Dear Santa,
During the course of this year I, Noah Cruickshank, have
been a very good boy. I apologize for never having written to you
before. Please do not think that my lack of my communication is at
all indicative of an absence of belief on my part. To the contrary,
I simply have lived by the philosophy: "waste not, want not". I
recognized then that you, Santa, did not want to be an agent of crass
materialism and thus I withheld writing for all those years so as not
to abuse your awesome generosity.
More to the point: where I sleep it is very dark. There
is acid and bile everywhere and it smells like fish. These are
inadequate quarters for one as dignified and goodly as I, Noah
Cruickshank. The walls quiver, the floor shakes, never a moment’s
peace, never even a brief respite. To clarify, I live in the
cavernous body of a whale.
And so I write to you, Mr. Nicholas, in order to request
a United States Navy nuclear submarine and several torpedoes. If you
deem me worthy of such a gift I would greatly appreciate it.

Forever Yours,
Noah Cruickshank

P.S. For the love of God, I’m being eaten alive!

the time of his smallness, and at some point during the eighth

year of his life he traveled, with his family, to the capital of

the United States. They saw many lovely and emotionally rousing

sites: the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the

Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Be it now said that the Bureau

of Engraving and Printing had ominous effect on neither Keith nor

his brother nor his mother nor his handsome father with the

bright toothed smile.

But it should have.

Keith and his family entered the Bureau, the four of them, in

the heat of midday and joined a long queue, which led to a

security checkpoint, much like the ones most of us have witnessed

at the airport. Keith, being young, naïve, eager, impatient,

eager and lovely in both feature and personality, decided to pass

the time by playing with his toys, in particular a doll by the

name of Fetch Armstrong. (Fetch Armstrong, for those of you who

are uncultured, knuckle-dragging heathens, is a small stretchable

dog doll.) Keith pulled and twisted his dog doll and easily

avoided the monotony of queue life. Hurrah.

When Protagonist Keith reached the front of the line he

slapped his toy, Fetch Armstrong, down on the x-ray machine’s

conveyor belt and strolled gallantly through the metal detector.

What a confident boy. Then Keith heard the words that would, for

an hour or so, change his eight-year-old life.

"Hey, Keith" Keith’s brother called with all the compassion he

could muster, "Fetch is dead! HA!"

And Fetch was dead. This was of immediate

consequence to Keith, in whose supple young eyes Fetch had ever

been alive. Perhaps, Fetch was now running around a stretchable

farm in elastic heaven, thought Keith through his tears. Perhaps,

Keith, perhaps. But the only concrete information anyone had at

the time was of Fetch Armstrong’s unfortunate body, which had

snapped and exploded, covering the insides of the x-ray machine

in thick, sticky goo. Security guards and queue members tried to

clean the goo out, scraping it away with credit cards, and wiping

it up with paper towels, but with little success. So the security

checkpoint was closed for the afternoon and terrorist after

terrorist, white, black, brown, yellow, tall, short, thin, fat,

man, boy, woman, girl walked into the Bureau of Engraving and

Printing without notice, thanking our young protagonist as they

passed. Thank you, Keith, thank you.

A Letter to Santa from Noah

Cruickshank

Dear Santa,

During the course of this year I, Noah Cruickshank, have been

a very good boy. I apologize for never having written to you

before. Please do not think that my lack of my communication is

at all indicative of an absence of belief on my part. To the

contrary, I simply have lived by the philosophy: "waste not, want

not". I recognized then that you, Santa, did not want to be an

agent of crass materialism and thus I withheld writing for all

those years so as not to abuse your awesome generosity.

More to the point: where I sleep it is very dark. There is

acid and bile everywhere and it smells like fish. These are

inadequate quarters for one as dignified and goodly as I, Noah

Cruickshank. The walls quiver, the floor shakes, never a moment’s

peace, never even a brief respite. To clarify, I live in the

cavernous body of a whale.

And so I write to you, Mr. Nicholas, in order to request a

United States Navy nuclear submarine and several torpedoes. If

you deem me worthy of such a gift I would greatly appreciate

it.

Forever Yours,

Noah Cruickshank

P.S. For the love of God, I’m being eaten alive

A theory of how this film came into being:

The scene is five executives, sitting in a meeting room, trying to come up with an idea for a movie that the audience "will really go gaga for".

"All right, we have Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt under contract. We’ve got the usual, enormous budget. Now all we need is a plot."

"Okay, so what’s worked for decades?"

"Romance, violence, and comedy."

Silence for about a minute and a half.

"I’m drawing a blank."

"Okay, so, Pitt and Jolie, they’re husband and wife. They’re both trained assassins. But they can’t tell each other, because their marriage is just a front and they’re sworn to secrecy. Imagine the high jinks."

"Zounds."

"Someone bring me the rolodex of soulless writers who need the money. Ah, here we go. Perfect. Simon Kindberg."

"What has he written?"

"Mmmm, says here, ‘xXx: State of the Union’ and ‘X-men 3′"

"Wow, he’ll probably be excited to be writing something that isn’t a sequel of a bad movie."

Another short period of silence.

"Excuse me."

"Yes?"

"Is it wrong that we just churn out the same nonsense every summer?"

"You’re new aren’t you?"

This theory is also supported by the fact that the executive producer, Erik Feig, also produced such fine films as I Know What You Did Last Summer, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (currently in production).

This is not to say that the movie does not bounce along enjoyably. It has laughs: Angelina Jolie’s pre-coital head butt. It has action: Brad Pitt pops out of a mini-van to crack a secret agent over the head with a nine-iron. Perhaps that would also go under the laugh category. It has a very distressed and disheveled Vince Vaughn. It has an always-sexy Angelina Jolie. All these things pass a two-hour period very nicely.

Most of the people involved do need to make money. This movie did employ one hundred and forty stunt men and women. It feels good to support Jimmy Ortega and Melissa R. Stubbs. They put their lives on the line so that I could pretend, for ten seconds, that Angelina Jolie really did slide across a rope, between two buildings, forty stories from the ground.

This film is worth a watch, if it happens to be on TV, and you have two hours to burn. The standard three-act formula feels familiar and comforting. It may be a little insulting, but you can numb yourself to that. Can’t you?

establishment and has himself a hard, plastic seat. He has a

white rose and a copy of The Way Things Work in his

hands. A middle-aged couple walks in, sees him, and moves to sit

across from him.

"Greetings, long lost son." Says the father.

"Hello, mother. Salutations, father. So you are my

biological parents that I am meeting for the first time in this

fine burger establishment."

"You are correct in that observation." Says the

mother.

"I am glad of it." Replies the son.

"That is my boy." Adds the father.

"Well, only in a strictly genetic sense, father." Says

the son to the father.

Magically, food appears in front of them.

"This burger is exquisite" says the son.

"I agree, the patty is juicy and the sesame seed buns

reflect the sunlight in more than oriental splendour." Says the

father.

"Now, now, unnamed biological father, do not quote

Rudyard Kipling at the dinner table." Cautions the

mother.

"Dinner table? This is not a dinner table! It is a

madhouse! A madhouse I tell you. A madhouse is what this table

is." Explains the son, in disgust.

"You are driving my emotions wild!" blathers the

mother.

"Truth be told, my emotions are being driven wild as

well." Agrees the father.

"Well, perhaps it is you who are driving and I who is

the emotional party." Retorts the son.

Ketchup and French fries fly through the air, reflecting the

chaotic nature of the encounter.

"This encounter is of a chaotic nature." Observes the

father.

"Agreed." Agree the son and mother in unison.

"There’s a finger in my hamburger!" exclaims the

father.

"Wahhhhhhhhhhhh! Indeed there is." Notes the

son.

"Well, I’ll be." concludes the mother.

Fin.

Let’s start nice and easy:

Revenge of the Nerds (1984) "All jocks ever think about is football. All nerds ever think about is sex."

This is not the story of two nerds, Louis Skolnick and Gilbert Lowell. No. This is the story of every nerd, every outcast, every dweeb, every goober, every spazoid, every dork-master in existence. This is the story of the oppression of all of nerdkind. Before Bill Gates made it cool not to shower, nerds had to struggle to be accepted. In this particular movie the battlefield is Adam’s College.

An invading jock hoard, which accidentally destroyed their former house, kicks the freshmen nerds out of their dorms. The nerds are forced to sleep in the gym. Led by Louis and Gilbert the nerds seek out new residence, and, eventually, official status as a fraternity. The jocks try to pound them into a fine dweeby pulp every step of the way.

This is an excellent movie to begin the genre with because the lines that are drawn are so clear. On one side we have the jocks: they are the kings of the school; they run the Greek council; they have all the hot girls; they’re boorish, aggressive, and intolerant. On the other side we have the nerds: they’re the outcasts; they have only their computers to keep them warm; they have no luck with the girls; they’re intelligent, awkward and oversexed. It is readily observed, throughout the entire movie, that despite the nerds’ somewhat devious activities they represent the side of good and justice. The forces of evil trample upon the nerds. Americans love the underdog.

On the subject of nerds, cheerleaders and jocks:

Can’t Buy Me Love (1987) "Cards with the ‘tards. Who could beat a night cards, chips, dips and dorks?"

Again, we have a social hierarchy. Again, in that lovely teen movie way, the social order is spelled out clearly. But this time it’s not just the nerds and the jocks. In High School, the setting is far more intimate. The groupings are different. There are the Populars, and the Unpopulars. Of course, the Populars are made up of jocks and cheerleaders, but the Unpopulars are not necessarily intelligent; they’re just socially awkward. As one can imagine the crazy caste system shuffle-up takes place when one of the Unpopulars, Ronald Miller, acquires a large sum of money. He puts his dream of owning a high-powered telescope aside and propositions a Popular cheerleader, Cindy Mancini, to pretend to be his girlfriend. Why does he do this? In order to attain status as one of the Populars, of course.

This masterpiece is one of the first to have a scene where glasses removal and a brief hair tussle is all that is necessary to make an Unpopular attractive (mimicked in She’s All That [A similar movie with a female protagonist]).

The best part of this movie is that you realize by the end that despite the fact that both Mancini and Miller learn a lot through their interactions it is money that ultimately helps Miller win love. Love is not used in its typical sense, meaning the romantic love shared between two consenting adults, but rather this is a love that means the admiration of one’s peers. In other words: popularity. Perhaps, the naming our faithful protagonist, Miller, is no mistake. A parallel can be drawn between the protagonist in this film and Arthur Miller’s character, Willy, in Death of a Salesman. All Willy ever wanted was to be well liked. All Miller ever wanted was to be one of the Populars.

Sometimes it’s not about popularity; sometimes it’s just about a girl:

Whatever it Takes (2000) "It’s supposed to be Ryan gets pickle into Ashley. Not Ashley gets Ryan into a pickle."

This Cyrano de Bergerac perversion is one of the more subtle teen movies. The two contending groups are not really Popular and Unpopular or Jock and Nerd. They could be classified as the attractive and the attractive-but-odd. In this film, Ryan Woodman helps Chris Campbell "get with" his very attractive best friend, Maggie Carter, in exchange for his help with a popular girl named Ashley Grant. Obviously the moral of the story is "be careful what you wish for, Ryan Woodman."

This film has the best scene in all of teen movie history: the main character dancing about in a cowboy hat and boxers, playing "Play that Funky Music, White Boy" on his accordion. I am sorry Tom Cruise; we’ll go to the disco without you.

Unlike other teen movies where the less attractive protagonist attains a desirable attractive mate (Can’t Buy Me Love, She’s All That, Revenge of the Nerds) the protagonist in this film realizes that his true love was in his own nerdy little clique all along, that the poker table is where his real friends are, and that for the love of God, Marla Sokoloff is effing hot!

On occasion, the real world touches a teen’s life and we forget about the nerds and the jocks:

Risky Business (1983) "I don’t believe this! I’ve got a trig midterm tomorrow, and I’m being chased by Guido the killer pimp!"

Here is another tale of a boy and his whorehouse. This is that movie with the famous scene involving Tom Cruise, lip-synching, with no pants, and a sports trophy. Joel Goodsen (Good Son) has the house to himself. His parents have left for a long vacation and he can do whatever he wants, which eventually includes hiring a whore named Lana.

Interestingly, in this movie, Joel’s high school does not have any clear caste system. He has a small clique of friends and he is perfectly content in his social standing. He’s not a football player; he’s not a computer geek; and he’s comfortable playing poker on the weekends. But Joel is just a little bit hormonal, a little bit of an entrepreneur, and it gets him into quite a lot of trouble.

The story is a perfect example of why teen movies are often about clear-cut circumstances. Risky Business tells us that stepping out of your protective, black and white teen world can be dangerous. You can bump into all sorts of ills and sins if you let your desires run wild. Then again, as Joel concludes, you might not mind what you see. (Especially if what you see is a naked Rebecca de Mornay)

This is obviously a very brief list of movies from an expansive genre. One should not forget the other fine works of this category such as The Breakfast Club, The Heathers, Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Can’t Hardly Wait etc. Wait a moment, I think I smell a nerd in the distance-a swirlie is in order! What do you say my football-playing chums? To the restroom?

"It reminds me of mother’s house." he had told Dr. Forthright a half hour ago, "Mother always was a magnificent cook."

Two pairs of boots ground slowly through Mrs. Bennington’s Beef Stew Surprise.  Two pairs of boots held shaking feet and quivering toes. Two pairs of boots kept two pairs of legs from taking flight out the small cave mouth and across the loud sea.

Two sets of upset and twisted innards.

The Doctor fell to his knees, making a loud squish in the thick, green muck.  The torchlight swept down after him.

"Here!" the Doctor peered closer with wide, white eyes, then turned his head, lowered his ear into it, and said in a low whisper "Right here, Bennington, hand me the torch and take up your pick."

The sound of iron against rock rang through the long jagged tunnel. The muck splashed, drenching them to their waists.  "Faster" growled the Doctor.  Mr. Bennington roared and struck harder.  Chips of rock began to fly, nicking their knees and breaking their skin, especially Dr. Forthright’s soft, tender flesh.

With two more clanking blows they fell through the cave floor and into the earth.  All around them there was fire, below them a wide gaping mouth.  The fire’s wind took them round and round.

"What-this!" screamed Bennington as he fell, half his words garbled by the roar of the inferno.
"This-it" the Doctor’s eyes were aglow with the flames’ reflection.
"You-what-why-sonofabitch!" Bennington wailed as their paper doll bodies spun and plummeted.
"Down-go-forever!"
"I-family-children-belligerent-thirty-five years!"
"Faithful-always!"
"Why-Why-Why" Bennington started to cry.
"Thank-all-work"
"I-live-want-die"

The beasts’ teeth snapped shut above them.

The look and feel is fairly true to the radio show’s description. The CG is not overdone as it is in most science-fiction movies these days. For example, I appreciated that the Vogons were large Jim-Henson-type creatures as opposed to computer graphics constructions. The guide’s stylized animation is a bit off putting at first, but it eventually grows on you. Despite the director’s limited experience, the movie does look good and flows well. Some of the scenes like the setting of the suns of Magrathea, and Slartibartfast’s tour of the new Earth under construction are beautifully done.

The acting is, on the whole, well done. Allow me to assuage your fears; Mos Def is an excellent Ford Prefect. The other American actors leave something to be desired. Sam Rockwell [Zaphod Beeblebrox] presents an unsettling imitation of George W. Bush. Zooey Deschanel [Trillian] does a decent job, but comes off as far more sentimental than the Radio Show’s Trillian (though that may be the script’s fault and not hers). From the other and more accurate side of the Atlantic Alan Rickmann does an excellent job as the voice of Marvin. His dry, depressed monotone makes up for the Marvin’s odd, cartoonish robot body. Martin Freeman is a satisfactorily nervous and awkward Arthur Dent. Finally, but not completely, Bill Nighy is a wonderful bumbling, old Slartibartfast.

One of the more promising aspects of the movie is that Adam Douglas himself wrote the script. And he does offer up a fairly good abridged version of the first book; though a few great lines are missing, most of them are there. Unfortunately, Hollywood, his co-writer, or his own ill-conceived ideas led to a few poor content decisions. For some reason the script adds romantic dialogue between Arthur in Trillian. In the book and in the Radio Series the possibility of a romance between the two remains comically pathetic, but in the movie it seems that their love is one of the central foci of the story. The relationship adds a whole new dimension of meaning, something present neither in the "Trilogy" nor the radio show. It stuffs this message down your throat: everyone is out there trying to become rich and famous, but the only pure and true pursuit is love. The Radio Show’s absurd nihilistic view of the Universe – where most crises are met with apathy, where people you care about pop in and out, where the laws of an ordered reality are most probably wrong – is one of the things that made the story great. To change this is completely unnecessary. My hope is that if they make a sequel, which I hope they do, they will steer away from this. I like the mindless goodtime, self-serving attitude from which the storyline was originally wrought

Despite all this, the movie is still worth seeing, especially for the less anal fans of the book. Just take a cue from your younger years and close your eyes and cover your ears for all the romantic parts.

Official Movie Website:

http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/

Once home I dropped immediately to bed. I
slithered under my comforter and, clutching the edge, drew its
deafening thickness over my head. I was alone, warm, congested,
and in the dark. There was nothing but my bed beneath, my cover
above, and my individual throbbing heart sandwiched in between. I
swallowed and snorted.

Even in the darkness I could see them. I
could see the blinking red eyes. They roamed around the invisible
creases, floating in and out of the hills and valleys of every
fold. They danced and observed me gleefully. A number of them ran
down in a stream along my throat. Then these luminescent spots
flew up into my nostrils and began swimming in the thick, viscous
core of my nasal passage. They spun and circled above me like
vultures, watching me, waiting for me to crumble, showing me that
they were alive in beats of light.

I could not survive. I would give myself
away. There were fifty-three treasonous muscles in my face alone,
twitching and squirming, ready to subvert me. They would see it;
they would study me; they would record the nostrils flares, brow
furrows, unusual eye movement, fits of blinking, reddening of
cheeks, twisting of lips, dilating of my thick black pupils,
sweating from every pour of my terrified quivering face in the
cool, well filtered air that surrounds my work station.

I tugged the blanket down a bit and peered
about. I carefully withdrew a tissue from the box on my bedside
table and blew hard. That was it; I could not live like this any
longer. I pulled the comforter aside and climbed out of bed. I
walked over to my closet, reached around on the shelf and found
my red toolbox. I went to my front door and set it down. I then
turned and returned to bed. I slipped under the covers, took
another tissue to my nose, and proceeded not to sleep.

The streetlight made their features glow. They were five in number, men and women, in dark, blue, black and gray suits. Four of them sat on swings pumping their legs and their bodies as they swung forward and then receded again. The whole apparatus creaked under their shifting weight. The fifth one leaned against the monkey bars, sipping on a cigarette. He was an old man with cheeks dressed in folds of dead skin. The swinging four were mostly middle-aged people, their hair cut and well-combed. They smiled and smiled and smiled.

We stood before them, Kenneth Kilian and I, two clean-shaven men in sport coats, ties, steam pressed shirts and slacks. I watched my exhaled breath crystallize before me, and glanced nervously at Kenneth who was grinning at them and taking sips of the burgundy colored drink in his hand. My lips parted.

“Um, I—”

Immediately one of the swinging four hopped from her place and landed gracefully in the sand in a kneeling position, despite the constraints of her skirt and heels. She stood and waved her hand in front of my face, “No, no. It doesn’t matter.” The remaining swingers laughed. She turned her head to smile at them and kept on smiling as she looked back at me. “You and Mister Kilian are the remaining applicants. Only a few more trials, gentlemen, and then we’re going decide which one of you is fit to replace Mister Quentin.” The fifth one, Mister Quentin, glanced at us briefly, tilted his head back, and tucked his cigarette neatly between his lips for another sip.

She took a step back, and clapped her hands, “Alright, Mister Driscoll? Alright, Mister Kilian?”

“Alright” I said, puffing myself up and rubbing my hands together.

Kenneth swallowed some of his drink. “Oh, yes, yes, of course,” he said in a charming tone. Kenneth had that false sensation keeping his body warm.

She turned around and unclasped her hands, “Okay everybody, to the car! Let’s go. Let’s go.” The swingers slipped out of their seats as they swung forward in unison and the four of them jogged over to the car. Mister Quentin dropped his cigarette and kicked some sand over it. Then he took up the rear as Kenneth and I walked toward the car.

By the time we reached the edge of the sidewalk, they had found their seats in the small, black four-door car. One door was left ajar. There was one seat left in the back. Mister Quentin slipped between us, “This one’s for me, boys.” he said as he took the seat.

“Should we call a cab?” I suggested.

The man sitting in the passenger seat turned and smiled at us, “No, of course not; you’ll ride in the trunk.”

I was waiting for someone to laugh. Nobody laughed. Kenneth eagerly got into the trunk and took another sip of his drink. “Really? In there?” I asked, gesturing.

Mister Quentin closed his door. I took the hint and turned toward the rear of the car. I looked at Kenneth. Kenneth looked back at me with an expression of innocence mixed with nonchalance. Awkwardly, I climbed in next to him. It smelled like cologne (Kenneth’s, I assumed) and wet dust. He reached over me and drew the trunk door down until it shut.

It was a dark and bumpy ride. Hot too. I was sweating.

“This is strange.” I whispered.

“Sure,” said Kenneth as he lifted his head, hitting our plastic ceiling with a muffled thud. I could hear his drink squish in his throat. It wasn’t worth talking to him.

My consciousness had nearly given in to the heat and the lack of air when the trunk door finally opened. I rolled out of the car and dropped to the ground. Kenneth sat up, grasped the side of the car and stepped out over me. I stood up; we were in a parking lot. Mister Quentin held out a blindfold to each of us. “Put these on, boys.”

Kenneth set his drink down on the black cement and tied his blindfold firmly behind his head. I took my cloth and hesitantly brought it to my eyes. I tied it slowly. “This way, gentlemen,” said one of them cheerfully. We followed the sound of two hundred dollar Italian leather shoes. Kenneth struck up a conversation with a female voice about his fiancée, and they began swapping stories about their significant others: this little annoyance, that little endearing trait, and so on. How could Kenneth be so at ease walking through the dark? I wanted to know where the hell we were going.

At some point during our blind march we entered a building. I heard a door creak and guessed that we were being led into a room. They seated us in chairs and took our blindfolds off. We were sitting at one long table, Kenneth at one end and myself at the other. The five of them were lined up along one side of the table. We both had an exam booklet and a pencil in front of us. The room had purple walls, but was otherwise bare. One of them stepped forward, laying his hands on the table “Twenty minutes, gentlemen. Ready? Open to the first page and begin.”

Kenneth loosened his tie, flipped to the first page and slumped back in his chair. The test was a fairly standard set of financial questions, basic mathematics, and some legal procedures. One of them called “Time!” and ripped the exams out from under our pencils. Obviously, we were not meant to finish. Kenneth was still sipping at his drink. How could anyone drink so slowly?

“Blindfolds on again, gentlemen.” We put our blindfolds back on, and, as I was helped to my feet, I could have sworn I heard the sound of packets of paper being dumped into a tin trash bin.

The creak of the door signaled our exit. We were walking down a hall, I imagined. My mind decorated the hall with shaded lights at regular intervals, medium sized paintings of landscapes, and office doors with the occupant’s name written across their faces. I heard a door opened and I was pushed through. The door was closed and, from what I could tell by the clicking noises I heard, locked behind me. It smelled like cat hair in this room.

“What?” I inquired allowed.

“Nothing to worry about, I’m sure.” replied Kenneth. From the echo of our voices I got the sense that this was a very large room. A low growl emanated from a place ten or fifteen feet in front of me.

“Take off your blindfolds, gentlemen,” said an electrically amplified voice. I tugged my blindfold off happily and saw that I was in a large empty room, with a very high ceiling. In the wall in front of me, about fifteen feet off the ground there was a wide window, behind which stood the five of them. One of them was holding a microphone. Where had that growl come from?

The one holding the microphone lowered his head to speak, “For the past three days we have held, in captivity, a female lion, or lioness, without feeding her. In a moment, a door in the wall before you will automatically slide open and she will enter the room. Your objective is to kill her before she kills you. Good luck.”

“What?” I said again, this time more distressed than confused.

“Sounds pretty clear to me,” replied Kenneth. He set his drink down, took off his sport coat and tossed the coat away from him. The door in the wall unceremoniously slid open and the lioness stepped out. I did not move. She looked back and forth between us. I started having palpitations. I could see the drool collect by her lip, and roll down her chin. My eyes began to water as she paced in an arc, examining us.

Kenneth bent at the waist to pick up his drink. As soon as he moved, a yellow mass rushed towards Kenneth and leapt at him, paws splayed. A “Whoops!” escaped Kenneth’s mouth as he fell under her weight and momentum. Quickly, I ran for the door. I tugged futilely at the unmoving handled. I let go and turned to look up at the five of them. Nothing but blank expressions. Regretfully, I turned to the human-feline mess on the floor. I reached into the inside pocket of my sport coat and pulled out a blue ballpoin
t pen.

I sprung forward.

In mid air I tore the cap off with my teeth. I came down on her like a bird of prey and drove the pen’s metallic point through the fur of her neck. Her body tightened beneath mine and her throat thundered with pain. I drove the pen in farther. She pushed a paw against the ground, tossed her head back and swung her weight back and forth. I thrust my knee into her flank; I think I broke one of her ribs. She struggled a bit more and then yielded and collapsed. I lay on top of her, again unable to move for the moment, trying to breathe.

Kenneth slid out from under us; a portion of his shoulder was missing. Missing? That is to say, it was now inside the dead lioness. I hoped she was dead, for her sake. I rolled off of her, covered in splotches of ink and blood and bits of yellow hair. I think I swallowed my pen cap.

I looked to the window; they were gone. I looked over at Kenneth who made a lethargic motion with his hand and said, “Yeah, thanks there.” He took another sip of his drink, which had miraculously not fallen over in the struggle. The door we came in unlocked and opened and the five of them walked in. Mister Quentin held a fresh pair of blindfolds. He stepped forward “Now, boys—”

“No! No more blindfolds.” I muttered and lifted my arm to point at them, “You’re not right. No more. I want out!”

“Now don’t judge, Mister Driscoll. Different people have different methods. There’s only one more test, anyhow.” Mister Quentin explained.

“I’m game,” said Kenneth. He stood up, still bleeding from his shoulder. Clenching his teeth, he lifted his sport coat, set down his drink, put on the sport coat and picked up his drink again. One of them stepped behind him and tied his blindfold for him, “Why, thank you,” Kenneth said pleasantly.

With trembling hands I took a blindfold from Mister Quentin and covered my eyes with it. Someone took me by the arm this time, and led me out of the room, into what I assumed was the hallway again, and then we stopped. A bell chimed three times, and I heard a door move open. We stepped forward; there were many bodies around me; the floor began to move upwards. The bell continued chiming until the floor stopped moving. Then the door moved open again. We continued walking, I heard another door open and we finally stopped inside a room. “Gentlemen, you can take your blindfolds off now.”

I took mine off with relief and peered around the room. There was only a desk with a large, black leather chair, the same five people in their suits, Kenneth, a tall, thin floor lamp, and a potted plant. Behind the chair was a rectangular window with a view of the city.

Mister Quentin walked behind the desk, opened a drawer and drew out a postcard. He set the postcard on the desk and looked up at us, “Step forward, gentlemen, and tell me what you see.”

Kenneth stepped forward, finished the last of his drink and set his glass down. He looked at the post card, picked it up, turned it over and set it back down, “Appears to be a postcard, with a painting on it by Vincent van Gogh, according to the text here, called um, Portrait of Dr. Gachet. There’s a man (presumably Dr. Gachet), some flowers, two books, and a table.” Kenneth smiled vaguely and stepped back.

I sighed and stepped forward. “Well, what I see is a man, who, by the droop in his eyes and his overall posture (with one cheek resting on his hand there), looks overwhelmed, tired and melancholy. The green highlights in his face denote a possible illness, perhaps of the mind since they only appear on his head. The books on the table show that he is a man of learning—combined with the flowers, probably a man of science. He’s probably a doctor of some sort of science, medicinal or otherwise. Coming to the background, the dark waves of blue also hint at some sort of unhappiness, and in light of the books and flowers, perhaps the unhappiness comes from his job, whatever that may be.” Pleased with myself, I smiled and stepped back.

Mister Quentin stepped forward and placed a liver-spotted hand on my shoulder, “Well, Mister Driscoll, that was some of the most well-constructed bullshit I have heard in a long time. But it was still bullshit. We have no room for any of that here.” My whole face dropped. He walked passed me to Kenneth. “Mister Kilian, the job is yours! Welcome to your new office. They’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.” They shook hands and Mister Kilian grinned broadly. One of them pulled out a bottle of brandy. Mister Kilian lifted his glass appreciatively. “Fill me up!” he said.

Mister Quentin put a hand on my back and led me toward the door. “Come on, son, let’s go.” The remaining four swarmed around Mister Kilian and began chattering with him. We left the office behind and walked to the elevator. I glanced gloomily at Mister Quentin as he listened to the bell chime, “What about the blindfold? Isn’t this place supposed to be a secret?” I asked.

The doors slid open, we stepped into the elevator, the doors slid close and we began to sink, “Oh, no, son, nothing really secret. This is just an office building. We were having a little fun. That’s all. No real reason for it.” The elevator stopped, the door slid open, and we walked out and down the corridor. I was silent until we were outside.

“Now what happens to you?” I asked.

“Now, I retire. Now I go home. I guess I read, maybe watch some television. Wait to die.” He said this last bit with a smile, as if it pleased him to be so candidly morbid.

“Oh,” I thought for a moment, “Most of this wasn’t at all necessary. It was just for your entertainment, wasn’t it?”

“That’s about right. Then again, most things amount to being just for your entertainment. It’s all superficial at this point.” He replied blandly.

“I don’t think that’s true”

“Hmmm. You know what, son? There’s nothing here for you, not anymore anyhow. Why don’t you try in another town?”

“I guess I’ll do that.”

“Yeah, you do that. Well, goodnight.” He waved and turned.

“Yeah, goodnight.” I turned and walked away from him. I walked through the parking lot, and down the sidewalk. I sat down in a bus shelter and waited for my transport to arrive.

Then it all comes together. This film is to be taken as a story told by a child. The biggest hint that this is the case is the appearance of a small boy in traditional German garb who gives Zissou a small crayon pony fish at the beginning of the movie and rides on his shoulders at the end. The boy emphasizes the desire for adventure and fascination with discovery that runs as a theme throughout the entire movie. During the course of the movie the viewer comes across fanciful species after fanciful species made real through the use of stop-motion animation by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993; James and the Giant Peach, 1996) and his crew.

Wes Anderson�s movies often have a childish quality to them; Rushmore is about a precocious youth dealing with adults and The Royal Tenenbaums strives to convey the feeling of a child�s storybook through use of unusual slightly unreal characters, simple episodic circumstances, and (most overtly) scene shifts presented within the first page of a new chapter in an illustrated book. Wes Anderson is like Roald Dahl, but American, and he produces movies instead of books.

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