Taken

I've remembered some other things I was going to talk about.

That's a really boring sentence with which to begin a blog post. I should reconsider.

FIRE! FIRE! MY WOLF IS ON FIRE! AND I'M GAY!

Much better.

Today's things are:

• Taken
• The Pink Panther
• Lucy's annoyance
• My view of all activities as obligations
• Black Sheep Boy

So let's get cracking.

***

About ten minutes ago I finished watching the film Taken with Liam Neeson.

He's in the film, I mean. I didn't watch it with him. He's probably seen it loads of times already and would be bored. Either that, or he'd keep interjecting with facts and anecdotes about the film-making process. It would be annoying.

[Warning: this entry contains Taken spoilers]

Though to be honest, the notion of 'spoilers' suggests a level of plot that isn't quite accurate in the case of Taken.

In fact, the poster is basically a full outline of everything that happens.



Liam Neeson plays a super-duper spy/killer person. His daughter gets kidnapped, he goes to rescue her. That's the plot. There's no subplot or twists or turns.

He warns the kidnappers that he'll find and kill them, and then he does.

At no stage is he in any jeopardy whatsoever, there's never a situation he can't handle, no enemy that's tougher than him, no mystery he cannot solve. In fact, there's a complete lack of dramatic tension whatsoever.

It actually makes for quite compelling viewing, as you can just sit back and watch him kill people until he finds his daughter. Having things happen exactly as you expect is in a sense the biggest twist of all.

(This isn't a proper film review, by the way - I just found it really odd and need to share)

The dialogue is terrible, and there are some hilarious clichés. He's really worried about his 17-year-old daughter travelling to Paris, and is immediately vindicated when she's abducted by sex traffickers. Like immediately. She doesn't even get to unpack.

One flaw is that his daughter (and her equally vapid friend) are so annoying, I was on the side of the sex traffickers. And that's not common. Usually (and I make no bones about this) I am opposed to forced prostitution. That's just the stance I take. Call me a firebrand, but if I had my way, there would be no sex slavery at all.

But these girls were planning to follow U2 around on their European tour.

U2.

What kind of 17-year-old girl loves U2?

I'll tell you what kind: the kind that deserves to be kidnapped.

When the friend ends up dead of an overdose, I cheered - realising the gene pool was now slightly better off.

I don't think that was the desired reaction.

The whole thing is morally repugnant - Neeson is an overprotective father, whose fears are justified (nice of Hollywood to discourage travel, instill the kind of fear that will keep you spending money on American soil, and make the rest of the world seem like a crime-ridden cesspool).

The only female characters are either naive victims, or spiteful ex-wives (well OK, there's just one ex-wive, played by Famke "everything after Xenia Onatopp was a step down" Janssen.)

Neeson kills people happily, tortures people (because the ends justify the means), and at one point shoots his corrupt friend's entirely innocent wife in the arm, just to prove a point.

Her kids were in the next room trying to sleep. I bet he didn't think about how difficult it is to get kids settled down after a gunshot. It's like feeding them pure sugar on Christmas eve. This must be why Neeson was such a terrible father. Always shooting people instead of paying attention.

The lack of complexity is just stunning. It's impressive. I was wondering why it was so terrible, until I read on Wikipedia: "produced by Luc Besson".

Ah. That explains it.

It's not really terrible, though. Just simple. But sometimes simple is good. It's fun to watch a straightforward journey from A to B. Or in this case, just A to A. With someone getting stabbed in the A-hole.

Maybe it's just amoral, rather than immoral. That would be enough to wipe my conscience clean.

They're making Taken 2, apparently. I'll probably watch that too. I hope they just steal his goldfish or his iPhone or something.

I DON'T KNOW
WHO YOU ARE
BUT IF YOU DON'T LET MY
SANDWICH GO I WILL FIND YOU
I WILL KILL YOU

***

The other day, I was taking the rubbish out. In fact, you might say the rubbish was TAKEN (ahaha). But luckily the bin-bag's dad didn't hunt me down.

Our building has big bins outside for all the flats. I was just putting the bag in the bin, when I saw some coloured shapes on the floor, almost submerged in the mud.

They were little bits of plastic, odd toys, broken bits of games. I wondered why they were there. I suppose someone had done a big clear-out and they had fallen. I'm not sure who throws out their toys, though. I know I don't.

Couldn't they have given them to charity or something?

I hope it wasn't because their child was no longer around. Perhaps someone's six-year-old had been kidnapped whilst following Razorlight around the country.

One of the objects caked into the wet ground was this:


As you can tell, I picked it up and took it home.

Now I ask you: was that a strange thing to do?

I think it might be.

Picking up an object from near some bins and reclaiming it.

Maybe it's a good thing - reusing and repurposing objects is a large part of environmentalism. Maybe I'm saving the world by doing this.

Or maybe I'm just a few steps away from becoming an eccentric street-dweller with an assortment of plastic nick-knacks.

I washed all the mud off it, so now it's as good as new.

As you can see, it's a Pink Panther toy.

I have no particular affection for the Pink Panther. Which makes it all the more strange that I felt compelled to claim it from the filthy earth.

If it had been a superhero, or a wrestler, or Penny Crayon, I would have had every reason to go picking through the refuse of a stranger. But why do it for the Pink Panther?

He's wearing a martial arts outfit of some kind. I'm not sure which discipline he practices (I'm not an expert in stances) but as he has a white belt, he must be a novice.

His arm moves up and down. It possibly used to do something more significant.

Why was he discarded? Did a child outgrow playing with a smarmy pink cat? Perhaps the Pink Panther is out of fashion, what with all the Peppa Pigs and the Rasta Mouses and so on and so forth.

But I rescued Pinky (as I might call him one day), and now he's cluttering up a bookshelf. I'll probably throw him away myself one day, or pass him on to a new generation of garbage picker.

I said that I don't have any specific affection for him, but I did like his cartoon. I mainly liked the bit that he wasn't in - with the aardvark and the ant.

But I do specifically remember this cartoon, and in fact am surprised to have found it so easily. I remember it incredibly vividly, even though I can't have seen it for years.



I think I liked the weird Escher-like moving doors and stairs.

Anyway, I've rescued the Panther from his filthy grave. Perhaps he will go on to provide me with some kind of service.

***

Lucy was annoyed that I mentioned her twice in the last post, but both times referred to her as being annoyed.

She was really annoyed about it.

In fact, if I had to name Lucy's defining characteristic, it would be: she is annoyed.

***

The whole 'activities as obligations' thing will take too long to explain, and it's late. Maybe I'll get to it another day.

***

My final thing is a comparison of two songs. Actually, the same song: Black Sheep Boy, written by Tim Hardin.

It's a good song.

I have two versions on my iPod - one by Hardin himself, and one by Scott Walker.

Though I love Walker, his version is nowhere near as good. I think it's because the song is about being the black sheep of your family. And dark, troubled, dead Tim Hardin could certainly be a black sheep.

But pretty-boy Walker was (at the time) too young and handsome to be anything but loved by his mother.

[Modern day weird, experimental, meat-punching Walker might have been more suited to it.]

See for yourself. I think Hardin's voice conveys a sense of being an outsider more than Walker's does.

Tim Hardin:



Scott Walker:

Gah. Of course, I should have checked whether this was on Youtube before writing about it. It isn't. But it is on Grooveshark (you can listen without having to download anything).

http://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Black+Sheep+Boy/2qR71V?src=5

I'm sure no-one is interested in this but me. But I'm my most loyal reader.

Except for those few months I abandoned myself to go travelling around Europe.