Hello Boys and Goyels (or is it goils. . .or guyls. . .whatever), here is part 1 of 4 of the preview for my recently published book Secure Immaturity: A Nostalgia-Crushing Journey Through Film. I am so very excited about this release as it puts together all of my best internet work from 2008 to 2011 in one volume.
So, if you like what you read below, please click on the link here or here and purchase a copy. As a bonus incentive, if you are the fifth person to Direct Message and/or Tweet me @SecureImmaturT saying you read the preview, I'll give you a 50% off discount on your copy.
So, read, enjoy, and contact me!
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Highlander (1986)
I went to a psychiatrist as a kid (surprised?). As most eight year olds tend to do, I pretty much sat on a couch and tried not to pay attention to the poor psych trying to administer help to me. One day he was trying to explain the idea of self control and power and told me the premise of Highlander. I’m not sure who is to blame here, me for listening and not telling my parents, or him for telling an eight year old such a bizarre story. But when a 35 year old psychiatrist tells you cutting off a dude’s head, having electricity flow through your veins and saying ‘There can be only one’ means you have absolute power in life. . .well, that’s pretty awesome. I asked him if I should watch the film. He laughed and said, ‘I don’t know. . .’
I wonder what the hell that was all about? But the goddamn idea of Highlander has been in my mind ever since. The problem: I never watched the film. I tried numerous times. I just never watched it. For some reason it held a mystique. I felt like, as when I was eight and when I was ten, twelve, eighteen and so on, that I was in on some adult secret. I knew what Highlander meant even without seeing it.
So when I finally popped in Highlander for the first time last night after hearing about it 18 years earlier, I realized that psych had really bad taste in movies. Highlander is a hilarious farce of a film. How it has spawned 97 sequels and various TV shows is beyond me (I never saw any of those either, but when a movie has Mario Van Peebles in it, you kind of ignore it). While the concept is sound, the film is a hilarious, eclectic freak show. Highlander is the bearded lady of movies.
For one, Queen was involved in the soundtrack. Think Prince doing Batman. Yeah. Made your brain hurt, didn’t it? And Highlander functions on all sorts of audio-like levels. For one, the dialogue is absolutely impossible to understand. There are so many accents mixed with mumbling that I had to guess what was going on based on eye movements. Which isn’t easy, since Christopher Lambert, the star of Highlander, has the emotional complexity of this keyboard I type on. The other actors make do with what they have: a script that involves heavy metal immortals running around New York City with swords.
The movie’s idea of immortals is kind of weird too. Apparently being immortal means you can get stabbed, have your throat slit or thrown off buildings and live. Oh and you also are automatically the greatest gymnast of all time: the first immortal Lambert fights can do about seventy back-flips whilst parrying with his 6th century Japanese blade! My thought was you could die like any human but not of old age. But in the Highlander universe you only have to have your head cut off to die.
But if I was walking around with my own personal soundtrack and it was Queen singing ‘New York, New York’, I’d probably cut my own head off, fuck the Quickening. I’d be the unluckiest immortal alive. At least Chris Lambert is good looking and slays a few ladies. I’d be single for four centuries . . . Jesus that’s depressing. But I’d also lose all cultural identity which might, actually, be fun. Christopher Lambert is a French actor with a French accent playing a Scotsman. Sean Connery, a Scotsman, is playing an Egyptian from Spain. What? If I were immortal and I came from the Highlander universe I’d probably look Korean, speak with a German accent and come from Uganda.
I can’t really say I enjoyed the film or even paid attention to it during its running time. The entire time, whilst deciphering the fourteen languages and accents on display throughout the film, I was thinking about that poor doctor, telling some other kids to watch Highlander. I imagine in this day and age, that doctor is probably responsible for said kid growing up, wielding a sword with a shaved head (minus rat tail) and going ape shit at school. There is probably some kind of Highlander clause in doctor’s offices now to prevent people from recommending that film. But I waited 18 years to take my psych’s advice and NOW I really need the therapy.
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