DOOD.

[hackthis_archive]

I think to read this LJ is to know that I have a very strong aversion to spoilers of any kind. Since most of my fandoms are very small, or, in fact, closed (GK), I don't have to deal with being spoiled too often. However. Today, I was spoiled for S2 of Southland by Michael Cudlitz, who plays John Cooper.

HOLY SHIT, COOPER'S GOING TO COME OUT TO BEN?!

AND DEWEY ALREADY KNOWS?!

I have to go have a drink on this one.

Jesus fuck can it be September 25th already or what? Why is he taunting the baby hackthis like this? I can just see this scene. Oh my god I want to write it so bad I could plotz. And no, I am totally not taking the angsty route. I'll leave that to the producers. This is going to be comedy gold where he comes out, and Ben just thinks John's fucking with him, trying to make him uncomfortable with hazing. And Ben's like, fine whatever, I admit it, I date guys! I said it, go ahead and give me shit. And John's a little startled, like, right, Short Stuff, whatever. And then Ben's all, if you have a problem with me being bi just say so and John's brain is like "it would be wrong to fuck with him. this could go badly" and then he puts the moves (wow, "moves" showing my age huh?) on him and Ben's like hooray! And John's like, wow, that backfired hardcore. Go team me.



I also saw The Hurt Locker this weekend.

So, first the shallow stuff:

The fact that Katheryn Bigelow, who directed this film, is 57 and looks like a fucking supermodel at 35? Can I do that when I'm 57?

She's got legs that would make Christy Turlington cry.

Now, on to deeper things.

Where could a girl find James/Sanborn/Eldridge fic? No, like, really, I think I'm going to have to ask for that for yuletide, because that? That was some wild shit.

Actually, no, the Sanborn/James thing was some insane stuff. That fight scene in James' quarters, when they were punching each other totally made me think of svilleficrecs when she asked me to write Brad and Nate fighting, but frankly, if Brad and Nate started fighting like Sanborn and James? Uh, that would lead to relationship meltdown, b/c when James SAT on Sanborn and he went apeshit? Whoa. Oh, and the fact that Sanborn decked a superior officer?!

WHAT?!

Insanity.

And the cameos by Guy Pearce and Ralph Finnes? Nice.

Seriously, though, if everybody involved doesn't get nominated for something there is no justice... which there isn't anyway. I would've loved more character time, but you know it was 130 miuntes not a seven part miniseries.

That part where Eldridge got kidnapped, because James wanted to play cowboy did make me think a lot about Encino Man and how people in charge totally just abuse the hell out of their subordinates sometimes. Except I really liked James, but damn was he a dick.

I'm sure I have other thinking thoughts. I'm tired right now though and want to go back to watching my pretentious French films.

Oh, if you're interested in really just killing yourself with war angst, also go see Waltz with Bashir, which is about a Lebanese massacre in the early 1980s. I'd, uh, have some Prozac on hand if you try to make this a double feature.

Comments

[maurheti.livejournal.com]

when Ben and Cooper are on the screen the only thing you hear is the little voice that is your ovaries screaming FUCK ME NOW! or FUCK EACH OTHER NOW! I am not picky.

Okay, laughing again over here... You are not wrong about this!

I'd have to disagree here. I think it's better to have one thing to love than nothing at all. I don't necessarily see that you need to love multiple things. I'm sure a therapist would say otherwise, but lets look at say, Brad. Brad loves the Corps. His family loves him, his men love him, but what does the Iceman love, what gets him up? Just his job. We'd all love to say Nate, or his bike, but the things that make you happy or bring you joy are not the same as the things you love. As for human beings breaking... that's what life does. That's what life is about, being broken and going on anyway. If you tie yourself to other people and making your happiness dependent on them you're more fucked than if you stay on you own.

That's interesting, and I hadn't thought of it quite that way. I agree with you that life is about being broken and going on anyway, and that loving one thing is better than not loving anything at all; but I was thinking more narrowly, in context of that scene with James and his kid where he talks about how love falls away, and the whole question of PTSD and being broken because of that (although of course "broken" is not the word I should be using, but that's a whole other story).

Loving one thing in this case for this soldier seems to me more of a defense mechanism. He loves what can sustain him without breaking him by distracting him with anything other than his own survival. And he's addicted to the adrenaline rush of it all. He doesn't have space to love anything else at that moment; all his concentration is needed for his job. Out of necessity, everything else has to be marginalized. (Which reminds me of what Poke writes to his wife in that letter he reads to Evan.)

Maybe my sweeping statement about human beings not being able to live that way for sustained periods of time without breaking was a little too sweeping. What I meant was, in this situation, in a situation of war, where you go back to the one thing you think you can love because that's the only way you can function, you lose some of what makes you able to relate to other people. And that is what I mean by something breaking. What you love can be sustaining and affirming to you, but in this case, it may also make you unable to function in the world beyond the theater of war.

Man, this movie. So many thinky thoughts.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

See, I would disagree with this statement: Loving one thing in this case for this soldier seems to me more of a defense mechanism.

by pointing to THIS statement:

He loves what can sustain him without breaking him by distracting him with anything other than his own survival.

When they put you in the military the first thing they do is strip you down to your raw elements. The military (IMO) is about getting rid of all the stuff and bullshit that people think they need and about showing you what you really require to get along. Civilians are coddled, they get used to trappings and fancy clothes and lots of variety and people fawning over them and TV and materialism. They take what they have for granted. The military shows you that hey, guess what, most of this shit? You don't need it. You may want it, but what you want and what you need are most definitely not the same thing. It allows you to focus of what actually is important, so if James' son is important to him, he does what he needs to:namely getting on with the baby's mom, who he honestly seems rather indifferent too. And I'm sure war has made him this way, made him uninterested in playing all the power games that civilians get their kicks playing. As far as I can tell, what happens to a lot of guys is they get so used to things being basic and straight forward that the reason they can't process when they get out are all the politics, all the extraenous fat that society is padded with. To me the perfect example of this is James in the cereal aisle when he gets out. Who the hell needs 45 different types of cereal? What the hell is the point in that? Society gives you choices, I think an army man would say you have too many choices, and that's where you get bogged down. So to circle back to what I was saying in the beginning, I don't see this as a defense mechanism, I see this as what someone is trained to do. The world might be better off if we all had similar training. At least then we'd all focus on what's really important to us and not what society deems important to us.

[maurheti.livejournal.com]

I always forget about that rather essential part of military training, which probably means that I could do with some...! Anyway, you make a good point. I seem to be thinking in circles on this whole issue.