PLAGUE DIARY 23: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

The Blue Bird (1940)
It’s nearly unwatchable, I have to admit I skipped through most of it. It was a grudge film, made in answer to The Wizard of Oz. Shirley Temple is horrible in it, she can’t act and is cloying and nauseating. From the moment it became clear that little ‘Mytyl’ is a selfish girl I’d had enough. Oh, is she going to learn a lesson? Is she going to learn not to be selfish? And spoiler, they are looking for the blue bird of happiness, and duh, it turns out to be in their own damn backyard. There is a woman I know who sends me emails, and I refuse to feel horrible anymore about the fact that I hate her so much. All she can talk about is the opportunity social distancing has given her to catch up on her baking and gardening. I know she means well but I want to hit her with a stick. And then I was taking a French class online tonight and the teacher asked ‘comment ca va?’ And everybody said ‘ca va bien’ and I thought, 'right.' And some guy actually said — ‘after all, it’s nice to be able to take things slowly,’ and I wanted to kill him. I wanted to rip his eyes out slowly and eat them for dinner. Do I need to do something about my anger? Why should I? I’m so damned angry at the world for telling me not to be angry, I could friggin’ scream. Let me tell you something — about anger. It’s alright to be angry. Anger is an emotion, and it’s alright to have emotions and express them. Everybody has anger— maybe not as much as I do — but everyone has it, and if you don’t, then you’re repressing it, and it ain’t gonna help you survive COVID-19. Does that sound unfair? Jesus, I’m only trying to help you. You see there are two different types of anger. There is the anger which is unexpressed, which is toxic. People who have this anger look at you with smiling condescension when you tell them you want to wring someone’s neck. “The fact that you let people get to you like that means that you are deeply flawed human being -- and frankly, you might want to look into that.’ No I won’t look into anything, I’m mad for good reason, and there’s nothing wrong with me letting it out. When you express anger  — I’ll tell you something — it goes away. I believe that a lot of people who never express anger are angry all the time. It’s called bitter. I am not bitter, I’m just angry, and there’s a big difference. Once I let it out it’s gone and then I get angry and then I let it out and it’s gone again. It’s a vicious cycle yes, but it makes me feel good. Yes people drive me crazy, and the universe drives me crazy -- especially when it expresses itself through a security guard at the mall who, when I tell her I’m going to a bank machine asks me: ‘which bank machine?’ TD BANK -- you idiot  —the bank I’m standing beside — the one that’s been closed for three weeks! And how come every other bank is open and TD is closed? Who made that rule? Aren’t they rich enough? No, I really want you to get this concept that a rant, is a rant — is okay. I’m not saying you have to get angry, I’m just saying instead of looking skeptically at the angry person (me) like they’ve got a screw loose you might trying looking skeptically at the calm person. I know it’s not very Zen of me but can I give you a little information? Zen doesn’t happen on your Yoga mat in Rosedale. It happens after giving up everything and living on a mountain and realizing that you no longer have any earthly desires, So screw off with me about the friggin’ Zen. Let me tell yo about The Blue Bloody Bird of Friggin' Happiness. After we find out that little Tytyl (This is based on a Belgian play, so what are we supposed to do with that name? You rewrote the whole damn script — so there’s not a scrap of Maeterlinck’s symbolist dialogue left -- and you couldn’t change that stupid name? Yes Maeterlinck was a symbolist, and I don’t actually know exactly what symbolism is, but I can sure tell you it’s not this.) So in the adventure they have while dreaming (which they stole from The Wizard of Oz like everything else!) they meet grandma and grandpa, who are so old and decrepit you want to kill them. I know what you’re thinking. Shall I tell you what some of the young are saying? Yes I’m going to tell you because you deserve to know the truth, or else you wouldn’t be reading this. Some of the young are calling COVID-19 ‘The Boomer Remover.’ And I’m telling you now, God curse me and take me away — but if it’s my time: I’m perfectly glad to be removed, because I’d rather be removed than live in a world where we can never shake hands. That’s what Antony Fauci just said. Yup. We can never shake hands again. ‘No, sorry,’ he said in that gentle fascistic way he has — the same way  they all have of sounding like they are being nice when they are rearranging our friggin’ lives. ‘I certainly think it might not be a bad idea to get rid of handshaking, as a custom.” Well I think it might be a good idea to get rid of the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as a custom! I didn’t like you back during AIDS when you killed us with AZT. You said the same thing back then, ‘hit hard, hit fast’ and we all died. Anyway, after cranky old grandma and grandpa, Mytyl and Tyltyl (did they leave Mylanta at home?) visit the House of Luxury, but guess what -- it doesn’t make them happy because, guess what, money and riches don’t do that. And then they go to the forest and the trees attack them — just because their father is a woodcutter — foreshadowing environmentalism. But it gets better. Why has no one denounced this movie? Because when you get to little Mytyl and Tyltyl’s final adventure, it is an advertisement for the 'Pro-Life Action League.' They enter the land of the — are you sitting down? — the unborn. And guess what, the unborn are a bunch of beautiful children — and some of then are teenagers. And all of them are wearing very revealing togas. I mean, is that appropriate? I don’t think so, the togas are very inappropriate, very short, so short that some of the teen guys in togas were giving me improper thoughts. And they are milling around in some sort of Athenian Utopia (they are all white of course, why is that? In 1940?). And they say things like “I’m not born yet, I’ve been waiting for a long time to be born, I don’t understand why my mommy and daddy don’t want to have me yet!” No, I’m not kidding. And then a ship comes along and does a roll call and all the happy children who are now being born run into the ship, their togas flapping open in the wind (I tried not to look) and all the sad unborn ones just have to remain there forever in the never never land for lost unborn children, crying for the parents they long to have. It’s hard for me to believe that anyone took this drivel seriously for one friggin’ minute, they weren’t that stupid in 1940. I mean I would trade one millisecond of Judy Garland singing ‘Over the Rainbow’ for all 88  minutes of this sopping wet pile of sentimental bird do-do. The Blue Bird  — you can shove it up my credenza! Yes and that’s a filthy pun. (And if you don’t know what a credenza is, look it up. You serve food from a sideboard, which  credenza is a fancy word for, which is what makes it really dirty!) But I deserve that filthy pun and so do you. Sorry. It’s not your fault. Nothing is your fault, because you’re reading this. I’m sorry.