I posted this on the Facebook Machine yesterday. Didn't get a lot of feedback. And I'm not posting it IN ORDER to get feedback, but I really REALLY feel strongly about people seeing this. So I'm posting it again. Over here. On Blogger. Which I really only rarely use.
It's a weird video. I'll be the first to say that. This gal posts posts in which she doodles math, basically. And she's a 'personality.' And her singing is weird. But this post is FASCINATING. She talks about modernist composers use of 12 tonal scales (is that the right word?) and what that has to do with art, creativity, math, pattern recognition. All the interesting stuff!
So watch it. Or don't! See if I care.
Don't wanna watch that? Fine. I bet you'll watch this nonsense.
Today's film review is a delightful little blast from the nineties called 'Airborne.' Don't remember it? Yeah, it was slight, unimportant, nonsensical really. No big stars, no real plot, no chance during awards season. Yet I remember seeing it at 12 or 13 and pretty much loving it. Why? It's got roller-blading (or in-line skating if you prefer) and a delightful fish-out-of-water story of a cool guy in a square place: Cincinnati.
Did you watch the trailer? What's not to love? The plot is an oh-so-clever reversal on 'The Karate Kid;' cool surfer guy Mitchell "The Goose" Goosen from California is forced to move to Cincinnati when his professorial parents go on a research trip to Australia. His laid back style, wise adherence to the principles of Mahatma Gandhi and less-than-macho hair attract the aggressions of the tough-guy jocks and hijinks ensue.
In this clip, you get the whole, unmitigated Mitchell Goosen experience. Both barrells of highly-concentrated, California-grown 'laid-back.' This is what everyone in California sounds like, right?
Did I mention that Seth Green plays his unconfident, formless cousin who he convinces to be himself to earn the love of a plain girl?
That really elevates things.
So finally, Mitchell's parents send him his in-line skates (or roller-blades, if you will) in the mail and he finds an outlet for his frustrations. We are then treated to a montage of Mitch "bladin'" across Cincinnati collecting a following of like-minded shredders and BMX kids, some so enthralled by his moves, they depart the stoops upon which they were loitering with nary a thought to their abandoned juice-boxes (I'm not making this up.) In the meantime, Mitch meets an intelligent and prudent young girl (she carries an umbrella) with whom he wiles away an afternoon in a botanical garden, proving his sensitive bona fides by identifying sundry flowers, yet asserting his manly-virtues by rebelliously skating throught the verdant horticultural expo. How awesome is that?
Naturally, his inamorata is the little sister of Jack, the jock's ringleader. What's a skating long-haired pacifist landlocked surfer to do? Naturally, he has a lucid dream about the situation in which he finds himself on 'the perfect wave' which is guarded by a hispanophone shark named Pepe who says: "La ola es mia." The wave is mine. Whoa.
So Mitch proceeds to ingratiate himself into Jack's crowd by participating in roller-hockey contests against "the preps," wealthy-types from a rival school. Also: The preps ringleader, an albino named Blaine, is the unwilling ex-boyfriend of Mitch's gal-pal. So there is that.
The epic epic climax is initiated when Mitch and the boys challenge their rivals to a race down Cincinnati's Devil's Backbone. (An aside: I assumed this Devil's-Backbone-in-Cinncinati thing was a bunch'a hooey, but there is a Devil's Backbone Road in that fine mid-west city. Go figure.) Will Mitch be forced to abandon his Gandhi-inspired pacifism because of the brutality of this race? Will the preps finally be brought low? Will Mitch find true love with that girl who's name I can't remember?
Seriously, you need to see it to find out.
Oh yeah, and Jack Black's in this movie.
Seriously, watch it on Instant Play on your Netflix. Do it today!
