My favorite movie…
February 11th, 2006
Almost everyone has that one favorite movie they could play over and over again and not get bored. I had a friend back in elementary school that loved Cyborg, with Jean Claude Van Damme. He would go to the local video store every Friday after school and rent it, and sometimes re-rent it right after dropping it off. By my estimate, he probably spent $10,000 in rental fees just to see the movie. Which, coincidentally, is almost what the sequel made at the box office opening weekend.
Well, okay…maybe he didn’t spend $10,000, but he sure spent more on renting it than just outright buying it. Although VHS tapes back then were a pretty penny.
Back to the subject at hand, the underated Black Mask is perhaps my favorite movie of all time. Why? Because he’s a lowly library assistant who just happens to be a super-human mercenary! How frickin’ cool is that?! (Consider the fact that I’m a lowly library assistant who just happens to be a super-human geek.)
Jet Li plays Simon (or Michael, depending on which version you got), a quiet librarian (or, as I like to think - a library assistant, though in actuality he may very well be a library page because his main function seems to be shelving books and you never do see him behind a circulation or reference desk.) Simon (or Michael) is seeking peace in his life, finding tranquility is his new line of work, as opposed to his former career - a genetically enhanced soldier for an ultra-secret military unit called the 701. Simon (or, ah nevermind), along with the rest of the 701 were laid off probably due to budget cuts, or something dreadful happening to their genetic modifications. The government decided to terminate the program - and all the soldiers that were created. Needless to say, Simon manages to escape execution and now leads a life shelving books in a library. At times I wonder which was the worse punishment.
There’s a plot in the movie of course, but that’s not why I love it. It’s Simon, dressed up as Kato, kicking butt every which way, and throwing not knives, daggers, or shurikens - but CDs! Do you know how many times I wanted to just whip out a copy of Entertainment Weekly’s Greatest Hits of 1983 (one of a dozen donated by the RIAA) and just beam some cell-phone user in the back of the head? “Do you hear me now?,” I’d scream while jumping from the reference desk onto the top of the new book section, “Good.”
In closing, that is why Black Mask is probably my favorite movie of all time. Is it as artistic as say, as Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Heck no. Is it as funny as Drunken Master or Rush Hour? Uh uh. But do any of those have a mask-wearing, CD throwing librarian? Hell no. By the way, there is a Black Mask 2, but he’s not a librarian. He does get to fight Traci Lords and Rob Van Dam, but I’m sure he doesn’t know a thing about the Dewey Decimal System.
One Response to “My favorite movie…”
1wiredfu.com » ninja librarian…
June 19th, 2006 @ 2:20 pm
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