
I had a coupe in those days, and I drove it like I was fucking it. In every street and alley I fucked that thing through the fastest possible routes. At the end of each day she was there to take home- a lousy piece of metal. Still, it was good on gas.

I also drank scotch in those days. Musky, caramel-colored scotch that tasted like a campfire. I was living for the future and scotch was a present-moment drink; it almost defied reason that I was drinking it, but I liked to pretend that my current situation (in those days) was worth savoring. In the end, it was my distinct tastes and idiosyncrasies that gave me away as a sub-par artist, statesman, God knew what. But it was there, in the obsessions... I'm sure any outside observer could have told you... I was too comfortable.