LBTM: Jesus met the woman

(Here's the video link if the embedded video above won't play in your browser.)

Rayford Steele figures he owes Buck a favor for helping to subdue Mr. Panic on the airplane, so he offers to give him the name of a charter pilot who might be able to fly Buck to New York.

The charter pilot is, of course, based right there at the airport. Instead of just giving Buck the name and wishing him good luck, though, Rayford brings Buck all the way out to the suburbs, to the Steele's home, where he'll awkwardly spend the night on their couch before having to bum a ride the next morning back out to the airport. This makes no sense, but it allows Buck and Chloe to meet much earlier in the story and thus spares us the whole belabored cookie-sharing scene from the book.

For that I'm so very grateful that I don't really care if Buck's trip to the suburbs makes any sense.

Martial law, chaos on the highways and a national state of emergency apparently don't interfere with Rayford Steele's commute and we cut directly to his suburban street as he pulls into his driveway.

I like the detail of the garbage truck crashed into the tree, which I'm choosing to view as an egalitarian statement. It's also tempting to use this as a data point for trying to calculate what time the Event is supposed to have occurred in our story here. Garbage trucks tend to be out during the early part of the day. Rayford's flight, however, didn't leave New York until evening and the Event seemed to strike the plane sometime in the middle of the night (Atlantic time). Chloe, on the other hand, was driving in the middle of the afternoon when she encountered the post-Event pileup, so ...

Oh nevermind. Let's just go back to ignoring the position of the sun and the time of day.

In addition to all the crashed cars (was every RTC out driving when the Event struck?) we see a handful of figures milling about. A man in a goofy-looking hat is crossing the street, rushing to the side of a woman who sits on the sidewalk next to an empty baby stroller.

We know that several hours, at least, have passed since the Event. This woman, then, this despondent mother, has been sitting there on the ground, traumatized and probably in shock, for hours. Those other people we see milling about don't seem to have noticed her, or else they just don't care that she's been lying there. Apparently no one has approached this woman until the man with the goofy hat arrives.

Rayford and Buck don't seem to notice this poor woman either. They drive right past her into Rayford's semi-circular driveway. She can't be more than a dozen yards away when they get out of the car.

As Rayford rushes inside to check on his own family, Buck stands outside, awkwardly, unsure if he should follow. Just a few yards away, behind him, sits a woman in need and in pain. He doesn't turn around.

The camera follows Rayford inside and Brad Johnson sets about making chicken soup from chicken poop. This bit actually almost works. Johnson steers past all the maudlin touches director Vic Sarin tries to shovel on top of him and he just plays it straight. We see a man who fears he has lost his family. He works his way through the house, wanting to rush, yet still hesitant, reluctant to find what he expects. He calls out to his wife and his son -- by name, the way real people call out to other real people. And then his worst fears are confirmed. He finds their empty bedclothes and he breaks down.

The score here is over the top, but Johnson is believable and convincing. This is better than anything in the book. One feels a bit of compassion for Rayford here. That never happens when you're reading the novel.

Sarin has to gild the lily with some Symbolism, so Rayford tosses Irene's bedstand Bible at the mirror and we see his fragmented reflection in its shattered surface, etc., etc. The image is not the freshest, but it's fairly well executed, at least.

We quickly cut back to CamCam, still standing awkwardly on the front porch, uncertain about trespassing on Rayford's grief. He sits down on the porch like he's going to be there a while. I don't get the sense that this was intended to be funny.

Back upstairs, Rayford picks up the Bible. He opens to the first page and reads aloud, "In the beginning." He laughs bitterly and says, "It's a little late for that." This was intended to be funny, and it kind of is. Remarkable.

So Rayford starts randomly flipping through the Bible. He's looking for answers. There, on the floor of his bedroom, in the pages of his wife's Bible, he's looking for Jesus.

He's looking in the wrong place.

We've already seen where Jesus is and we watched Rayford drive right past him. You might not have recognized him at first in that goofy hat, but once he got down on the sidewalk with that poor woman he was unmistakable. Just like him, too, to sneak his way into this story uninvited, showing up just exactly where the storytellers insisted he would never be.

Suddenly it's nighttime and military vehicles patrol the streets of the Chicago suburbs. CamCam is still sitting on the porch, still facing the house instead of the street, still dialing furiously on his cell phone and still unable to reach anyone.

And this is still not supposed to be funny.

As the loudspeaker from a military Jeep says something about "shot on sight," CamCam decides it's a good idea to run toward the soldiers and ask them for a ride to the airport. A soldier points a gun at him and orders him to get back indoors. Then they drive off with CamCam still standing there, not indoors. It's clear, though, that these military guys mean business and that they're absolutely not going around offering rides to civilians.

The sun comes up and we see a forlorn dog lying by the empty clothes of its departed master. Oy with the poodles already!

Rayford sits in his bedroom, watching a videotape of his son's birthday party the day before. His grief was more believable when we couldn't actually see the gratingly annoying Irene and Raymie.

Outside, a military Jeep pulls up at the end of the Steeles' driveway. The soldiers have given Chloe a ride home. She runs inside, sees her father and gives him a flying, desperate hug. That bit kind of works too.

Meanwhile, in their Latverian fortress, Jonathan Stonagal and Joshua Cothran are watching television. On the screen we see an unidentified official from some unidentified government, Nicolae Carpathia standing just behind him. The official says, "As we deal with our own crisis, we are very grateful that the U.N. is doing all that they can to find out who, or what, is responsible for this horrible act of evil."

Poor silly man, confusing the act of divine intervention that every RTC yearns for with a "horrible act of evil."

Stoney and Cothran ramble for a bit about their "food distribution network" and their "operatives." Just as in the book, these characters seem like they've been grafted in from a wholly unconnected story. In the book, that story seemed to be a relentlessly dull rip-off of The Foreign Correspondent. Here, thanks to Daniel Pilon's sly, soap-villain turn as Stoney, it seems more like a spliced-in scene from In Like Flint.

At any moment I expect a groovy young James Coburn to come crashing through the window, foiling their diabolical scheme to feed the world.

Back at the Steele home, we watch Chloe walking down the stairs in a shot spotlighting the wilting bouquet of flowers on the hall table. We saw this same flower arrangement -- freshly cut and still full of life -- in Part 2 of this movie. Now the flowers are wilted, many of the petals falling off entirely, and the balloons we watched Irene inflating have started to shrivel. This doesn't help to clear up our already hopelessly tangled timeline for this story.

Chloe walks into the living room and, distracted, starts to sit down on the right end of the couch, jumping up when she realizes she's sitting on someone's feet. She grabs the first heavy-seeming object at hand -- a flower vase -- and threatens the intruder.

Thus we have Left Behind: The Movie's version of a meet-cute between Chloe and Buck. (This might have been more entertaining, of course, had Chloe sat down on the left end of the couch, but I suppose Kirk Cameron would not have approved.)

The dialogue here has a kind of Mad-Libs arbitrariness to it and neither actor seems able to make sense of the scene. Stephens plays Chloe as dazed by grief, so astonished by the mysterious loss of her mother and brother that this lesser mystery -- the unexplained appearance of a TV anchor in her living room -- barely seems to register. "Buck Williams," Chloe says, "What are you doing in my house?"

CamCam responds like he's back on the set of a sit-com. "Hopin' you're not gonna brain me with that vase," he replies, leaving a beat at the end for the roar of the laugh-track.

The scene ends with Buck explaining that he urgently needs to get to New York. Once there, he implies, he will be able to use his journalistic skills to "find some answers."

Buck Williams is, after all, the Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time. I realize that he hasn't yet managed to report anything at all, on this, the biggest story of all time. But that's just because he was stuck on an airplane when the story broke.

As soon as that plane touched down, he did what any good reporter would do: He bummed a ride out to the suburbs, sat on the porch for hours until the sun went down, and then got himself a good night's sleep.

Comments

[J]

Ooh a virgin thread.

Hey Fred: The New York Times (well, one of their film critics anyway) doesn't like "It's a Wonderful Life."

I demand counter-commentary.

[J]

*Suddenly it's nighttime and military vehicles patrol the streets of the Chicago suburbs...*

Can't decide myself on the accuracy of this. Points:

1.) The night of the Rapture, there will be raucous dancing in the streets in Evanston, Hyde Park, Pilsen (Lesbian Town), the Near North (Boys' Town) and Roscoe Village. "We're FREE!" the happy gays and liberals will chant, "We're finally rid of those fuckers!"

So maybe there *will* be cause for military vehicles to be in the streets.

2.) In Skokie, all the retired Jews will peel themselves away from CNN where they've been watching the news about Israel, maybe have a nice bit of brisket for dinner and go to bed early.

3.) But can we really believe that the deployment of military vehicles to Chicago will happen in *the suburbs* and not he more-traditional site of National Guard deployments to Chicago and make a beeline for the South Side?

[J]

Oh and there will be some confused folk in and around Hyde Park near the campus of the Chicago Theological Seminary, perhaps gat

[J]

*argh* ate half my comment. Should have been /"At Seminary Co-Op Bookstore, arguing about the J source, diasporic hermaneutics, modes of dialog in apocalyptic literature, and similar.

[Fraser]

It's not that he doesn't like the movie, it's that he thinks it has much more anger and darkness in it than people realize. Which it does; that's what makes it better than the TV remake, It Happened One Christmas (which doesn't allow Marlo Thomas to lose her temper with her befuddled uncle when the money is lost).

But he's wrong about George's thirst for adventure: Dreams of seeing the pyramids and traveling through darkest jungles aren't that compatible with Potterville. which I also don't find half as fun as he does. Of course, I live in a tourist town where the writer probably imagines himself just dropping by Potterville to pick up a hooker, then going home somewhere classier.

[schism]

Poor silly man, confusing the act of divine intervention that every RTC yearns for with a "horrible act of evil."

There is no possible way that anyone, even irony-immune RTCs, could write that line about this story and not realize how accurate it is. No one could be that oblivious.

[Roadstergal]

Of course there will be military vehicles around - to keep all of those now-masterless dogs in order.

Not to mention the cats, fish, and gerbils. Will someone think of the gerbils?

[SueW]

Oh sure, they'll give Chloe a ride, but not the GIRAT?!

[Geds]

Oh sure, they'll give Chloe a ride, but not the GIRAT?!

Look, they had specific instructions.

1. Make sure Buck stays where he is until Chloe arrives.

2. Make sure Chloe gets there at some point before she grows old enough to not be reasonably hot and filled with gumption and can-do spirit, since it's Buck and Jesus's job to squelch her Chloe-ness, not the world's.

That's also why they out in Wheaton and not keeping an eye on the spontaneous gay pride parades on the North Side or the creative shopping sprees on the South Side.

Remember, everybody read the back of the VHS sleeve except for the guy in the silly hat.

[Angelika]

Will someone think of the gerbils?

I'm sure the cats will.

[Muse of Ire]

Oy with the poodles already!

Bonus for the Gilmore Girls reference!

Back at the Steele home, we watch Chloe walking down the stairs in a shot spotlighting the wilting bouquet of flowers on the hall table. We saw this same flower arrangement -- freshly cut and still full of life -- in Part 2 of this movie. Now the flowers are wilted, many of the petals falling off entirely, and the balloons we watched Irene inflating have started to shrivel. This doesn't help to clear up our already hopelessly tangled timeline for this story.

That's more of that there symbolism, doncha see?

[CombatQueer]

Am I the only one who noticed a bunch cut in the birthday party video? What happened? After the party the sainted wife immediately sat down to cut together the best scenes to show to Rayford on his return?

[JC]

Note the cameo from Ray Comfort's 'tache at 6.56.

[CombatQueer]

"bunch of cuts" that is. This whole typing thing, not what I'm best at.

[Amos]

Did Chloe's nosering get Raptured?

[Elmo]

So far, my greatest sympathy in this movie is for the dogs who have been deprived of their pack and don't know what to do. I still remember when my next door neighbor died and his dog wouldn't eat and died soon after.

I thought the Times reviewer was more upset by the way George Bailey subordinated his personal wants to his sense of responsibility. That and his idea that Pottersville looked like a place where you would have more fun than in Bedford Falls.

[Geds]

Did Chloe's nosering get Raptured?

Hee hee. That just gave me the idea of the inverted Rapture.

All of the believers are removed, sans clothing.

All of the clothing of non-believers are removed, sans people.

Hilarity ensues.

[MikhailBorg]

Now the flowers are wilted, many of the petals falling off entirely, and the balloons we watched Irene inflating have started to shrivel. This doesn't help to clear up our already hopelessly tangled timeline for this story.

All the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the flowers consisted of Real True Christian Molecules and thus was Raptured, where it will sit at the feet of helium and the other Noble Gases.

[SueW]

How long has Buck been lying there, while Rayford watches videos and read the Bible? First it's daytime, then it's night, then it's daylight when Chloe gets there.

Those flowers died awfully fast.

Irene's Bible didn't look marked up or highlighted enough.

He's looking in the wrong place.

Just like the authors and their legions of fans.

[Not Really Here]

This makes no sense, but it allows Buck and Chloe to meet much earlier in the story and thus spares us the whole belabored cookie-sharing scene from the book.

For that I'm so very grateful that I don't really care if Buck's trip to the suburbs makes any sense.

As am I. The scriptwriters will never know the depths of my gratitude.

CamCam responds like he's back on the set of a sit-com. "Hopin' you're not gonna brain me with that vase," he replies, leaving a beat at the end for the roar of the laugh-track.

Apparently, the director was as unaware that humor was just as out of place at this point in the movie as Jenkins was when he wrote the disappearing fetus in the delivery room scene in the book.

[Alan]

"I thought the Times reviewer was more upset by the way George Bailey subordinated his personal wants to his sense of responsibility. "

Speaking as someone who has been emotionally manipulated by his family's views of personal responsibility since the age of 10, that's the same reason I've always hated "It's A Wonderful Life." YMMV.

[Cowboy Diva]

*sits at the feet of MikhailBorg*

Photosynthesis and rapture and the periodic table of elements, all in one sentence.

*shakes head* Man, I wish I could write like that.

[Alan]

"I thought the Times reviewer was more upset by the way George Bailey subordinated his personal wants to his sense of responsibility. "

Speaking as someone who has been emotionally manipulated by his family's views of personal responsibility since the age of 10, that's the same reason I've always hated "It's A Wonderful Life." YMMV.

[Not Really Here]

Ya know, just after I posted that last comment, I stopped to pray a decade of the rosary (some days my brain is not capable of sitting still for the whole fifteen minutes it takes to pray five decades, and I do it in pieces throughout the day) and suddenly it hit me...

Where are the Catholics clutching rosaries? That's what Catholics do when cataclysm strikes. We grab our rosaries.

You'd think that if not for the sake of realism, then at least as a swipe at Catholicism (neener neener, we're real Christians and you're not) they would have put a few bead-counters on screen. Somewhere, in the midst of mothers weeping next to empty strollers, husbands calling out for suddenly missing wives, and puppy dogs, there should have been little old ladies clutching strands of beads, muttering "HailMaryfullofgracethelordiswiththee..."

[SchrodingersDuck]

I think it's obvious why the timeline makes no sense. First there was the A-Rapture, where the great thinkers were taken; Chloe had the misfortune to run into the pile-up caused by attendees of the Christian philosophy convention. Then came the B-Rapture, where the middlemen were taken - Rayford didn't know it, but in fact 70% of his passenger list was made up of salesmen, management consultants and telephone sanitizers. Then finally there was the C-Rapture workers were taken - the garbage truck drivers, the gardeners, and so on. Of course, every taken by the A and C-raptures soon gets returned to earth, as part of God's little gambit to wipe out RTCs via the medium of telephonically transmitted disease.

[aunursa]

Chloe found her father's uniform top outside the door. When she went into the house and started upstairs, she called out "Mom" and "Raymie." Why didn't she call out "Dad", too? (This is before she reached her parents' room and found Rayford.) Is there some way that she have known that he wasn't among the missing? Did she assume that because his car was in the driveway, that he was home? Wouldn't she have presumed, upon finding his empty coat, that he might have been among the missing?

Or did Chloe read ahead in the script and realized that it was the Rapture, and only the RTC members of her family were gone?

[damnedyankee]

I'd dispute the accuracy of using the garbage truck as a measure of time. Mine sometimes get to my house after I come home from work, in the evening.

[aunursa]

When Chloe arrived home and found her father's coat outside, as she was entering the house and going upstairs, she called out for her mother and brother twice. "Mom? ... Raymie? ..." Why didn't she also call out for her dad? (This was before she went into her parents room and found Rayford.) Especially if she noticed Rayford's car in the driveway, she would have expected that at least he would be home. If she expected that he might not be there, presumably she would have called out "Dad" as well as "Mom". Right?

Or did Chloe read ahead in the script and realized that it was the Rapture ... and the only people she would miss would be the RTC members of her family?

[Cowboy Diva]

SchrodingersDuck,
Great. Now I have images of people, who instead of looking for jesus-types in funny hats, are looking for soap mines and trying to decide what color fire should be.

I wonder whether heaven is decorated with hessian wallpaper.

[Not Really Here]

Diva- Great. Now I have images of people, who instead of looking for jesus-types in funny hats, are looking for soap mines and trying to decide what color fire should be.

Or whether people want fire that can be fitted nasally.

[CombatQueer]

Well, Chloe didn't find the whole uniform, and I'm sure a lot of people would have figured out that disappeared people leave *all* their cloths behind. What I would have really liked to have seen is a scene where a couple of scared survivors try to figure out the rules.

A: So anyone can disappear, at any time, from anywhere. Right?

B: Anyone, sure, but all the kids. All of them.

A: But you leave your cloths behind?

B: Yeah, but not internal stuff. You keep your pins, you fillings, your pacemaker, all that stuff.

A: Where does it go?

B: Where ever you do, I guess.

A: Wait, it didn't get all the kids. That goth kid, the neighbors daughter, I saw her, she didn't disappear.

B: Well, she was twelve, wasn't she?

A: But my cousin Tom, all his kids disappeared and the youngest of them was thirteen.

B: I don't know, what'd they eat?

And on and on and on. It just seems like there's a big lack of theorizing going on in this. Seems like everybody would have a theory, and everybody would want to know what everyone else knew.

[aunursa]

Curses! Comments suspended until after I re-write them!

[Geds]

A: But my cousin Tom, all his kids disappeared and the youngest of them was thirteen.

That's interesting, and I don't recall it entering the discussion at any point in the past.

Assume there is an arbitrary cut off of "kid," and that everyone who is, say 12 or has not yet undergone puberty is below the bar.

We seem to be operating under the theory that everyone will figure out that there's a distinct kid/not kid dichotomy. But won't there be enough RTC 13 year-olds or boys whose voices are cracking and have hair growing in funny places that everyone will likely know, or at least know of, an exception to the rule?

[aunursa]

CombatQueer: Even moreso then she would have called out "Dad" if she expected to find him.

[Not Really Here]

CombatQueer- And on and on and on. It just seems like there's a big lack of theorizing going on in this. Seems like everybody would have a theory, and everybody would want to know what everyone else knew.

Well, everyone's still in shock. Wait a few days for the dust to settle, then the theorizing will commence-

"I've got a theory, that it's a demon. A dancing demon. No, something isn't right there."

[aunursa]

But won't there be enough RTC 13 year-olds or boys whose voices are cracking and have hair growing in funny places that everyone will likely know, or at least know of, an exception to the rule?

It wouldn't matter, cuz all of us non-RTC types are just too dumb and ignorant of RTC theology to figure out a rule that "only the RTCs and pre-pubescents are missing."

[Roadstergal]

Did Chloe's nosering get Raptured?

Yes. Piercings are holy.

*dodges tomatoes*

[Jay (Lurker)]

"Thus we have Left Behind: The Movie's version of a meet-cute between Chloe and Buck. (This might have been more entertaining, of course, had Chloe sat down on the left end of the couch, but I suppose Kirk Cameron would not have approved.)"

If I had been drinking something, this would have been a spit-take.

[Mark Baker-Wright]

Hey Fred: The New York Times (well, one of their film critics anyway) doesn't like "It's a Wonderful Life."

As I read that article, it seems to me that the critic doesn't "dislike" IAWL at all. He just has a rather different perception of what makes it work, and what it all means, than most.

My own observations weren't anywhere near as pointed as his, but I find myself agreeing with a lot of what he says. I don't go so far as to suggest "Potterville" was better, but Bailey really is pretty miserable out of an overblown sense of responsibility.

(I do have a nitpick about his observation that Bailey would still have gone to jail, despite paying back the money. Someone would have had to press charges, and it doesn't really seem that any of Bailey's shareholders are at all likely to do so at the end of the movie. But I read the whole thing more as satire than a serious dump on IAWL, in any event.)

[Art]

I actually thought that Chloe was too shell-shocked to notice Rayford's stuff and thought he might still be away at work -- and, realistically, it *shouldn't* have been nearly as easy for him to get back home as it was with all the chaos, as Fred points out -- so it makes sense that she ran home hoping to find her mom and brother but not her dad, and is hit by the double-whammy of relief to find him there and despair at knowing that if Mom and Raymie weren't disappeared they'd be with him.

The Rayford/Chloe reunion is one of the bright spots in the movie, a point where I actually cared about these people and felt like they were real. Can't say the same of any of Buck's plotline -- and, to be fair, Kirk Cameron's Buck is at least as appealing a character as Mike Seaver was (which may be damning with faint praise, but compared to book-Buck it's really saying something), and suffers mainly from the ludicrousness of the film trying to pretend he's an awesome action hero instead of a bumbling well-intentioned fool.

[Kyle]

Roadstergal - this is way off topic, but I had to put together our office christmas luncheon today, and we'd decided to play a movie in the background, as a little distraction. Being the leader, I got to pick - The Nightmare Before Christmas. While we were setting up, I paused the dvd at the beginning of the movie, just as a ghost in tattered rags is flying towards the camera. Everyone who came into the room asked what that was. My reply:

"In the spirit of the season...it's the holey spirit!"

[Not Really Here]

Did anybody notice how stiff and unnatural CamCam was when he was doing the comforting touch on the shoulder/holding Chloe's wrist thing? It's like either he is extremely uncomfortable touching a woman who he's not married to, or Kirk Cameron is a really bad actor.

Or, maybe both.

[Jeff]

Speaking as someone who has been emotionally manipulated by his family's views of personal responsibility since the age of 10, that's the same reason I've always hated "It's A Wonderful Life." YMMV.

I wasn't and the manipulation squicks me out, too.

=====================

Is there some way that she have known that he wasn't among the missing?

Yep -- she found a top, not a whole uniform. Since dad made it back home, the fact that there's some clothes but not all of them is a big CLUE (plus, yeah, the director told her that Dad was not Raptured).

(or what CombatQueer said)

========================

Has anyone noticed that the director likes to show Chloe running with her jacket open? Naughty, naughty RTC! Of course, I like it too -- I'm not complaining -- but are they showing how Eeeeevil she is by not covering up like a truely good woman would?

[aunursa]

Art: I actually thought that Chloe was too shell-shocked to notice Rayford's stuff and thought he might still be away at work

That's a good point, but for the fact that (after passing his car in the driveway) she paused at the front door when she noticed his uniform coat -- and picked it up. Obviously her father had returned home.

[Comrade Rutherford]

I have been meaning to ask this: When foetii are raptured, does the placenta disappear, too? If not, there are a lot of D+Cs happening around the world, and a lot of dying women in third world countries and America (where we don't have a national health care system).

Also, I've been thinking about something Fred said a while ago, about how RTCs focus more on the Anti-Christ, than on anything Jesus actually said or did. And this theme of studiously ignoring everyone around them that Christ's compassion requires them to care for carries over into the movie with CamCam shielding his gaze from the suffering of others. From all this I gather that RTCs are Anti-Christians.

And why doesn't Chloe even notice her dad's jacket and at least pause and say, "oh, no. Not Dad, too!" Just like the RTC's intentional ignoring Christ's message of compassion, so too the film's makers studiously ignore every possibility of good filmmaking.

Jeff asks about Chloe's jacket. They paid good money for Chloe and her breasts, they want them out where they can see them. I'll bet that after she becomes a True Believer her wardrobe gets more modest. The existence of her anatomy is proof that she's an un-repentant whore.

At least Buck is staying true to the book and refusing to do any journalism what-so-ever.

[Leum]

I really liked the part where Chloe picks up Rayford's jacket. Since she's read the slip-cover, she has to be wondering, just for a second, if he's been raptured, too.

[emjaybee]

Comrade, I wondered that too! The best way for it to be "miraculous" would be for the women to just be un-pregnant--flat bellied and non-gestating, all at once. But again, we're giving this more thought than the writers ever did or would.

[peanutsnraisins]

When foetii are raptured, does the placenta disappear, too?

Since the placenta is genetically part of the fetus rather than the mother (it develops from the outer layer of cells in the blastocyst), my guess is that it would be Raptured.

Ew.

[Geds]

Wow. I just got home from work and watched the video.

Three things:

1. Even under martial law, there's no way an MP would react like that to an unarmed civilian. I can see the, "Go back inside, sir," concept, but not the standing up in the truck in a three-point firing stance acting like he just walked in from a zombie apocalypse movie thing.

2. Also, Jeeps, really? I thought even the National Guard had upgraded more or less fully to Humvees by the time the movie was made.

3. Even without cookie eating the Chloe meets Buck scene was just utterly painful to watch.

[Amaryllis]

RE It's a Wonderful Life: isn't that the movie where the worst fate they can imagine for a woman when Mr. Right leaves town without her, is that she turns into an Old-Maid Librarian? Oh, the horror...

Thread meander (hijack is too harsh for the prevailing spirit around here) in the very first comment: a new Slacktivist record?

Now to go home where I can actually watch the clip and read the rest of the comments.
Windows is shutting down.
*locks desk, grabs coat, says goodbye*