Josh Wickett and Gran Torino

THIS WAS MY REPLY TO JOSH WICKETT’S LATEST EMAIL TO ME AND A FEW OTHERS:

“Josh, WHAT THE H-LL??? Your FUMES are high octane!!! My jaw is on the floor. You’ll find this one on my blog, too. I suggest you get your own…Cannot see why it would not blow up. You might be able to monetize it quite nicely.”

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Josh Wickett wrote:
I’d like to recommend the movie Gran Torino if anyone has not seen it; especially those of you frustrated by the lack of decent content and (made up word alert!)— “bombasticity” of the Hollywood “machine”.

Having never been a big Clint Eastwood fan, I didn’t pay much attention to this movie when it first came out, even though I new what a Gran Torino was. But its very entertaining, funny at times, historically accurate, and well produced. But don’t be fooled, this is a “Clint Eastwood movie”, He rips new ass holes pretty much non stop throughout the movie, so that “vibe” of violent understatement is still there even if its more refined and given some context.

Clint Eastwood’s forte is his ability to play his demographic; Denzel Washington does the same thing (alpha blk guy). In this movie, he aced the character. He got EVERYTHING right about this guy (my 7th grade best friends father was the younger version of this guy; he didn’t say the things “Walt” says out loud, but you could feel it, you could sense it…that silent military alcoholic rage that was ALWAYS right beneath the surface. Scott used to tell me how his dad would beat the shit out of his older brother. I was always on my best behavior at that house *gulp*)

Matter of fact, all of the characters no matter how minor their part.

I won’t spoil the plot, but I will tell you that Clint’s character is basically an “old school” racist; the kind you rarely see anymore.

I don’t know if this movie had a message, but the message I got from it, or the “taste” it left in my mind is: “you are never finished learning”. And, If I may refine it a bit further, “the BEST lessons to learn are the ones you don’t want to learn.”

In addition, there is the question of what becomes of a society when nobody has any integrity? What happens when EVERYBODY is walking around in “drag”; pretending to be things we don’t want to be? Laughing when nothings funny, smiling when they/re not happy, agreeing when they disagree…? (the Web is amping up this behavior; people are becoming as ephemeral in real life as they are online. You try to put your finger on somebody, and it just goes right through them cause there’s no “there” there?)

“what are you?

“I don’t know, what do you want me to be?”

(((shakin my head)))

“befuddlement” might be the best word to describe the outcome of such a system.

“Walt” is full of faults. But lack of integrity is not one of them. there is no question mark hanging over his head (like most people). What you see is what you get; everyday…

Whats gonna happen when these kinds of people are no longer produced?

Or tolerated?

According to thebookofsomeonesaidso, a persons greatest fear is to be alone (might be why solitary confinement is used to punish people already in prison).

To a certain extent, We all compromise so we can “fit in”, in order to avoid being alone.

But the question should be, “fit into what?”

Integrity may not answer that question.

But it will probably keep you asking it.

Maybe this is why nobody wants it.

Befuddlement is a bitch.

J