Film Analysis

Raising Arizona (1987)

Ordinary World
H.I. Mcdunnough is a criminal. His specialty? Holding up gas stations. H.I. isn't' a very good criminal, and thus spends a lot of time in and out of jail. Each time, he is processed by the beautiful Edwina, a cop whom he falls for. H.I. proposes to Edwina upon exiting prison (for the third or fourth time) and they begin their life together as a married couple.
Call to Adventure
Edwina desperately wants for she and H.I. to have a baby. But, after months of trying, she finally discovers that she is barren, and unable to have children. Shattered, and unable to adopt because of H.I.'s criminal past, she and H.I. all but give up hope on their dream of having a family of their own. Until, that is, they hear of the Arizona Five, the recently-born quintuplets of wealthy furniture store owner Nathan Arizona, and his wife Florence. Hearing on tv that the wealthy couple have 'more than they can handle', Edwina tells H.I. he needs to steal one of the babies from them, to raise as their own.
Refusal of the Call
At first H.I. is reluctant to do as his wife says. He fears he might be caught, and worries that the Arizona couple might miss their baby.
Meeting with the Mentor
H.I. finds a mentor in his wife, whose continued threats and exclamations finally convince him to steal a baby from the wealthy couple.
Crossing the Threshold
H.I. finally crosses the threshold when he sneaks into the Arizona's house, almost getting caught in the process, and, after mixing up the babies by mistake, steals the one he dubs to be 'Nathan Jr.', after the boys father. It takes a huge amount of personal courage and goading from his wife to get him to this point.
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Once the Mcdunnoughs finally get their new baby home, they are beset by obstacles and trials, taking many forms. One form is that of H.I.'s old prison buddies, who, having just escaped from jail, show up at the Mcdunnoughs house asking for shelter. While there they attempt to convince H.I. to come back to a life of crime. They also discover the identity of the Mcdunnoughs new baby, and attempt to steal him from them, to turn him in for the reward money. During this period H.I. faces many internal struggles, questioning everything from his criminal nature to his worth as a husband and a father. He also has a dream, which turns out to be a vision, of a bounty hunter who rides a motorcycle, looking like a beast from hell, who approaches on a trail of fire to destroy H.I. and cash in on the reward for Nathan Jr.
Approach
During this period, H.I. must reconcile with both himself and his wife, as well as rescue Nathan Jr. from his own prison buddies, who have stolen him and are taking him with them on their series of bank robberies.
Ordeal
H.I. faces his nightmare, the hellish bounty hunter, in a battle not only for possession of Nathan Jr., but also for his life, and the life of his wife. H.I. eventually prevails, destroying the monstrous man with one of his own grenades.
The Road Back
H.I. and Edwina journey begin the journey back to their house, but realize slowly that, maybe, their decision to take the child might not have been a good one.
Resurrection/Return with Elixer
The Mcdunnoughs decide to return the child to it's father, and in doing so, find themselves face to face with the man from whom they stole the child in the first place. They expect harsh retribution, but instead find understand and forgiveness. Taken aback, they leave the child in its fathers hands, their faith and love for each other restored.

Dani California- Red Hot Chili Peppers

 Reginald Hunter is in way over his head. He's fallen in love with Dani, whose badass, devil-may-care attitude completely clashes with his timid, introverted self. When Reginald becomes mixed up in a bank robbery Dani commits, he is forced to follow her on a run from the cops, along the way participating in one of the longest crime sprees in the history of the united states. But Reginald sees only bad endings and shallow graves in Dani's future. Can he convince her to turn her life around before it's too late?

Dashboard- Modest Mouse

 Alex Freeman is in one hell of a fix. In order to pay off his massive gambling debts, he borrowed from the notorious Kenny "Two Shot" Reed, the scummiest loan shark in the Las Vegas area. But Alex was unable to pay Kenny back in time, so now he's got to book it out of town as fast as his the highways will take him, and pray to god his beat up Mustang doesn't break down on him.  One thing he knows: the dashboard may melt, but hell, he's still got the radio. 

Like a Stone- Audioslave

 He barely remembers how long he's been in this dump. This beat down, dead end, backwater town. She told him to wait for her here, that she'd be back in a month. 

That was a year ago. Now, mostly, he waits in his shack of a house, under a highway, patiently awaiting her return. 

 

Found Poetry

The ideas, the thoughts.
To him, they are more real than everything else.
To write is to embrace them
To send what we intended out into exile
And collect the letters written, into something true.
And whatever comes out of the basement of our minds
From that collection of random thoughts
Will lead us to something else entirely
And out of that family of letters
He writes his own story

Extra Five: an excerpt from a story I wrote.

The beast shuffled forward. leaning down to sniff the body of the fallen beast. Suddenly, his head jerked upward, and he let out a sharp hiss. Then he suddenly jolted forward, faster than anything the beasts had done before. Crow sidestepped, barely avoiding an outreaching claw, then swung his sword, lopping off an arm before swiftly spinning around to decapitate the thing. It’s body fell, and there was silence from the group. 

Behind him, Crow could still hear the sounds of the battle between the steel man and the people-beasts. Then, the crowd of beasts all rushed forward, hissing and clawing and mashing their teeth. 

For a split second, Crow hesitated. He couldn’t back up further, or he would get dangerously close to the group behind him. The only thing to do was push forward. So forward he pushed, furiously beginning to hack at the beasts around him. 

He faltered at first, quailing at so much bloodshed. But then something inside him took over. The same thing that had told him his name, or the name of his sword. He moved with deftness and grace, hacking away at the crowd of slavering monsters before him, trying to cut himself a path through and escape. He could feel the power of whatever lay inside him, letting him guide his blade strokes easily through the sea of bleeding, writhing limbs, sometimes cutting off the heads of multiple beasts at a time. 

But, whatever power he held was unrefined, for he soon began to take injuries. First a slash on his arm, which he ignored, then a stab in the shoulder, which made him falter. He slashed off the tail of one beast, then planted a foot on it’s back and shoved it forward, making a path through the crowd. He sprinted through, taking more cuts and slashing at everything that moved. With one final shove, he burst forth from the mass, only to stumble on the twitching corpse of a beast he had just downed. He landed heavily, then turned over, slashing with his blade to fend the writhing creatures off. 

Desperation filled him, as one of them slashed his left leg, and he cried out, knowing now that escape was unlikely. Just as he was about to give up, just as he realized that this was the end, he heard another sound. A sound that cut through the air, that pierced the hissing and screeching of the creatures. A voice. A human voice.

It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. 

...Anyways.

I find it hard to think today. My feet are too large, and my socks not enough. The headphones, usually so efficient in piping in raw inspiration, are clasped too tightly to my ears.

But anyways. 

My fingers continue to tap uselessly at the keyboard, attempting in their dull scratching to carve away the useless, pulpy excess of thought that surrounds me.

My thoughts are like gelatin, they fill up the space I float through.

And I slowly, slowly drown.

Lungs choking on excess aether, I crawl onward.

Like some small, withered creature in some deep, lightless undersea cave, whose very breath is the only form of propulsion he has. He has never known color, never known sound. The only light he knows is the luminescence of the predators hell-bent on swallowing him whole.

But anyways.

I was told to choose one word for this assignment. Choose one word, just one. 

"Well, then what?" says I.

"Well, then you write about it", says Nelson.

Writing? About words? Seriously. 

Look at it this way. Ask an artist, a painter, to paint about a color, and see how quickly he turns his chosen instrument of self expression upon you in a dazzling display of violence.

Ahem.

But anyways.

Perhaps I'm over thinking this. Words are simply words, after all. No one has ever done anything especially important or empowering with them.  No one has ever changed lives with words. They're nothing special. In fact, the simple actuality that the only possible way I could communicate the idea that words are nothing special to you is through words is proof that they are inconsequential. 

Oh wait. 

No, that pretty much makes them a big fucking deal. 

But, anyways. Nelson, this is impossible. How could I possibly take a single word, and the soul, the sole meaning behind a word, and incorporate it into an overarching theme of a single body of text of any varying length? Gods above, it's just not a task humans are able to accomplish.

But anyways.

Rock Out

You have just been given a direct order.
You know the drill.

Rock out like like your limbs are failing.. Like you got your friends, four controllers, and eighteen levels of nothin' but headshots.

 Like the colors you see are all that you want and need

Rock out like your mind has just been blown, and you have neither the time nor the patience to pick all the pieces off the wall behind you, so you fill that gaping void with as much soul as you can muster.

Rock out like you're in the middle of nowhere, and you've got enough decibel-powered ordnance to signal the coming apocalypse, but you don't care because God made the universe just so you could get through this next solo.
Rock out like Odin himself just came down from Valhalla, handed you a shield and a sword and told you to go kill some mutha ****in' frost giants.

Rock out like everyone else said rock was dead, but you know that legends never die, so rock out like Rock is just really, really hung over from last night's gig.
Rock out like you invented it, like Death himself is standing next you, tapping his watch. Rock out  like you're Jimmy, both Page and Hendrix, and you can't breathe unless you got a guitar in your twitching fingers.

Rock out like you see that girl. Then you see her boyfriend next to her. Like they're arguing. Like you see him lose his dumbass temper, and shove her to the ground. And, in that single, incandescent moment, as all the devils in your hands rub their newly awakened eyes, and every Rage Against the Machine song you've ever heard starts playing in your head, you lash out in glorious, blinding fury, and the avenging angel whistles in admiration.

Rock out like that ink under your skin means something.
Like you got a girl, a car,  a thousand dollars, and the weight of the world to push off your shoulders.
Like you don't have a girl, or a car, but dammit you still got the thousand, and twenty four hours to find either, or both.

Rock out like the love of your life has an hour, twelve minutes and thirty-five seconds to live, and nothing you do in your life after that time will mean as much.

Rock out like Heaven's dead, so you're gonna stand on it's grave and dance to it's favorite song.

Rock out like you are a steam powered, ironclad machine, constructed from the broken pieces of every dream you ever had, and you've got only open skies and falling ash to fly through.

Rock out like everyone you know is with you, and everyone else is dead set against.
But YOU DON'T CARE.

Because you've got headphones, pounding with the voices of those who came before, and you've got a heart, pouring out hope for those who will come after.
You know you're not a god.
But rock out like you are.

Life, and/or death.

Death is an ending.

Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, there's no getting past it. You die. Your life ends. All of the things that you accomplish in your life will cease to  matter to you. You decompose, rot away, and eventually, as your subsequent generations also eventually die out, the tenuous influence you still held on the universe will crumble and fade away. No matter how famous you eventually became, the human race will eventually move on, and forget entirely about you.

So. If this is the case, why does anything matter?

It's a tough question to ask. The truth is, in a cosmic sense, nothing matters. Everything will end, all sentient thought will eventually cease. All signs that any of us were ever here will disappear. And humans, as a species, when we inevitably kill ourselves off, will not be missed. Not by the planet we abused and overused, not by the species' we hunted to the brink of extinction. Not by anyone.

Like I said. It's a tough question to ask. It's an even harder answer to hear.

So, what's the point of living, if we will eventually die? 

Well, the key to understanding this is to not worry about the cosmic sense of things. 

That's it.  Simply not care. Yes, you will die. Yes, it will probably hurt. No, no one will miss you. So.

Now that that's out of the way, go live your life. You are free, completely and totally. Free in the knowledge that, no matter what you do while you live, you will be eventually freed of the burdens of care, of memory, of guilt and hate. Now, that being said, don't live solely for today. People who live only for today  always end up quickly shortening the amount of 'todays' that they will have. 

Rather, live for your life. Live to have the memories, to have the experiences. Live to live, fully and completely, with no fear of what people think. Live enough that, should you be lucky enough to have time to contemplate on your life before you die, that you feel full. You think to yourself "It was a good life. Not the fullest. Not the most important or complete, by any means. But it was my life. And that's enough."