After returning from my most recent trip to Europe, I went to the eye doctor.  I thought I had a bit of a muscle tone problem and it would be mendable with a small nip and tuck– and while I was under the knife– maybe I would just do a few other small tweaks as well.  Win win.

Instead, I was diagnosed with Horner’s Syndrome.  I was informed there are four possible causes of Horner’s– shingles (which I did have but in the wrong place to be a factor) brain tumor, brain aneurism or lung cancer.  Each option was more horrific than the next.  It took a month (over 30 days) of waiting to get the MIR appointments and neurology appointments that I needed to hear the answer.

The good news was I was given the all clear on all fronts.  The doctors said that sometimes the reason for Horner’s is not discoverable.  But it is a neurological weakening of the eye lid muscles. I can get the nip and tuck when my insurance company approves, so perhaps this is a tweakable situation yet.

Cut to– Yesterday, on Ash Wednesday, the Lenten season started.  Ash Wednesday is a day to remember “you are dust and unto dust you shall return” (a quote from the book of Genesis).   The fleeting nature of life is something that hits uncomfortably close to home given my recent reprieve.

Lent is a period of time (40 days) of reflection, discernment and renewal.  It ends on the glorious miracle of Easter Sunday–  If you believe in the Resurrection.  Or it ends with the more secular egg hunt and Easter basket goodies, if you are a general holiday celebrator.  The egg is a long-time pagan symbol of new life so we still are tapping into the renewal thing with Easter eggs.

Every religion or cultural tradition has a period of annual inward looking, contemplation and sense of starting over or symbolic rebrith.  It’s important at times to stop, whatever our belief system, and ask– what are we doing? Are we just living by rote or routine?  And “is this what I want out of my life or am I who I want to be”?

One of the reasons people “give things up” during Lent is to take themselves out of their comfort zones.  People often choose giving up chocolate, smoking, sweets, drinking, mindless television-watching, etc. to break those habits (for a time) that are self-indulgent, self-destructive or that keep us in an anesthetized state.  Lent is supposed to move us out of the rote and routine of our lives and challenge us to look at ourselves anew.

So what does all this have to do with Rango (the first full-length ILM animated movie)?  Give me a moment to set things up before I move in for the personal payoff.

Rango is the story of a chameleon who, during a car accident, falls out of a family vehicle and escapes when his glass habitat shatters on the asphalt.   He is stranded in the desert somewhere between Nowhere and Las Vegas.

Although the film has much to recommend it– wonderfully detailed animation, unusual and odd character choices (moth-eaten, flea-bitten, broken-down and patched up every one), a fully realized visual world and inventive set pieces that are fast, furious and funny– these great elements just don’t add up to much. On first viewing there is so much visual cleverness, so many movie send-ups and western spoofs going on it’s easy not to notice the story is a mess and the characters are very poorly defined.

Here’s how Lisa Schwarzbaum put it in Entertainment Weekly

Rango takes a long time finding a story line to stick with. First the lizard, liberated from domestication by humans, gets a crash course in outdoor life skills. (In the desert, blend in!) He staggers into a dusty town called Dirt and decides to reinvent himself as a gunslinging hero. (In town, stand out!) After being rewarded for inadvertent acts of bravery as town sheriff, he decides that being a hero is too hard. Then he changes his mind and sticks to his, er, gun. (Actually, a single bullet)

This isn’t a movie that will hold up well after repeated viewing.  Rango, the character, can’t seem to make up his mind whether he is a Power of Ambition character (boasting, bragging and pretending to be something he’s not because he feels like a fraud or a fake inside) or a Power of Idealism character (a unique and extraordinary creature who is trying to figure out how he can maintain his individuality AND be part of or fit into a community AND be true to his special destiny.)

Everything and the kitchen sink is thrown into the movie– parts of Chinatown are graphed onto High Noon with side excursions into The Man with No Name.  But nothing adds up, makes sense or has a deeper emotional meaning, relevance or resonance.

Beans, the female lead iguana, tells us she is worried about losing her daddy’s farm but we never see the land or her personal connection to it.  Someone is dumping water but we never find out why or for what specific purpose, unlike in Chinatown.  The actual answer to the problem in the film is not water dumping but a shut off water valve that someone closed.  There is no narrative coherence anywhere.  There is lots of action and very little heart.

Here is how Ty Burr puts it, writing The Boston Globe:

Just as often, though, everyone mills around waiting for the story to go somewhere. “Rango’’ wants to send up every sagebrush cliche it can, but the screenplay just piles those cliches on top of each other and waits for alchemy to happen. The director is Gore Verbinski, the mastermind of the “Pirates of the Caribbean’’ franchise, and like those movies, “Rango’’ is a highly watchable but somewhat frustrating mix of sloppy plotting, rascally attitude, and Big Action.

It’s a fun movie and a noisy one, but not the great work of family-friendly gonzo this particular crew could have created with just a little more focus. Back to your workstations, boys, and let’s see what else you’ve got.

(E)veryone mills around waiting for the story to go somewhere. “Rango’’ wants to send up every sagebrush cliche it can, but the screenplay just piles those cliches on top of each other and waits for alchemy to happen.

The director is Gore Verbinski, the mastermind of the “Pirates of the Caribbean’’ franchise, and like those movies, “Rango’’ is a highly watchable but somewhat frustrating mix of sloppy plotting, rascally attitude, and Big Action. (IMO those movies go nowhere either)

It’s a fun movie and a noisy one, but not the great work of family-friendly gonzo (filmmaking that) this particular crew could have created with just a little more focus. Back to your workstations, boys, and let’s see what else you’ve got.

Okay so here’s the personal Lenten observation part.

Like this film, my life is filled with a steady stream of creative and inventive action sequences.  I have a bunch of projects and lots of other things going at full blast.

What are they adding up to?  Do they have a strong narrative through-line that is clearly defining who I want to be and how I want to live my life?  Is my focus clear enough or am I just addicted to the frantic activity?   Do I just mill around between action sequences waiting for the story to go somewhere?  What is all this activity in service of.  Food for thought for 40 days.

So what am I going to do about it?  I’ve decided to watch 40 films in 40 days and write about them from a personal standpoint as I puzzle through how I want to be reborn on Easter morning.  It will be a journey of looking at my life through the lens of movies– some contemporary and some old school– I hope you will join me.

Rather than just write about Character Types and story construction I want to look at my own life and how I am constructing my own story.  Do you ever want to take a step back and ask yourself– just what is most important and how do my choices define me?  Do you ever wonder what your frantic activity adds up to in the end?

Okay, I know this just sounds like piling on more activity but I am also committed to quitting work at 5PM for 40 days and giving myself time to think about the larger narrative arc of the time (hopefully lots and lots) that I have left.  I am going to do a better job of prioritizing and putting the larger purpose of my life first.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on all this and about the questions you struggle with in your own life as you move from project to project.  Comment here or on my ETB FaceBook Page.   #40movies40days

Hunter S. Thompson was a writer who straddled the Dark Side of the Power of Excitement.  Although real people are, of course, more complex than fictional characters, they still have a core or essence that can be traced back to one type.

Self-described “gonzo” journalist ,Hunter S. Thompson, became famous in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine for his sense of wild adventure, drug use and love of chaos and anarchy.  He ran a campaign for Sheriff in Aspen in the 1970’s based on those principles.  All these basic elements were a part of his unique writing style.

Bill Cardoso, editor of the Boston Globe magazine, claimed “gonzo” was South Boston Irish slang describing the last man standing after an all night drinking marathon.  In other contexts, gonzo has come to mean “with reckless abandon,” “out of control “or “extreme.”

Thompson committed suicide when he decided life wasn’t fun any more. He did, however, maintain an explosive personality to the end.  At his funeral, he requested his ashes be shot out of a canon from a tower he designed personally (in the shape of of a double thumbed fist holding a peyote button) as Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” blared over loudspeakers.  Thompson’s funeral was a fitting send off for a man hell-bent on the next wild escapade.  One of his favorite sayings was: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

In Dark Knight, the Joker pushes the Dark Side to its furthest extreme.  He says to Harvey Dent (Two-Face):  “Do I really look like a man with a plan, Harvey? I don’t have a plan. The mob has plans, the cops have plans. You know what I am, Harvey? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one. I just do things. I’m a wrench in the gears. I hate plans. Yours, theirs, everyone’s. Maroni has plans. Gordon has plans. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I am not a schemer. I show schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are…  It’s a schemer who put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. Look where it got you. I just did what I do best– I took your plan and turned it in on itself.”

The Joker’s words aptly sums up Thompson’s approach to journalism.  Throw a wrench in the gears, turn things in on themselves and expose how pathetic politicians’ attempts to control things really are.

The Joker elaborates to Dent/Two Face:  “I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It’s fear.”

Thompson was also an agent of chaos.  His “fear and loathing” books were about what happens when chaos ensues.  Sadly, in the end, he was as trapped by his wild persona as if he were a meek and mild drone working a nine to five job.  He became a caricature of himself, satirized as “Duke” in the comic strip Doonsbury.

Her lover tells Holly Golightly (a female Power of Excitement character) in Breakfast at Tiffany’s: “You say you are a wild thing… (Y)ou’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”  However hard or fast you try to escape– there you still are.