Meanwhile With Trevor
Culture • Lifestyle • Fitness & Health • Movies • Books • Food
Here we'll gather to discuss Story, life, and the creative process. I'll invite you into my thoughts on what I'm reading, watching, and writing, and what I'm learning along the way. Life is a story. We want to live stories that last, and that means understanding their elements.
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"Am I Worthy?": The Fast and the Furious (2001)

Any discussion of The Fast and the Furious movies tends to lean in one of two directions. Some reviewers say, “These movies are so stupid, I can’t belive anyone still watches them!” While most everyone else says, “These movies are so stupid, I can’t wait to watch the next one!” Here you will get no arguments against the common denominator that the world of the series, the dialog, the stories, and at times even the characters are less than intelligent.

However, there must be a reason that two decades after the original film they’re still producing them and people are still watching. Okay, they’re still making them because these movies pull in billions of dollars worldwide. Nevertheless, if they truly are as stupid as even their most ardant fans admit, no one would show up for Dominic Toretto’s family reunions.

Could there be something more going on beneath the surface of fast cars, furious men, and half-naked women? Yes. There are truths as old as Story itself and lessons as applicable to a nursery rhyme as a blockbuster.

Going back to the original 2001 movie, the first thing we learn about Paul Walker’s undercover cop Brian O’Connor is that he wants to be a better driver. The why doesn’t matter, because we understand that will be established later. We all know what it means to want something, he wants this. We get it. And he’s not great (which is openly discussed later), so he’s got a flaw and room to grow.

The next thing we learn is that he likes tuna on white bread, no crust. I think this serves two purposes: one, it shows us how safe, plain, and bland O’Connor is. He’s a fish out of water in a world where Vin Diesel’s Dom is cracking his first Corona before noon. But two, like his white t-shirts (in contrast to Dom’s black sleeveless shirts), it establishes his purity.

Yes, I’m reading a lot into this. But every decision was deliberate and designed to add layers to our main character.

At his first street race, though, things really start to get interesting. After showing off his car he asks, “Am I worthy?” In real life no would ever say this. Even in the movie it comes off as a little out of place, better suited to an historical epic or medieval fantasy. Paul Walker deserves credit, though, for delivering the line with total sincerity. For all the modern trappings, the music, the fashion, the CGI, this is actually a very old story in a new setting.

We will see how the franchise evolves over time in response to changing attitudes in the popular culture. However, in the early 2000’s the men are still Men and the women are still Women, without apology or exception. Even Michelle Rodriguez, forever and always typecast as a “tough girl,” is still a girl. Not as a feminine as Dom’s sister and Brian’s love interest, Mia (Jordana Brewster), she’s the rough and tough counterbalance to Dom’s hypermasculinity.

Traditional gender roles still exist and are accepted. The women are allowed to be as beautiful as the men are dangerous. No, it’s not done in a way that’s anything remotely classy, arguably drifting too far into the tawdry. Yet considering how far we’ve come, with action movies filled with androgonis women and melancholy men, what was unremarkable in 2001 is noteworthy now.

Dominic Toretto is the unelected king of his crew, and Brian is looking for a tribe. At Dom’s picnic table exists a hierarchy and rituals that come back again and again over years. Anyone is welcome at the table, but his place must be earned. We get the sense that Brian is an outsider from the moment we see him alone in his car early in the film, and every man, whether he realizes it or not, is searching for a place to belong. Why does Brian want to be a better driver, and why does he care if he’s worthy? So that he can have a place at the table.

Men understand this. It’s primal.

In Dom’s world Brian finds a place where honor, respect, and (yes) family are valued. Dom lives his life a quarter mile at a time, but he works hard to earn everything he has. Compare that with Brian’s experience in relation to his fellow law enforcement officers. The older men take advantage of their position, slurping cappuccinos in unearned luxury. The young men make disrespectful comments about Mia, causing Brian to explode.

The love interest brings out the hero’s true essence.

After that everything starts falling into place. Brian knows where his allegiance is, not with established order, but with the honorable thieves. But it’s not that easy. Ultimately, Brian is faced with an impossible choice. Once he has proven himself worthy of Dom’s respect, earned his place in the tribe, and won Mia’s affection, is he willing to sacrifice everything and reveal his true identity as a cop? And to make that sacrifice to save his enemy?

Our hero cannot live a lie, and certainly not at the expense of another’s life, even that of his antagonist. Brian proves himself worthy of the tribe only by voluntarily leaving it. As a final gift and token of respect he allows Dom to escape with his car, knowing there will be professional consequences. Now he is once again a man without a home, but he has found in himself a nobility he didn’t know he possessed.

Notice that I don’t mention the plot, the DVD players, the Asian mafia, armed truckers, or street races. All those things are incidental to the story of a young man looking for a place to belong.

So is this a stupid movie? No doubt. Yet despite that, there are notes, no matter how muffled by the roaring engines and overwrought dialog, that resonate deep within us. It’s amazing what you can get away with when your story touches the deep truths.

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Tuesday Update

New article is on the way, but I'm feeling too overwhelmed to crank it out.

00:01:17
Update!

I cover it in the the video, but I've got some new professional writing opportunities coming up and I'm trying to finish my next novel, all while navigating a change in schedule. So look for more pictures and videos, and new articles here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

00:02:47
He Who Rides on the Clouds - Conclusion

Leo and Britt come face to face with a prehistoric god a new cult on Saturn. Can they save the children doomed to sacrifice and escape?

He Who Rides on the Clouds - Conclusion
He Who Rides on the Clouds - Part 2

Leo and Brittany have arrived on Saturn, but not in the way they'd hoped. Captured by a pagan cult, they don't have time to stop the unthinkable from happening. But they'll try anyway.

Content warning: language and sexual situations.

He Who Rides on the Clouds - Part 2
He Who Rides on the Clouds - Part 1

Star Wars is dead and the more apathy you show the faster it will be allowed to rest in peace.

Instead of griping about what Disney has done, why don't you listen to my space adventure story? He Who Rides on the Clouds is supernatural noir that spans space and time. When children on Mars go missing, Alexis Leonard and his ex-wife Brittany go looking. Their search leads them to a pagan temple and an ancient religion.

If you'd like to buy the story and read ahead, it's available in the Fall 2020 issue of Cirsova, available here: https://amzn.to/3yRRywY

He Who Rides on the Clouds - Part 1
No Posts This Week

Hey everyone, with BasedCon coming up this weekend I'm busy catching up on things and getting ready to go. But I'll be back next week with lots of new thoughts!

Big Changes Ahead

Hey Friends, I've got some big life changes on the horizon and should be able to create more content. What would you like to see? More fiction? More fitness? Maybe you'd like more video or audio content. Let me know in the comments.

Also, if you aren't a paid subscriber, what would get you to pay $5 a month?

Is Ladyballers Doomed from the Start?

The most honest analysis I've seen.

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F1 is Modern Western

As a nation, the United States is unique. We don’t share a genetic heritage, but a creed. Americans and our ideas come from all over the world. But we’re at our best when take those outside ideas and make them our own. Everything we have came from another culture, but there was a time when we could take things and collectively make them better.

Democracy? Check. Rock’n’roll? Check. Heck! Chinese food? Yes, we did.

Don’t hate. You know I’m right.

One of the greatest art forms we’ve given the world is the western genre. While rooted in courtly romances of King Arthur, we took the idea of the man on horseback who makes things right on his quest for something spiritual and made it distinctly American. Most of the time, these stories aren’t historically accurate, but that’s not the point. They’re soaked in the American ethos. For better or for worse, the western has become the American myth, even more so than 1776.

And the cool thing about myths is that you can take them and tell other stories. 

Star Trek (and later Firefly) took the western to space. 

A few weeks ago I was able to see F1: The Movie on IMAX, and I had high hopes. Director Joseph Krasinski had proved himself with Top Gun: Maverick, which is about as American as a modern movie can get. But mostly, I just wanted to see if he could do with racecars what he’d done with fighter jets. In that regard, I was everything I’d hoped it would be. The idea of Americanism didn’t even cross my mind, since F1 is primarily a European sport.

Boy, was I surprised.

Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes with all the careless cool of Paul Newman in his prime and a Steve McQueen swagger. While Pitt has never played a cowboy and isn’t a racecar driver in real life, Newman and McQueen played both, and did both. Hayes has been keeping himself busy with no-name races since an F1 crash nearly killed him some 30 years before. But when Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), an old friend and rival, needs some wins to save the team, he tracks down Sonny.

And the old dog knows a few tricks.

Naturally, his tactics put him at odds with his teammate, Joshua Pierce (Damson Idris), and his cocky attitude is a big red flag to the team’s engineer, Kate McKenna (Kerry Conden). So the movie all the tropes of a sports film, and I don’t think I need to summarize further. But it’s not a sports film. Or rather, it’s not just a sports a film. Surprise, surprise, it’s the western myth transposed into a racing a story.

It’s spelled out in the trailer, but it didn’t strike me until the very end.

Kate calls Sonny Hayes an “old school rough and tumble cowboy” in a line used in the marketing. When he arrives in the garage, only Ruben knows him. Sonny is the stranger in town. Like James Garner in Support Your Local Sheriff, his method of restoring order and winning is unorthodox and effective. Like Shane, in that Alan Ladd classic, he’s guarded about his past. And like John Wayne in The Searchers and so many other westerns, Sonny Hayes is the outsider who must leave civilization once he’s made it civilized for those who belong there.

But he doesn’t.


Perhaps the hardboiled crime story, another uniquely American genre, is also an outgrowth of the western. Philip Marlow is the man who must walk down mean streets, who is not himself mean. As Raymond Chandler said, “He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.” Basically, the man he’s describing is dangerous, but not cruel. Dispassionate in taking revenge, and restrained by a code of honor.

But destined to be lonely, nonetheless.

Why we’ve made that an essential part of the American is a topic for another time. But there it is. And it’s the story of Sonny Hayes. At the end of the movie [SPOILER], he rides off into the sunset as the credits roll. The western isn’t dead. It’s still there, in essence, speaking to our hearts in different ways.

Nothing more American than that. 

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Girl-Power Isn't the Problem: Stop Treating Movies Like TV Pilots

Last weekend I was able to sneak off the theater for a screening of From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. Did I feel silly, telling the high school girl at the ticket counter, “One for Ballerina, and a small drink”? Well, not in the moment. 

I probably drank a liter of cherry vanilla Coke Zero, and that didn’t feel so great.

Plenty of box office analysts and Hollywood types are wracking their brains, trying to figure out why movies like Furiosa and Ballerina aren’t drawing huge crowds. Mad Max and John Wick are popular franchises, but apparently telling the stories of the women in those worlds isn’t working. Even if the movies are pretty good.

I’ve seen both, and they’re pretty good.

Some are arguing that no one will go near a movie that looks like it’s feminist girl-bossing. Others counter that movies like Alien and Kill Bill are female-led action films that were successful. Now, I’m not going to say that Ballerina is on par with those modern day classics. But I will say that, as a man watching the movie, it didn’t offend me. The movie never challenged me to confront any internalized misogyny. The small girl doesn’t take down John Wick in hand-to-hand combat.

Honestly, if you like franchise, whether you’re male or female, you should watch Ballerina.

In short, from a purely cinematic experience perspective, neither Furiosa nor Ballerina would be any better or worse with a male lead. Maybe that’s a hot take. But that’s mine, for whatever it’s worth. Well, okay, I wouldn’t watch a movie called Ballerina if it stared a dude. Nevertheless, I think you get my point. Petite women warriors aside, the plots and action are exactly as expected.

So what’s the deal?

Well, what no one seems to have noticed is that Ripley and The Bride weren’t replacing anyone. As we were watching their movies for the first time, we weren’t thinking about other characters for whom we already had a preference. Movies are more like TV than TV right now, and replacement characters have always been a hard sell, regardless of gender. We all remember Sam and Diane. Who still talks about Sam and Rebecca (even though Kirstie Alley won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the part)? I had to look up her name. 

No, they aren’t technically replacing them. It’s a spin-off, set in the same world.

Spin-offs tend to succeed when the characters are already well established (eg: Frasier). Furiosa and Ballerina are more like backdoor pilots, where new characters are dropped in for a single episode to sell us on the idea of a new show. This technique is very hit and miss on TV, and I can’t think of a single example of this working in a movie franchise. Film and television are very different mediums, and should be treated as such.

Still, if it doesn’t work on TV, it’s probably not gonna work at the movies. Not where new characters and spin-offs are concerned. 

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Going Back to 1995

Maybe I’m just getting old, but it doesn’t feel like we had the thriving and distinct pop culture of past generations. Has there been a look or stye, or feeling, that defines this moment? Everything seems to have stagnated for the last twenty years. And it’s not as if I don’t pay attention. 

It’s making me nostalgic. 

Consequently, for the rest of the year, I’m prioritizing movies from 1995, the year I was twelve. At that time, my family didn’t really go to the theater, and when we did rent VHS tapes, more often than it is was older Disney movies or entirely forgettable Christian titles. Now that I’ve grown tired of trying to keep up with new releases, not there’s much worth watching anyway, it feels like a good time to catch up on those 30 year old movies that have become ingrained in what’s left of our pop culture.

So over on Criticless, I made a list.

Some of these are movies I’ve seen before, but not in a long time. Others will be first time watches for me. There’s really no rhyme or reason to what I put on my list. It’s just movies that either interest me, or are currently in my collection, sadly unwatched. As things become available on streaming, I may add to the list. And if I don’t get to everything before the end of the year, no big deal.

Hopefully, they aren’t going anywhere. 

I’ll be posting some reviews and analysis as I go, so be sure to follow me here. 

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