Not This Time, Mr. Cameron.

Your cinematic genius put Schwarzenegger and “I’ll be back” into the American Lexicon.  You showed $1.8 billion worth of viewers the Heart of the Ocean was really a legendary shipwreck at the bottom of the Atlantic and you had an entire legion of tree huggers convinced that CGI giant blue humanoids live in perfect harmony with nature somewhere out in the Cosmos. Despite our personal distain for you as a person, your unquestionable gift to make really good movies has drawn us in to theaters again and again.  But not this time, Mr. Cameron.  This time, Mr. King of the World, you may have struck your iceberg and they call it Sanctum.

To be fair, James Cameron only lent his financial support to the aquatic spelunking adventure.   It was directed by someone whose name escapes me as it will escape everyone else because this should have been straight to rental gem won’t be launching any careers.  However, since Cameron seems egotistically fine with whoring his name out to market this movie he will bare the blunt force trauma I wish to inflict.

In the interest of full disclosure I have not seen this movie nor do I intend to ever see it.  I have suspected since the first airing of its namedropping trailer this flick would be an epic fail.  I just read through a handful of Hollywood insider spoilers which confirmed my suspicions.  Sanctum is a pre-apocalyptic Waterworld without the redemption of humanity subplot. It is 90 plus minutes of really neat Discovery Channel underwater shots in 3-D minus the animated prehistoric predator fish you wish would swim by and eat the entire cast.

Sanctum’s plot is painfully simple and predictable.  A group of overconfident scuba divers, none of which the audience will learn to love, enter uncharted oceanic caves only to have their single point of entry blocked by the wrath of Mother Nature.  Not being able to turn back they must dive further into the unknown in the hopes of finding another way to the surface.  Think Poseidon (remake or original) without the capsized boat.  Better yet think “The Cave,” that 2005 nobody saw it until it was on Showtime thriller of the same premise.  Except that The Cave had what some might hope to see in Sanctum but won’t.  It had a previously undiscovered species of translucent, flesh-eating, cave-dwelling predators who, as actress Piper Perabo painfully discovers right before her untimely demise, “can friggin’ fly!” 

In The Cave the trapped divers need to find their way to the surface before either the creatures eat them all or their group leader, bitten by a creature, fully transforms into one and eats the cast himself.  I won’t spoil Sanctum’s not so unique but inspired from true events story other than to say people die but none that you feel sorry about and none at the hands of creepy looking monsters.  Translation:  Boring.  Not all real life stories are worthy of scripts and wasted film.

Perhaps, in an attempt to attract a demographic more inclined to let go of their disposable income in this economy, Cameron should have 1) had an all male cast of soap opera handsome actors; and 2)  renamed the movie “Sphincter.”  That way he could have at least touted the characters’ struggle to reach the surface as analogous with an individual’s search for self identity and a group’s struggle to live open in a society determined to keep them submerged in the dark, cold abyss of intolerance.  He could have used this as a vehicle to push the envelope in a Hollywood still only comfortable with writing one dimensional characters like ‘girl’s best guy friend’ or the flat retreads of the cast of “Queer Eye” (who themselves are clichéd imitations of stereotypical 70’s male fashionistas – cut to close up of Jack Tripper’s femininely pursed lips and flamboyantly batting eyelashes juxtaposed with Mr.  Furley’s near convulsive moral majority disgust.  Yet Furley is the one in the leisure suit and flowery ascot? But I digress…)

It would have been hailed by critics as the most uplifting movie since “Brokeback Mountain” and probably would have landed Cameron another Oscar nod. Yeah, he would have alienated a large swath of socially conservative potential viewers but let’s be honest about that.  It was Avatar’s not so subtle portrayal of the American military as nothing more than utterly heartless aggressors on the peaceful and oh so green Pandora that had already guaranteed their absence at whatever his next film would be.  So why not dive right in with an alternative lifestyle deep sea adventure?  Kind of like an episode of Johnny Quest but without the naively trusting minors and questionable motives of  the all male parental figures.

Too over the top, you say?  Absolutely, but hyperbole is an effective tool to drive home the point that anything probably would have worked better than what Sanctum is, a really bad movie with a big Hollywood backer. Sphincter would have made more money than Sanctum will and the Cameron moniker would have been associated with more favorable reviews. Any tweak of Sanctum’s plot would have worked better.  Rest assured Cameron’s ego is big enough to weather this storm. Much like his T-800 series Terminator, Cameron ‘will be back’ and soon enough we will all be memorized again by the creative wizardry and visually intoxicating marvel that is Pandora and an Avatar sequel. It really is inevitable. 

Negligent Embarrassment as a Defense

I am not a lawyer and the use of terms like negligent and defense are as legal (and likely completely incorrect) as I get.  But I don’t know what else you would call it.

Let’s say I’m walking and texting and I walk myself right into a mall fountain.  I get my underwear wet, ruin my phone, and hurt my ego but get out right away and leave the mall, looking around hoping no one saw me.

Now let’s say while no one present may have seen my quick dip it was caught on mall cameras and suddenly the whole world can now watch it over  and over and over again on YouTube.    

That would be embarrassing, right?

(It matters not what is posted online is a phone camera capture of a recorded closed circuit video or the image is so blurry and distant that little more than a shadowy figure of myself plunging and running is what the world has seen over and over and over again.  I know it is me national morning news programs are laughing at.  I know it is my inattentive stroll that has set the internet ablaze.  And unless I go public, I will be the only one who knows it is me.  Unless I go public…)

Yeah, this is not a hypothetical scenario.  It actually happened.  Some woman with ironic yet trendy glasses and a fashionable Katie Holmes bob cut  steel-piered it right into a fountain while texting on, one can only assume, the latest in smartphone technology – oh, if only  she were holding a  grande Starbucks latte of the month as well.

She was personally embarrassed for sure but she would have remained, despite the grainy video going viral, publicly anonymous.  Until she went public. 

Now the self-inflicted consequences of walking while texting has become actionable in a court of law.  Her claim of course is this is someone else’s fault.  The public ridicule she has endured – brought on by her outing herself to begin with – is not due to her clumsiness but of the unprofessional actions of mall security personnel uploading the video to the internet. 

Quite frankly, I am shocked that mall security personnel would act in any manner other than entirely professional.  Paul Blart:  Mall Cop was a grossly satirical misrepresentation of that noble profession.  Anyone on a minimum hourly salary armed with little more than a whistle and collar clip walkie talkie is above ethical reproach.  Lady fountainhopper knows this, as we all do, and the actions of these individuals has besmirched the reputation of security personnel everywhere.  It is because a few rogue individuals wantonly disregarded their sworn duties and the public trust that this woman is embarrassed.  And because it appears their employers purposely turned a blind eye to if not fully encouraged their misdeeds, this woman’s embarrassment is due to negligence.

I can’t imagine what the implications of this farce might be.  Had she been around a decade ago, would any of us have had the chance to laugh ourselves hoarse watching America’s Funniest Home Videos?  Victims of unexpected groin shots would have filed a class action suit against ABC.   Then again, those clips of ball tap hilarity were submitted by the participants and were worth potential reward money.  Maybe that is the root of this woman’s beef.  She didn’t have control of the video’s release.  She doesn’t have ownership of her very public stumble in a very public facility cluttered with cameras that reasonably imply very little expectation of privacy.  Based on reports that she has a long list of criminal issues and probably a legal tab just as long, chances are she would tour the country diving into mall fountains 3 or 4 times a day if she could get paid for it.

We can only hope a cantankerous judge dismisses this in dramatic fashion as frivolous.  We can assume it will be settled out of court with a secret sum deposited into this woman’s defense fund.  We can expect to see way too many laws to prevent such embarrassments in the future. 

Look for thousands of local ordinances requiring malls to install railings around fountains.  Watch for state legislatures taking the two-prong approach to the matter; penalties for security personnel posting patron images on the internet no matter how funny AND construction codes prohibiting large open spaces of water in gathering areas of public facilities unless there is a historical, cultural or artist purpose to it.  Finally, count on the creation of a federal grant program to finance early warning fountain avoidance systems involving infrared sensors and wireless signals sent directly to smartphone reminding users to “look up” while walking.

Sign of the Times

It’s a metaphysical gut punch, really.  To wake up and be told you are not who you thought you were. To find out after all this time that which you believed to be you is not you but someone else.   Who am I?

I was a Pisces.  I was a fish; a happy, go-with-the-flow kind of fish. I was a dreamer, an idealist, a creative elitist.  I was in the world but not of it and that suited me just fine.  Today I learned it was all a lie.  Today I learned I was an Aquarius and of that I know nothing.

Aquarius, the water carrier, bears that precious and abundant element which gave me sustenance and a playground for 40 years. That element is now my responsibility. It is now something contained, something carried, something hoarded.  Am I a hoarder?  I have never hoarded anything except maybe for beer bottle caps and bicentennial quarters.  Do I want the responsibility of carrying the water? I don’t know if I want that level of responsibility.  That is too much for a Pisces to take on. But I am not a Pisces.  Apparently I was born to handle it after all.  Can I put the water down ever?  Can I drink it?  Is it all work and no play for the Aquarius?  My mother is an Aquarius (well, was) and I have never seen her play, ever.   It’s all so confusing and a Pisces does not like confusion.  It’s too turbulent and cloudy.  You can’t go with that kind of flow.

All those attributes I proudly pinned on my personality are now nothing more than false testimonials. I now know why all those essays and posters never won awards. They were done by an Aquarius and I guess they really did suck. 

I am a blank page.  A Pisces would know what to do with a blank page.  Does an Aquarius?   If I were an optimist I would see this as a new birth, a chance to start anew. But I am not an optimist.  I am a Pisces, or was.   I wonder how an Aquarius sees this revelation.   Does he embrace it or is he as skeptical as a Pisces, as skeptical as me.

I don’t buy this scientific finding that has shattered my psychic  worldview.  Somehow over thousands of years the moon’s position relative to the zodiac has shifted enough to upend the entire calendar of signs.  That theory is as hokey as global warming; as convoluted as Darwinism; as undetermined as the 2000 elections. 

What about all those living under the delusion of another sign?  I don’t see Leos surrendering their superiority to crabs.  I don’t imagine too many Rams will embrace fins over horns.   And Sagittarius suddenly accepting an entirely new sign not yet affixed with overbearing qualities and lacking the status, stature and standing they have come to know?  Please.  So why should I become a fish out of water?  If it weren’t all just pagan ritual it would be sacrilegious.

This is astrological anarchy.  This is an unalignment of the planets.  If we accept this we will accept anything – a fifth dimension, temporal rifts, quantum leaps with a device called Iggy, embryonic stem cell research.  I know I am one fish swimming against the tide, but maybe, just maybe if I swim hard enough I can turn it.   Maybe I can learn to contain that water; catch a wave upon the sand (and in turn solve problems like Maria).  Or I can just ride it.  I bet Aquarius is damn good surfer.