The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Now take in to consideration that I work at a movie theater when I’m not typing up ridiculous reviews and amateur at best podcasts. My experience in the entertainment business had taught me a great number of genuine facts about people and motion pictures alike. Consider how most overweight people will most likely order an array of gold nugget priced foods, or the probability of a diet soda being ordered by notable individuals compared to those who order a regular. Simple highlights of the job sure, but also consider how incomprehensible and unpredictable people are, how lazy they are when we clean up the $250.00 dollars worth of snacks up from our theaters, or the carelessness when an employee finds a valuable such as a wallet of phone sitting in the still warm seat. People have been unbelievable for centuries on end and still do not disappoint. Never do our feature films, whether they are good or bad are clearly up to the audience. Nobody on this planet except 13 year old girls and crazed 40 year old virgins go to see Twilight and think it’s a good movie (or a majority of gay men). The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a movie that is hard to put into a category itself, let alone a feature with an outnumbering of good qualities to bad or just the opposite.
I personally have been wanting to see this movie ever since it came out, which happened to be before Christmas hit, and well I’ve been waiting a good time I suppose. What I found surprising though was this movie hadn’t really been credited or rated by viewers and professionals alike. This is probably the only reason why I saw this review being note worthy. Working at a movie theater I see as many movies as I want free of charge, if that concept was taken into any job I’d be working at Panda Express for free rice and chicken or die trying, so clearly I’ve seen basically every movie that’s been presented for the past year almost; even before then I was seeing a great number of movies. You could say I’m relatively reliable when it comes to the red carpet and big screen.
The Imaginarium is a very well executed movie, involving many great stars and special effects that will blow your mind out like the average teenager in Seattle. It’s graphics aren’t quite those of Avatar, but aren’t meant to match at the same time, and as a bonus Heath Ledger plays one of the various main characters in the film; that’s a good tens points for the film considering they finished this thing after his death. Each character throughout the entire movie plays a spectacular role, the story (or stories, as later explained) is incredibly developed and the movie’s plot is unique compared to most modern movies these days. Let’s face it, Indiana Jones 4 doesn’t cut it for originality basically because after the original there is no more originality and the directors usually use ideas off of gum wrappers; which is what I find to be the usual case. And movies based off of older versions of those said movies are not original in any way taken that the concept was already used once before if not ten times before. Don’t even start me on romances and action related movies, which of most are masked titles of movies already done but given a new name, story and characters but still feels like you’ve already seen it a hundred times over (probably because you have).
Back on subject, The Imaginarium is original, with great acting and wonderful graphics, the movie is definitely one to see before it disappears off the silver screen. Especially if your a person who enjoys a good level of language in a movie, this movie is full of creative sentence structure and relatively fasinating conversations. But that is not what we’re here to read, this is not what we want to listen to, we want hard facts that make the movie bad. Why we shouldn’t see this film (which I highly recommend not doing, unless of course you’re a red neck out for Indiana Jones 5) and the faults it takes as every movie does.
First off, the story and plot is fantastic and all, but there are way too many stories to follow. At first there is the question asked “Who is Doctor Parnassus and what is this traveling circus of his?” which inevitably leads into our first story of our dear doctor himself. But soon after that leads into the story of his daughter who wants an escape out of the world she is provided, which leads to the story of her stalker-like friend whose only wish is to run away with her, which leads to them all finding a mysterious man hanged by the next under a bridge. His story is a blank page as he wakes up from amnesia, a total cliché that brings this film down a few points for “a weak character introduction”. Did Tony Stark of Iron Man suddenly wake up from amnesia one sunny afternoon and discover he was a billionaire to a weapons company? Hell no he didn’t, so why should this man, one of our follow up main characters, be any different from an original story like Tony Stark. First off because he isn’t firing missiles at terrorists and giant robot duplicates of himself but also because this isn’t Iron Man. Still the same general concept applies, but whatever because we don’t care about a good beginning introduction, especially when it plays a somewhat decent part later in the movie (SOMEWHAT, but this not the top cut of the cheese). This leads into more stories and soon we have a buffet to choose from on which story looks more appetizing and which looks like it’s been sitting under the hot lamp for a good couple of hours waiting to be eaten by the homeless guy who managed to somehow sneak in. Too much action for Die Hard even, not in the sense of bullets flying through the next guys head multiple times but in a sense that we should probably stick on the tracks rather than flipping the train off of them.
This movie is completely surreal, it has those moments where the visual effects come into play and dazzle us beyond belief, but only during a good number of scenes. In the beginning we get a couple good looks at what this abstract world looks like, but then it slowly dies out and we don’t get another spectacular moment for a good half an hour at least. I came to see some crazy visuals that would make me feel as if I had just worked in a “Herbal Medicine Shop” for the past eight hours. They did of course, but for both a limited time during the scenes (for the most part) and for only a select few scenes. Otherwise the visuals were low on end and had little attention to the whole of the movie rather than becoming the movie itself, it was more like an arm and a leg but not the entire body.
The characters had little development or change within the confines of all the unbelievable acting and emotional conception. This makes sense, each character does a better than satisfactory job and this seems to cover up the fact that most of the characters find no real salvation or personal solution during and by the time the movie ends. This presents no moral values really, even when an amazing amount of thought provoking ideas are introduced up into the end. We want heroes that find themselves, not lost individuals that remain lost, such as the series Lost that has lost every bit of entertaining value.
Speaking about characters, there is one thing that pesters me continously and on a high level when it comes to two of our main characters. The daughter of Parnassus is turning 16 and up until that time she keeps on flirting with our other main character Tony, who is somewhere around 25-30. Not only does this feel somewhat like a Michael Jackson senerio, but it just seems too American and all the same wrong. I can't say that Tony is a petefile to be exact, since the age of consent is technically 16 in this movie, but the age difference is beyond looking past in my case. I guess love is love, even when its total trailer trash love, its still sadly love alike.
Another problem I had with the characters is after you get past their personalities you realize how typical they were made to be. The character after Parnassus's daughter is in fact a teenager who just hit puberty and if he doesn't get his way he of course goes into emo mode and crys about it for awhile. The daughter is dreaming of better things and lets her hormones take the best of her; kind of like how guys function regretfully. The Devil who is nickname Mr. Nick is your typical Devil, sinister, tricky, loveable and resourceful. I could go on, but I rather not, don't expect too much acting other than what has already been done.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is already a pretty unique title and with a unique title comes naturally unique structure. Some of which is the symbolism inside the ever so flowing body of this growing tale. Much of the symbolism is obvious for obvious reasons, other symbolism actually makes you think a bit, but there is symbolism within the movie that I have agreed with myself on that just doesn't have any real purpose. What I'm saying is "I think the director said screw it and just added random objects and effects in oder to enhance the movie." but nothing more than that. Moments such as this felt as if you were watching The Godfather and suddenly a gay stripper appeared covered in bright rainbow colors with a couple of fashionable uzi's and joined in on the fun, it just seems stupid and pointless.
This is the just of my ranting, if you can tell it was somewhat hard to dissect the bad from the good in this movie, but across any extremity of good is a pit of sludge that is the fault line of any and every movie. Diving into this sludgy pit is not fun, neither is it appealing or satisfying but it is alone something that must be done. Until next time, go see this movie and be excited for my next review.

White Lotus Tattoo and Piercing

Usually when you’re getting a new tattoo done you’re usually covered with the scent of alcohol and have the ability of a two year old baby when it comes to walking around. This wasn’t my personal case as I stepped through the doors of the White Lotus tattoo parlor (who apparently do piercings as well). Located in Highlands Ranch off of East County Line Road it’s basically the last place you would ever expect to find especially in the wealthier part of Colorado.
While doing research on “liable” tattoo parlors around Colorado I found that many of these parlors could be found along Colfax. So, without thinking about the poor quality of most stores along the Colfax area, I decided to head to one of the closer tattoo parlors along East Colfax. When I entered it looked as though it was the embodiment of Colfax. Without naming the place, I will say the walls were rippling with an unfinished coating of paint, it smelled of various drugs, there was never any other language except for profane language and the services they provided were less than note worthy. Otherwise, it seemed like a friendly place to be, besides the fact that the manager of the place gave the impression that he wanted to murder me or already has murdered a person of the like. I do believe I saw a stolen child hidden under the counter, as well as a white powdery substance smeared around the employee’s nostrils; otherwise it seemed like a nice place of business.
Figuring Colfax wasn’t the best place of business I took some time away from the tattoo business and decided it was for another time. When that time came though I was able to do plenty of research on more “professional” establishments; after talking to various tattooists and looking upon different sites I came to White Lotus. Their home page is somewhat compressed, meaning if your sight is less than 20/20 you might want to find a magnifying glass somewhere, each other page is likely the same. It’s even somewhat a challenge to view the pictures set on the top corners of each page. So after my laser eye surgery was complete I was able to scan and evaluate the artists, location, hours and such for the place. White Lotus, I also discovered, was once Twisted Sol (a legit tattoo parlor known for their creative and expert work). Twisted Sol was one of two established tattoo parlors that I had the liking of hearing of in my lifetime.
Paying a visit I recognized the Asian themes set across the store, the pictures on their website give the theme away, and even though a load of white men work there it still had a traditional Asian output. They sell a variety of piercing accessories, displayed well inside their glass counter up front, with many Buddha Statues and Asian oriented paintings (including separate pieces of their own works, which are anything less than abstract and cartoonish). The place did not smell of weed and other drugs, it smelled clean and looked the very same. While waiting I even had the pleasure of watching a fellow employee mop the floor beneath me; perhaps not the greatest timing. All motives forward the employees were friendly, there was limited profane language and the tattoo appointment was quickly executed. There was a $60.00 tuition, which of course went towards the entirety of the tattoo cost, and reasonable rules were set (such as a 24 hour notice if you wished to cancel or change your desired tattoo time).
When the day came I was able to take a couple of buds with me into the place, in order to witness the pain and disgruntlement my body would soon face. I was not mistaken, this was my first tattoo ever and even on my chest the pain was horrid. Though through the agony I survived and the price total was set reasonably. Before my leave my artist, Andy (who was brand new to the store), handed me a slip of paper that read off instructions and he told me step by step what needed to be done to keep my tattoo clean and healthy for the next few weeks. It was as if my father was talking me through puberty, but all was well and it was helpful information.
Overall I felt welcome and safe, not disillusioned with a gun to my head feeling that comes to you around Colfax. Although the store was more like a fanboy department, white people filling an Asian place does not make sense, it makes a paradox of sorts, the store was still neat and full of good “chi” so to speak. The prices seemed reasonable, which is a bit more than I can follow through with saying, and the process was as safe as surgery in a hospital. I didn’t have any fears afterwards of contracting any sort of HIV virus and my wallet still had a nice amount of cash left over for the lubricants and lotions needed for your tattoo. Honestly I would think a tattoo parlor would provide some type of small bottle for the situation, maybe they believed I would already have these solutions prepped at my house, or they thought I would have a good time driving in pain to my nearest Rite Aid store to purchase these over-priced and over-sized medicines. Grudges aside it was a legit parlor to attend and my tattoo turned out to be perfect in every sort of way, I would recommend this place to both of those people with experience or none in the tattoo business.

-Nega-