Thursday, January 17, 2008

BLOCKBUSTER YOURSELF

Lately I’ve been viewing a lot of Blockbuster movies based on true stories that only reaffirms man’s inhumanity to man. I’ve always been fascinated by gangsters, serial killers, mass murderers, and heists. It also seems that within 2 weeks after I rent a movie, it’s plastered on cable (must be my good picks!). I’m telling you, Al Pacino, Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Laurence Fishburne III, Nicolas Cage, Patrick Swayze, Robert DeNiro, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Cruise, and Will Smith have got these cable channels sewed up with reruns of their popular and not so popular dramatic repertoire. My favorite is Al Pacino’s “Insomnia,” mainly because I have suffered from this “I, Robot” malady since age eleven. If you haven’t seen some of these flicks, get to your nearest Blockbuster and thrill yourself.

The interpersonal relationships of cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey “Dahmer” were explored in this “guys-he-didn’t-kill” story. Then there was a delightful tongue-in-cheek “Heist” with Oscar-winner Gene Hackman playing another hack man. “Jasper, Texas” caught my eye because my former supervisor is from there. The movie is about James Byrd, Jr., a black man who was tied to and dragged behind a pickup truck to a violent dismembering death not too long after I relocated back to Michigan from Texas.

“Rwanda” details military and political corruption and social prejudice amongst the tribal classes in African culture. Maybe it’s true and maybe it’s not, but the stinky, dirty, sex in “Summer of Sam” (starring John Leguziamo) surrounds the story of the Son of Sam murderer of New York City’s young girls and couples. Certainly was interesting. “Syriana” tackles another story of political corruption and murder in the foreign atmosphere. “The Laramie Project” concerns Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was beaten up, tied to a fence, and left for dead by hate crime masters Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. “The Last King of Scotland” is about the senseless brutality of Uganda president Idi Amin, all in the name of peace and love. And one movie that i can't remember the name of about a substance abusing (I didn’t know that!) Richard Speck who sexually assaulted and/or murdered eight Chicago student nurses in the year I graduated from high school and moved to that town. And there will be more. © 01.12.2008