Speaking of things I am doing to stay sane in trying times, I am rewatching all of my favorite movies (as previously discussed). Today, I am rewatching Minority Report, and I would like to talk about the first 10 min of that film. There has been a tons of analysis here, but I want to describe how heavy a fucking lift this is.
You are in a science fiction world where you can see crime before it happens. How the hell do you convince the audience that can happen? The Ghostbusters rule is the slow build. You get to the ridiculous concepts at the end by building up to it. Minority Report and Spielberg did the complete opposite. They just go straight into the nutmeat. Showing you how this would operate in as much detail as possible. This could be boring, but its so fucking well edited. The way to do it is to completely throw you in the pacing of it. Its frantic.
Another director would completely fuck this up. Spielberg sets up 1) How Precrime works 2) The investigation that will lead to the rest of the movie 3) Emotional connection to the precogs. I am hardpressed to think of another film where they can easily do all this in 10 min. Its a masterwork of writing, pacing, and editing.
The rest of the movie is pretty good too.
This was easily my worst week so far this crisis. I got chewed out several times for basically not being thrilled that everything fuckin sucks.
But, thats not the tip of the bahschwagberg. This was….
My wife goes to make muffins for the kid this morning….oven wont start.
Wont heat up at all. No gas going through. That means it has to be fixed. That means someone has to come inside my home.
After all my preperation, after all the time I spent trying to make sure there was no intrusion, finally the thing breaks that we need fixed.
I find a repairman, he could make it between 12-3.
I spend the time inbetween then just trying to make sure the whole house isn’t contaminated. I make a path through the garage, so he can easy access the stove and only be in about 100sq ft of my house. I break out the one flu mask I had left from the box I bought when Ethan was born. Put a bandana over that. I wear the big ass PVC gloves I bought to mix concrete (to deal with the basement leaks). They are big and blue so I look like train robbing Mega Man.
I get everything off every counter in my kitchen so its easy to clean…and I wait….
I sit on my back porch and wait…..
You know that scene in the Running Man at the beginning where they are just trying to escape the prison.
In that moment….waiting for the cleaner. I felt like Chico. Sonic deadline was down and I was running for the exit. And we all know what happened to him.
—–
The actual operation of the repair went off without a hitch. Dude showed up. Had to pull my oven out of the wall. Fixed it. He was wearing a mask and gloves the whole time. We maintained social distance.
Seemed like it would work out fine. He fixed it….I paid via check that I slid over the counter his way. Then he says….”Can I use your bathroom?”
And its like my head enters a new dimension of pain. Luckily, this is the bathroom my son broke the faucet in, but he is using one of my toilets.
Like I am not that guy, you know.
Normally, someone comes in my house to fix shit. They need to use the John. No big deal. No problem.
Inside I was pissed cause its like…contained space filled with Rona.
He left, I spent the next 2 hours cleaning. I bleached that whole bathroom. Every surface he touched got cleaned. I even got on the floor and cleaned my floor with soap, a rag, and a bucket.
My wife was really happy to have her oven back and how clean everything was…..and everything is ok…….
And I am now on day 14 of my watch. 13 more to go.
It really feels like that and it fucking sucks.
Look, I am not humanity’s biggest fan, but I don’t generally shy away from every single person who has to enter in my life.
I fucking do now. It sucks man. It really makes me paranoid about every single person.
And then my son right before bed decided to clean himself from a dump he took by throwing the poo filled toilet paper in the trash can…ended up everywhere. More cleaning. More bleach.
I am exhausted. I’ve got nothing left to give at this point.
I kind of just wonder what the next pain is going to be about.
I hope future entries go back to my targets being everyone else but myself. I close with this song. This album meant a ton to me in dark times. Ostensibly the album is about Rasputin and spirit travel and shit, but its all about the guitarist’s sister committing suicide and his coping with it. This song means a ton to me. I hope it connects with you out there in TV land.
Lets make tomorrow better if we can….