Escape to Alcatraz

Films/DVD Asylum

Movies from comedy to drama to your favorite Hollyweird Star.

(another tour de force from Duncan Shepherd)

Escape to Alcatraz

San Diego Reader, March 20, 2003
Duncan Shepherd hunts for an escape route.
Escape is an elusive concept. It's not uncommon when I have reached a conversational impasse on, for example, the latest James Bond or Austin Powers film, that my fellow converser will object, "But I go to movies to escape!" -- a durable alternative to "I go to movies for entertainment!" Nor is it uncommon for the author of a letter to the editor to attempt to draw the same distinction. For some reason this declaration never inspires me to want to climb down from my high horse and cry out, "But I go to movies to escape (or for entertainment)!" and then to throw my arms around the converser (or the correspondent) as a long-lost brother. I could say it truthfully enough, and yet I could not feel we were making any real progress toward rapprochement. One man's escape is another man's Alcatraz. To help clarify the situation, I have compiled a partial list of things I seem to get plenty of in my daily life, or in the daily news, and from which I would just as soon escape at the movies. Daredevil, Old School, Cradle 2 the Grave, Tears of the Sun, Bringing Down the House will not fill the bill....
money lust
corporate greed
profit maximization
the bottom line
the lowest common denominator
crass commercialism
insatiable materialism
conspicuous consumption
empty display
slick packaging
runaway inflation
puffery and hyperbole
grandiosity and pretension
blarney and blandishment
milking cash cows
flogging dead horses
tails wagging dogs
salesmanship
partisanship
upmanship
computers
television
cellular phones
answering machines
speeding cars
creeping technocracy
teen tyranny
sheeplike faddishness, lemminglike modishness, parrotlike apishness
copycattism, conformism, conventionalism
mind-numbing repetition and routine
Attention Deficit Disorder
"posture" and "attitude"
shallowness and superficiality
vanity and ego
obsession with body image
muscles on muscles
cosmetic surgery
soullessness
sameness
limited options and possibilities
insults to the intelligence
willful ignorance
lowbrowism
middlebrowism
highbrowism
hidden contempt
smug complacency and complacent smugness
smog
noise pollution
a cranked-up bass
rap, hip-hop, heavy metal, electric guitars
sensory bombardment
bids for attention
exhibitionism
infantilism
juvenilism
sophomoricism
four-letter-word wit
"cool"
"hot"
"awesome"
political correctness
political incorrectness
self-promotion
self-congratulation
self-consciousness
self-centeredness
"Me first"
"Who's number one?"
impatience
aggression
bullying tactics
competitiveness
boorishness
brassiness
abrasiveness
callousness
coarseness
crudeness
rudeness
recklessness
restlessness
sloppiness
purposelessness
pointlessness
chaos and confusion
inability to think one's way out of a paper bag
incuriosity
indifference
insincerity
dishonesty
disingenuousness
facetiousness
stupidity
timidity
denial
laziness
corner-cutting
slipping standards
standardization
extreme caution
the fear of the unknown
contentment with mediocrity and shoddiness
predigested platitudes and pieties
palliatives and placebos
obviousness and overkill
secondhandedness
triteness
triviality
garbage, rubbish, trash, litter, waste
life-imitating-schlock
tastelessness in all senses
thoughtlessness in all senses
tunnel vision
presumption and prejudice
provincialism and xenophobia
something less than chest-bursting pride, perhaps not all the way down to face-reddening shame, but at least a twinge of discomfort or unease, at being an American
ditto at being a human

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Topic - Escape to Alcatraz - clarkjohnsen 09:41:27 03/26/03 (2)

I notice he didn't mention "self-loathing" or "elitism" (nt) - mvwine 10:31:39 03/26/03 (1)

Those are good! nt - clarkjohnsen 13:49:10 03/26/03 (0)

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