This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again
…”The End”…The Doors
Do we live in an apocalyptic time? In America crazy gun-wielding, Nazi-sign waving tea-baggers, a Muslim Army shrink seeking virgins in heaven, hostage-takers, school-shooting loners, child kidnapers and serial killers headline the news. Violence rules. And the #1 rule is guns. Without them where would we be? Pry away those guns from the dead cold fingers around the triggers of the American maelstrom. Don’t pry for me, America. Pry away, pry away.
November brings two movie releases about these apocalyptic times. One, about The End; the Apocalypse to end all Apocalypses, or as German director Roland Emmerich says so cliche-ly, “the mother of all apocalypses.” The movie, “2012” gets its raison d’être from the now popular myth of a Maya prediction that the end of the world will be in 2012. Mostly special CGI effects with John Cusak outrunning an exploding apocalyptic fireball as he leaps to escape into a half-flying jet…whew, damn Apocalpyse almost burned my ass, he almost says.
The other doomsday November flick….gloomy November the month of doom…is based on Cormac McCarthy’s elegiac and terrifying novel, “The Road.” A father (Vigo Mortensen) trudges thru a post-atomic bombed-out world (filmed mostly in Pittsburgh) with his son, on a quest for….nothing really…just survival, although he tells his son they travel to keep the fire (of humanity) alive. Along the way they encounter the usual detritus of Armageddon: burnt homes, bodies, an unopened Coca Cola (great product placement…but should have had them running across a homeless, old football roadster, Mean Joe Greene, former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle, who reprises the famous 1981 TV commercial by giving the boy his Coke…).
Anyway, of the two movies, I’d go down “The Road.” At least it’s a story, albeit depressing, that has some special meaning, instead of just special effects.
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