#500thpost

On New Year’s Day, I will publish my 500th blog post. I began this blog on September 28, 2014. If I had written every single day since then, this would not be blog number 500. It would be blog number 4,102. That alone tells a story. I did not blog daily for most of those years. Daily writing only became a discipline for me this year, and even then, I missed a few days in February during a mental…

I thought for my 500th post on this blog, I’d do something self-indulgent and write down my thoughts about the parallels and contrasts of these two scenes, even though so much has already been said about them. Strap in, it’s long.

When I started the DOOMonFILM blog, the only purpose was to have a place where my thoughts on films, both first run and of the past, would be chronicled online where they were easy to access and share.  I knew my love for films was a deep one, but I never imagined that I’d hit the 500 post milestone in less than three years.  My following is small at this point, but I see your activity, and it is greatly appreciated.  I will continue to write, and I hope that you will continue to support.

In order to celebrate 500 posts, I thought I’d share some of my DOOMface artwork centered around film.  Part of the idea of my logo was malleability, specifically in the sense that a little Photoshop assistance could place me in any number of famous or iconic situations and locations.  Once the idea of transitioning the work into film stills was on the table, the possibilities became endless.  This collection represents a small section of the work based on film properties that have inspired me and entertained me over the years.

If you enjoy this work, more can be found at my DoomsdayNow Tumblr page.

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Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele, 2017)

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Down By Law (dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1986)

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Le Samourai (dir. Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)

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2001 : A Space Odyssey (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

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Goodfellas (dir. Martin Scorsese, 1990)

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Black Panther (dir. Ryan Coogler, 2018)

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Full Metal Jacket (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1987)

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Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee, 1989)

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Roman Holiday (dir. William Wyler, 1953)

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La Haine (dir. Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995)

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Taxi Driver (dir. Martin Scorsese, 1976)

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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (dir. George Roy Hill, 1969)

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The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

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Nostalghia (dir. Andrei Tarkovsi, 1983)

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Menace II Society (dir. Allen and Albert Hughes, 1993)

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Queen & Slim (dir. Melina Matsoukas, 2019)

Summary: Seven gets scared of the car wash

"I'm not looking forward to this" Audrie said, "not at all."

Mary looked at her, puzzled. She was confused as to why someone would dread washing a car. "Why?" she asked, "I mean, washing the kind of car is kind of fun."

"Easy for you to say" Audrie said to her friend, "You actually look OK in a tank top, Mary. I look awful." Make no mistake, Audrie was super self conscious of how she looked. She almost never went swimming because she felt so embarrassed wearing a swimsuit. It was so bad that she probably forgot how to swim in the first place. She wore baggy clothes because she was convinced she didn't look good in anything else. It also didn't help that Audrie was blind and thus had no way of knowing whether or not the sentence "you're fugly in a tank top" was a factual statement or an demeaning opinion. If only there was a way to wash the car that didn't require changing into a tank top, she thought, then I wouldn't hate washing cars so much.

Neither Mary nor Audrie knew it, but Four was eavesdropping on them. And just when the two of them were least expecting it, he said, "I think I can help you there, Audrie". Almost immediately after he opened his mouth, a wave of dread hit Audrie. Uh oh, she thought. Audrie had been acquainted with Four long enough to know that his ideas were pretty dumb. Even if his intentions were good, his means of solving a problem were so poorly planned that, in the long run, they did more harm than good. This one was no different.

"How about driving the car to the car wash?" he suggested.

Both of the girls collectively groaned. Audrie had no license, no experience, no useful vision, and no idea which pedal was the gas and which one was the brake. It also didn't help that she was very blind. The only upside to Four's plan (for Audrie, at least) was that she wouldn't have to wear a tank top.

"How am I supposed to drive, Four?" Audrie asked in a ticked off tone of voice, "I'm blind"

"Way ahead of you" Four said. He then gestured to his younger brother Seven. "We'll put Seven's head on the dashboard. He'll be your eyes, Audrie."

Seven looked at the whole thing, hesitating. "I, uh, don't think that's such a good idea, Four." he said nervously, "Are you sure it will work??"

"Chillax" Four said overconfidently, "Saw this on TV once, so it's gotta work."

Seven really didn't like hearing those words out of Four's mouth. He knew all too well that whenever Four said that any of his zany schemes had to work because it worked on TV, it really didn't. The words "it worked on TV" almost always spelled disaster. They were the reason Two had a minor spray-tan fiasco just before he went on a game show. They were the reason that Six once wound up with a seriously bad haircut. If Four said that he knew how it worked because he saw it on TV, then the chances of it ending well were not that good.

This was no different. Once Seven's head was on the dashboard and Audrie pulled out of the driveway, things went completely downhill from there. Literally, they went down a hill, knocking out several garbage cans (and the passenger side mirror) along the way. As they travelled backwards, Seven's head slipped off the dashboard and onto the passenger side seat. "GAH! I can't see, I can't see!" he shouted. Without stopping, Audrie picked up his head and put it back on the dashboard. It did nothing to ease Seven's panic, as he could now see that they drove off the road and were about to head down a very steep ravine with a river at the bottom. "Oh, God; I can see!" he panicked. After driving out of the ravine and on a few sidewalks on the other side, they eventually made it to the car wash.

You might think that actually going through the car wash was the least stressful part of the whole endeavor. After all, you aren't really driving when you're going through the car wash. All you have to do is just put the car in neutral, sit back, and let the car wash work it's magic. Well, you'd also be an idiot, because Seven is absolutely terrified of the car wash. He panicked the entire time.

"Seven, it's OK" Audrie said, trying to console him, "The big slappy things aren't going to eat you." The big, slappy things in the car wash didn't eat anything, as they were inanimate objects. All they did was scrub the cars down with soap. They didn't mean anybody any harm. It didn't make sense to be afraid of them.

Yet he was. He was just terrified. His body probably wet itself out of fear. And no amount of reassurance from Audrie could calm him

"Seven" she said, somewhat exasperated but still trying to remain calm for Seven's sake, "The slappy things aren't going to eat you. They're inanimate objects. There's nothing to be afraid of." She exited the car to demonstrate that the flappy things wouldn't eat you. "See?"

But there, she made a fatal flaw. It might not have been fatal for Audrie, but it was definitely fatal to the car door. When Audrie stepped outside, the spinning brush was behind the car. As she walked out in front of the car to show Seven that she was completely unharmed, the spinning brush moved forward. The car door wasn't open very wide, but the spinning brush still got caught on the door. The brush continued to move forward, tearing the door of the car clean off. Worse, not only did the door come off, the car got stuck in the rigging for the spinning brushes and was dragged backwards. Only when the rigging went all the way back was the car dislodged.

As for the door, it was now completely torn off the car.

Eventually, Audrie found the car, got back in, and drove through the rest of the car wash. But poor Seven was inconsolable. His worse car wash related nightmare came true. The slappy things attacked, and he and Audrie were powerless to stop it.

By the time they got the car back to Mary's house, the car was a total wreck! The mirror on the passenger side was missing, the door on the driver's side was missing, and it was dented everywhere. As Audrie pulled into the driveway, Mary and the monsters took a good look at the car. It was totalled. Clean, but totalled. Everybody wondered how the car ended up looking like a 3D rendering of a Picasso painting. Once they saw Audrie get out of the car, they then wondered what possessed Audrie to try and drive.

"Hey, check it out," she said, beaming, "I got the car washed, no tank top required"

Mary tried not to giggle. Yeah, what's left of it, anyway she thought.

Meanwhile, Four stood there, pretty proud of himself. "Am I a genius or what?" he proudly declared in front of everyone.

The other monsters just looked at him. The though his idea of Audrie, a blind person, driving to the car was was really stupid. "OK, I'm going to go with what?" One said.

"And what was wrong with my brilliant plan?" Four retorted.

One couldn't believe she had to point out the obvious reasons why Four's plan was stupid. Audrie had no license, no useful vision, and no idea how to actually drive. Even with Seven's head serving as her eyes, the car was still a disaster. Clearly, Four failed to consider the possibility that Seven was afraid of the car wash. "Four, do you not have this little voice in your head that says this might be a bad idea?" she continued.

Four was in trouble and he knew it. "Hey, look at this" he said, trying desperately to make a diversion, "We found Seven's head."

Seven's body took the head out of the car and screwed it back on. Mary and the monsters couldn't believe Four had done something so stupid. Four couldn't believe his brilliant plan didn't work. After all, he had seen in the film Scent of a Woman that it was totally possible for a sighted person to effectively dictate directions to a blind driver. It hadn't occurred to him that just because he saw it work in Scent of a Woman didn't necessarily mean it would work in real life.