There Will Be Blood (2007)

This morning, Amy was reading an article about how the upcoming film Atlas Shrugged: Part I may be one fo the frist truly important films to emerge in recent cinema history, suggesting that it may be compared to monumental movies like Rebel Without a Cause and Wall Street as opposed to recent let-downs like Source Code and Wall Street 2. (Knowing Ayn Rand, I wonder if this film will simply turn into an anti-liberal political diatribe, but that's another discussion all together.) I challenged myself to consider what the last truly important film was. It came down to either The Social Network or There Will Be Blood.

Why does There Will Be Blood belong in this category? What does a film that takes place at the turn of the last century (1800 --> 1900) have to do with an audience after the turn of the next century (1900 --> 2000)? There Will Be Blood tells the romance of two individuals whose families have been at odds for generations, namely Industry and Religion, resulting int eh birth (in blood, always in blood) of the modern evangelical ultra-conservative (whoo plays to the kin of both parents, Religion without reason and Industry without conscience - if you consider yourself an evangelical ultra-con and this does not describe you, then you're not the individual that I am critiquing).

But why would Industry and Religion fall in love? They have a couple of things in common - egotism, the desire to conquer every market, a fierce competitiveness ("I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people."), and a desire for fame and/or fortune. In retrospect, I wonder if this is not a romance, but a battle. I'm sure, for many of you out there, you see very little difference between romance and battle. Whatever else it is, There Will Be Blood is a fantastic and important movie.

Daniel Day Lewis

Actor Daniel Day Lewis. I could list a whole lot of really fantastic roles that DDL has been involved with, but I have a lot of trouble comparing any of these roles with his performance as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, a movie that is both brilliant and campy enough to provide me with a healthy barrage of quotes to rival such films as American Psycho, Wayne's World, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and Encino Man. Daniel Day Lewis's Daniel Plainview might be the most original, interesting and intriguing film character of the 2000s.

14 Movies From Which a Justin Tiemeyer Can Be Constructed

(In chronological order)

1. The Care Bears Movie (1985)

Amy now gets annoyed whenever I sing The Care Bears Movie theme song Care-a-Lot by Carole King.

But I keep singing it!

2. The Labyrinth (1986)

My aunt used to baby sit us during the summer sometimes, and the really cool thing about being a teenager at Aunt Sue's house was that she usually had one or two premium movie channels that we did not have. One afternoon, a movie called The Labyrinth came on, a beautiful creation of Jim Henson and David Bowie, completely new to me in the mid-90s, and yet eerily familiar. When it came to the scene of the baby walking on the ceiling, I recognized a scene that I'd seen in dreams for most of my life, that I'd described to my mother on more than one occasion. When mom and dad got home from work and picked us up, I talked to them about this strange feeling, and in quite a Dickensian fashion it was revealed that some months after my brother had been born, making me three-years-old, my father took me to see The Labyrinth. Showing this children's film to his child was an excuse for him to get out of the house and enjoy a film starring one of his favorite musicians, David Bowie. Since my Labyrinth renaissance of the '90s, I've come to enjoy much more of the work of the Thin White Duke and I've gotta say that it's brought my father and me closer.

3. Robin Hood (1973)

 
One of the most told stories of my childhood is that my mom had recorded the Disney animated Robin Hood film from the Disney channel when we had one of those free weekends (back when there was programming on Disney worth paying more for), and that I watched that video until the tape was worn straight through. I bought it again a couple years back, but I have trouble believing that Robin Hood will ever be the same with what I now know about those Crusades that the good king was off on.


4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

 
If you've ever been to a karaoke bar, there's always that one white guy or girl who gets a kind of ironic kick out of doing a token rap song, the grin on his or her face shouting out, "Hey, I'm singing black people music and I'm not a black person." And it's cute, because this karaoke bar is a hole in the wall that only white people go to anyways. These people generally sing either "Baby Got Back" or "Ice Ice Baby." I've always been of the opinion that if you're going to go Vanilla Ice (wipe that smile off your face!) there's a better way to do it: "Ninja Rap." Instead of saying "Yo VIP, let's kick it," for example, I'm much more inclined to say, "Yo, it's the green machine, gonna rock the town without being seen. Have you ever seen a turtle get down?"

5. Wayne's World (1992)

 
Wayne's World is the occasion of the first time I ever really felt cool, like I was a part of something. The kids I went to school with never defined what was cool. The TV shows I watched kind of did. (I mean, come on, I watched the Ninja Turtles and Saved by the Bell - how does that not define cool?) In truth, it was the comedic interchanges between my Uncle Paul and my cousin Angie that first defined cool for me. They were always quoting some funny lines from Airplane or Naked Gun or Caddy Shack, and I would just bask in wonder. Their wit was sharp and fast, and they quoted some of those favorite lines non-stop. I wanted to be like that, and my first opportunity was with Wayne's World, which I saw in the theaters at least three times and continue to watch to this day. This was one of the first, and last, times I ever studied anything in my life, and the object of my study was Wayne's World. The result was magnificent, however: I attribute my relationship to my Uncle Paul to this movie, a man I consider not only one of my best friends of all time but also like a second father, the first person after my nuclear family that I want anyone I care about to meet, 1/2 of my concept of who and what a man ought to be. All I can say about that, and forgive me if I lapse into Mandarin, is: Zang!

6. Jurassic Park (1993)

 
When I was younger I was much better at writing novels. By that I mean that I get more than thirty pages into writing them before giving up on the idea. If I listed the names of some of my early novels, you might get an idea of what one of the most important movies in creating a Justin Tiemeyer was: Prehistoric Park, Cretaceous Park, Prehistoric Park, and Golden Gate Park (about a dinosaur park under the Golden Gate bridge). You guessed it, I was a really big fan of Tron. (PSYCH! I was really into Jurassic Park. DUH!)

7. American Beauty (1999)

 
Lester Burnham (played by Kevin Spacey) strongly prefigures the latter years of my high school experience when he begins to see life as a farce and simply starts treating life as a farce. It seems simple in writing, but in actuality it is radical - it is both incredibly sad and incredibly comedic. A short while later I would have a similar experience. School is aimed toward people who don't care and don't know anything. The woman I was infatuated with at the time had begun dating my best friend. The bottom seemed to have fallen off of reality and my guiding principles were falling apart, something which has happened at least two other times in my life. But like Lester Burnham, I felt a kind of freedom, a kind of second chance at life. I spoke out in classes, half as comedic disruptions, half as well-thought answers and comments on the topic at hand. My popularity began to sky-rocket, getting me elected to the court for two dances (but never king!), and out of that turmoil I found a bigger, stronger version of myself that, despite issues with depression, would turn into a juggernaut of self-confidence. I was an iconoclast and rebel who stuck by Lester Burnham's sarcastic words: "You don't get to tell me what to do ever again." He was speaking to his wife. I was speaking to the world.

8. The Shining (1980)

 
When I first saw The Shining, I encountered Jack Torrence, a father who wore the same kind of clothing as my own father, who had difficulties with alcohol and who ended up attempting to kill his entire family. I have to admit that Stanley Kubrick's presentation was so brilliantly strange, and yet close to home, that I was kind of frightened of my own father for a couple of weeks. The man who my mom had offered as assurance of security when I heard strange noises in the night was now the object of fright, of intense fright, of the killer you live with. I think the difference between my father and Jack Torrence, however, is that my father hasn't attempted to kill us all.

Yet.

9. American Psycho (2000)

I remember the occasion of my first viewing of American Psycho fairly vividly. We had a half day at high school for some reason. I went to the mall with some girls I knew (and made them hold my hand whenever we went into a clothing store). Afterward, Jared and I decided that we were going to see American Psycho up at Studio 28, a theater that was kind of far away but featured the only reel of American Psycho in the area. A girl named Lisa, a girl I would later date for three months, called us up and decided to tag along. I think if Lisa were to describe herself in high school she would probably say that she was sheltered. She once told me that the only reason she knew of any of the songs on Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band was because she dated me. If you know anything about American Psycho, you can see why I find this occasion fairly humorous. She's a sheltered girl from a hardcore Christian Reform family and the first scene we see when we arrive at the theater somewhat late is of a businessman killing a homeless person and his dog. You think that's funny? The two of us ended up watching Requiem for a Dream a couple weeks later in Jared's basement. Lisa is happily married now, which suggests to me that I did not, in fact, break her.

10. Mr T's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool (1984)

  
I couldn't talk about movies without talking about the wildly successful movie night that happened at the Tiemeyer household once a week involving my little brother, all his little friends, and his loser older brother (me). We would watch ridiculous movies from Chuck Norris's Forest Warrior (where he transforms from a bird to a ninja, mid-jump-kick) to Monster in the Closet. But the crowning jewel was Mr. T's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool, a movie Micah found on the free children's and instructional rack at Family Video. After sharing this movie often with one another, we went off into the world and shared it with others. I shared it with my calculus class senior year and it was such a success that it made its way into my Salutatorian's address at my graduation. 

11. Donnie Darko (2001)

I currently own three copies of the film Donnie Darko. The first is a VHS copy of the film that I bought before we witnessed the massive conversion to DVD. The second is a DVD copy of the film that I bought not because I thought VHS was on the way out, but because it included various bonuses. Most people forget that it is precisely bonus features, and not some human drive toward progress, that really sky-rocketed the DVD medium into mass use. The third is a DVD copy of the Director's Cut, possibly the most unique re-presentation of a film I have ever seen, focusing on the science fiction elements that were hinted at in the original, but also including a hilarious featurette on Donnie Darko's biggest fan. I still have use for all three copies, because Donnie Darko is one of the movies I am most inclined to loan out to friends. It is as if watching this movie is understood as a condition for understanding who I am. (For example, who I am is a fan of Tears for Fears, but this was not so until I watched this film, which features "Head Over Heels" and a cover of "Mad World.")

12. Purple Rain (1984)

Eye once tried 2 write a story where Jesus came back n the 1980s n he was essentially Prince, being very much like the Purple One and yet very Jesus at the same time. When eye became blocked on that story, eye decided 2 write a kind of Andy Kaufman story about a writer trying 2 get a story published n which Jesus comes back in the 1980s and is essentially Prince. Then eye just gave up on the whole thing and listened to some of the best music that has ever been made. It was probably the best decision eye could have made.

13. Dawn of the Dead

Last semester I went to see a movie in Fort Worth with a couple friends/colleagues of mine. The movie theater spanned multiple floors, the first consisting of a large parking garage and a couple smaller businesses, and the upper levels of the ticketing counters, the concession stands and the theaters themselves. I remember leaning over to my friend David and admiring with him how defensible this structure would be in the event of a zombie apocalypse. The garage could be armed with explosives and fire traps in the event that we'd need to clear the area and bolt, but this might be better done with ladders and ropes as other tall buildings were within climbing or swinging reach. A gigantic picture window overlooked the square, a picture that at this point in time was dominated by a muddy construction site. Between this and the area overlooking the escalator one could easily snipe zombies. Laughing over the choke points and strategies, I honestly think David and I became better friends.

14. There Will Be Blood (2007)

 
I'm finished.

Adam Friedli's Rewriting History

The other night while conversing with my good buddy Adam he kept referring to how he needed to focus on his project. Maybe I didn't listen to him properly, because I interpreted this to mean that he was working on an enormous programming assignment. The next day I noticed that his project had been posted to Facebook, some two hours after we spoke. The project was a series of pictures in which my little brother Micah can be seen wearing different sunglasses. There was something completely absurd and yet telling of the heights of human endeavor. I thought I'd share with you Adam Friedli's Rewriting History.

"This is Micah pretending to be a rear-view mirror. Those are real sunglasses, but he thought it looked better as a rear-view mirror." -AF

"Those kind of look like Morpheus sunglasses. Looking snazzy there kid." -AF

"Holy balls. Which balls? Beach balls of course. Who IS this guy?! Well, he’s Micah Paul Tiemeyer. Anything else claiming to be cool is just giving cool a bad name compared to this man. Except for Justin Tiemeyer. And Tom Mitsos. And Jamey Hungerford…and many other exceptions. But just because other cool things exist should not downplay the coolness embodied in this photo." -AF

"I’m pretty sure he got these when he was in Back to the Future Part II in Hill Valley circa 2015. In fact, he had just gotten out of the DeLorean. It’s over to the right, so unfortunately we can’t see it. Doc Brown was in a hurry to go pick up Marty from 2015 anyway." -AF

"These are from Hill Valley circa 1955 when he was in Back to the Future Part I. Why does it look like he is getting out of the DeLorean the exact same way as in the last picture you ask? Consistency. Uncompromisingly unyielding consistency. You can’t teach that, and you can’t learn that." -AF

"A wise man once said, 'NO ONE can pull this off!' He meant that anyone can pull off anything by just doing it. There is no magic “pull off” scale that grants people the power to do something. However, there is a whole lot of off being pulled right here. Inspiration incarnate." -AF

"These are orange sunglasses. They are sunglasses that contain an orange pigment. I’m not entirely sure of the story of these, but I think they have something to do with George Clinton knighting him for being a Master of Funk or something. Instead of a crown he got these sunglasses. That’s pretty Funkadelic." -AF

"These are his hypnotizing sunglasses. You best be watching yourself and your daughters when you see him wearing these. Otherwise he’ll…make everyone…do…the Safety Dance! Or he’ll just stare at you until you go away and celebrate yet another staring contest victory. You never know which one you might get." -AF

"When Micah is feeling truly victorious, he wears these. He just dropkicked a rabid polar bear not two seconds ago. He tried hypnotizing it and making it dance safely, but it rebelled and tried to drink his milkshake. It tried to drink it all up! Little did the bear know that this milkshake wasn’t his, but his lady friend’s. This despicably rude behavior earned the bear what it got. Then with his hands on his hips and looking proudly, he declared, “I’m finished!” and slowly applied his victory sunglasses to his victory face and gave his lady friend a magnificent victory kiss. Walking into the sunset, they both drank the milkshake. They drank it all up. This happened much later though since it’s clearly still in the middle of the day in the picture." -AF

"You remember the reference to beach balls? This has nothing to do with that, but now you are thinking about balls. But one time when he was wearing these sunglasses, Godzilla tried to attack this bridge. Micah wasn’t having any of that, so he looked right at the bridge stomper and turned Godzilla’s head into an exploding nuclear bomb. This is a very special ability, though, that is only reserved for every time he uses it." -AF