Remember that old Pink Floyd line, “I’ve got 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from?” Now, of course, I’ve got 213 channels of shit on the TV to choose from.   For some reason, after flipping through all of these various channels, I stopped on IFC (The Independent Film Channel).   Never do this…

So, tragically, I found myself absorbed in this movie—an independent film, as it were.  A channel where their films are so independent, they may be organizing their own Tea Party rally. The name of the film is irrelevant (aka, I forgot to write it down).  But it’s all about this gun, its travels, and other related bull shit.  Maybe we should call it: Have Gun that Travels for artsy types.  I was originally captivated by some funny dialogue and one really hot chick (my two interests).  But then, I’m on this wild ride that I can’t get off.  I can’t stop staring, because it just has to start making sense, and there’s got to be a point to this and, who would film something like this, and I hate myself and I now need a beer.  

Then I realized, like many such films, these independent films are just a reaction to the Hollywood ending and formula movies.  Artsy types hate the Hollywood formula; they despise it.  They will do anything to say, “See.  I made something totally different without any of the glitzy, hackneyed Hollywood formula tripe.”  They say words like “tripe,” because they’re so independent.  But I like the glitzy, hackneyed Hollywood formula bull shit.  I am a simple man with simple tastes.  Take fifties sci-fi/horror movies, for example.  There are countless movies that begin with a person who dies horribly in the opening scene, but you never see the monster.  Then you meet the main character, then enters the love interest, then comes the introduction of a lot of other people who eventually die, most, quite horribly.  There is a build up to when the two roads out of town are blocked, and then the main characters are finally holed up in some structure or another, be it school, church, or gas station.  They board the place up, and the creatures try to get in during the dramatic final sequence.  The military drops a bomb, everyone cheers…well, everyone that didn’t die horribly, then the couple kisses and then they live happily ever after.  Oh, and in the final scene no one notices that there’s one bug/creature/alien monster thingie left in the corner and it’s usually flipping mankind its maxillary palpus.  In the seventies this was followed by a large question mark and then the closing credits.

There are hundreds of movies with this formula.  I know, because I own all of them.  They are wonderful.  Critics hate this formula.  They want the radioactively enlarged bugs to stop devouring the living, start to question their senseless violence, and maybe even run off with the lead lady (worked for Kong).  Wait!  That’s why they actually liked King Kong. They didn’t like it for the Kong fighting T-Rex scene at all! Bastards! I have no understanding of what these artsy types really want, but it all lives on the Independent Film Channel, 24 hours a day.  And they can have it.

 I remember leaving the latest Godzilla movie, or at least the latest American Godzilla movie, thinking, wow…the formula.  It had everything.  The critics hated it, HATED IT!  What the hell do they know?  Nothing.  I guess, Godzilla should have bagged the lead lady, Maria Pitillo, or something and moved to an apartment on the Upper Westside.

I don’t care about meaning in movies—movies are an escape from our otherwise meaningless lives.  I don’t want meaning in my real life, let alone when I’m escaping from my real life.  Sorry folks, but I have some popcorn to pop and some monsters to stop.   I don’t want any of them falling for any love interest, I just want blood, ichor, and something flipping us its maxillary palpus at the end, damnit!  

Back to this artsy Have Gun Will Travel monstrosity.  I’ve been writing this post as an escape from this escape, but it looks like this hunk of shit film is finally over. So the movie ends and I am left wondering, how did I let this happen?  How will I ever get those two hours back?  Why do I want to even write a post and share this atrocity with others?  Misery loves company, I suppose.  Or maybe there is a more noble purpose: so no one else makes the same mistake.  Nah, I’m not that caring. Hurling the remote control against the wall hardly helped matters.  In fact, the next independent film is starting and now I can’t change the channel.  Bastards!  I flip my maxillary palpus at you so called arsty-film-types.