(Gentlemen of this Omega-Level circle: Before we count down to the inevitable ball-dropping that lies ahead of all our lives, let us first be resolved to kick off the new year the right way: by not letting the new year kick us down where it really counts, because when after all is said and done, and this beloved touchstone of yours truly is beheld and registered, we will assuredly have the drop on fate if we each hold dear to what is most true about ourselves.)

Every man has been there before: toppled over in anguish, made nauseous from a strange throbbing tinged by an existential crisis over his safety in this chaotic world. Left prostrate, the man can’t make any sense of it, his groans the primordial questions to the universe: Why does this have to hurt? Why do I have to suffer so much for something so absurd? And as the pain gradually fades away and the man tries to move on, the questions remain unanswered, the memory lodged in the back of his mind to feel out another day. It’s one of life’s greatest mysteries for mankind—getting hit in the nuts.

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Catching up on other swag that I enjoyed pre-NYCV is the Django Unchained trailer. Number two! Number two. There’s something unsettling about making a slave master so humorous, but I suppose it would not be Tarantino if he wasn’t surfing controversy.

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I cannot, cannot  fucking wait for Django Unchained. Here’s some new stills culled from the recently-screened footage and other new tidbits. Christmas is gon’ be bloody around the OL parts.

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I was pretty certain the overwrought gaudy nonsense of  Baz Luhrmann was going to miss the mark with an adaptation of The Great Gatsby, and this sleek bullshit disaster trailer has done nothing to dissuade me of this notion. I hate this trailer a million times over.

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Martin Scorsese is no stranger to gangster films populated by many dishonorable characters in seedy locations, scurrying around in the dark, power-playing for any (and all) loose change and on the even looser morality of their depraved circles. Starting with 1973’s Mean Streets and later reworking the turf in the 1990s with Goodfellas and Casino, Scorsese’s examinations into the gangster lifestyle have no doubt been artistically fruitful for him, as he has been better able–or, perhaps more appropriately, more willing–to show the brutal realities perpetuated by members of the underworld. And yet, in this place of double crosses and deceptions (all for the intention of looking out for number one), as outlandish as it seems, a certain code of “noble” behavior becomes hopelessly entangled in the proceedings: that, at the very least, disreputable people ought to have the common decency to live up to that reliable classification and not turn out to be backstabbers–rats–working against fellow low lives. It’s a fascinating quandary, both absurd and unsettling to behold, and it’s one that Scorsese brings to the forefront in his (only) Oscar-winning film The Departed.

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There is some super-news-rumor time today regarding the next Tarantino flick. While it was thought that Will Smith may be the male lead in the movie, new news has cropped up. It’s Jamie Foxx time! Oh shit. I was talked into liking Smith in the role, but I definitely love the idea of Foxx. Also and just as exciting is the report that DiCaprio is ‘definitely signed.’

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I love The Great Gatsby more than I love Watchmen, and the trainwreck that was that adaptation devastated me. This is only going to crush me worse. Not only does Baz Luhrmann suck, but he just upped his fucking blowitude to the next level. He’s filming The Great Gatsby in 3D.

Fuck.
Fucking.
Fucking shit.

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