Cigarettes, Jazz, and Terrence Howard in a hat: The On the Road trailer

The first trailer for On the Road has been released, based on the seminal Kerouac story, adapted by Jose Rivera and Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries), and starring Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (Kerouac’s fictionalized self) and Tron Legacy’s Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady). Bella Swan, Kirsten Dunst and Aragorn are in there too, and you can tell it’s about a 50s writer from all the cigarettes and typewriters. Jesus, no wonder they all died young, you couldn’t write a paragraph back then without getting black lung. There’s a lot to discuss here, but all I can focus on is our buddy, Terrence Howard. He gets to wear hats and blow sax with his eyes closed in a movie about beatniks? My God, it’s like he’s been waiting his entire life for this!

(*beaded curtain flies open*)

This ain’t a movie, man, ya dig? That’s just the illusianation of false perceptuality, playin’ tricks on your eyes like the Wizard. It ain’t even there, man! It’s a sheep in a wind chime! All these squares talk about art like it’s a bucket for raindrops, like the only thing worth eatin’ is food. But open your eyes and your mind and you’ll find that your heart’s got a wheelbarrow full of things that you love — hot biscuits, soulful music, bubble wrap, the smell of a beautiful woman’s armpits — and only a fool would believe that lines are linear, ya dig? The truth is, we all of us connected — you, me, mother nature, my nephew’s tricycle, happiness, the ocean, Magic Johnson, grandma’s bunions, this rainstick, morning dew, the color yellow, ants on a popsicle and pot roast, man. Artificial separation is evolutionary disinformation, my pigeons. You can’t hear jazz until you blow your mind like a horn. Everything else is just sounds.

(*blows three sour notes on a clarinet, leaves stage to thunderous finger snaps*)

 

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