The god of the banal. The god of the vulgar. The god of chatter—shut up, you two. The god of translation. The god of the rip-off. The god of the franchise. The god of jailbait. The god of acne. The god of acne medication. Voila: A pantheon, complete and capable of instigating or resolving whatever problem you might require.
In this story, the Hollywood sign guards the door to the underworld—ha ha, but where else do we get our ghosts? Grey and garrulous and out of focus they come to the void-edge of our reach. Then, bereft, half-satisfied, we turn our back and are enjoined to keep it turned. This film is printed on celluloid designed to burn itself up as it passes through the projector: the theater will send back the studio, tonight, seven tin cans of ash.
“The gods are angry.” My beloved Athena shows up, played by the woman from Providence who, if hardly grey-eyed, claims to be Greek. Remington Steele is the kindly centaur. Medusa and the hydra seethe convincingly—the ancients knew anxiety but made a slayable monster of it. The satyr is African-American, cracks wise, fist-bumps, and while the others stay on task mostly digresses after money and ass. We hate ourselves.
Upon Olympus, the kid meets the parent-gods and finds they are four or five times normal size. No CGI but a classic old effect is used: the kid looks up at the father projected on a screen. I knew father was a movie! I go to gaze upon him in the dark. And friends, you haven’t gone until you’ve gone with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment