I really like movies. And fight scenes make me giddy (side note: while in Italy, before going into the a museum, the Vatican Museum I believe, they listed the gallery’s prohibitions and criteria that would get you kicked out, which included the usual food, drink, destruction, carrying weapons, but also excessive giddiness). This time I’m sticking to gun fights. Couldn’t really tell you why. I like kung-fu and samurai movies too. Maybe I’ll save that for another time.

This list, like all similar ones, means absolutely nothing. It’s only my inexpert opinion and only includes movies that I’ve seen and can remember. But I made it anyway.

These aren’t ordered in any particular way, but that’s not to say they are in a random order. They are just in the order I put them in, for whatever reason I did so.

LA Confidential – The final gun-fight in the Victory Motel. It’s good, but what makes it incredible is when Russel Crow jumps up from the floor boards. I watched thishttp://transcendentalisttelevision.com/wp-admin/edit-pages.php recently and knew exactly when it was going to come and still jumped out of my chair and got chills while sitting alone in my room. This is so good that a professor in a film theory course I took said the pleasure derived from that singular action was the same as having an orgasm (now insert post-modern french theoretical terms like jouissance and Lacanian psychoanalysis)

Bad Boys II – The shoot-out against the Rastas in that old house. Lots of spinning camera stuff and cool shots and one-liners. What would have made it better? If it had been directed by Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential) rather than Michael Bay.

The Matrix – That scene in the office building when they blow the crap out of all the guards and do flips off walls and shit with that bad ass techno playing. I believe it was The Prodigy, but correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been a while.

Untouchables – Train Station Scene

The Boondock Saints – The Six on Two Scene; a flashback while gay Willem Dafoe figures it all out and gets on his knees and there’s that matching shot and all those guns strapped to them and it takes place in Boston and they kill all those dudes and someone loses a finger and… Man, it’s good. Also that other scene when they come in from the ceiling and spin around. That was cool too.

Scarface – The end. The world was his!

Shoot em Up – He delivers a baby in the middle of a warehouse melee! Then he cuts the umbilical cord by shooting it!

Terminator 2 – All of it

Leon (The Professional) – Just see the movie

One of the biggest debates these days is about health care. I am for universalized health care. The enemy is not. They say privatized health care: no ifs, and or buts. Fools! They say it costs a lot of money. Cowards! They say the quality of the care will be weak. Villians!

All right, everybody, I’m creating an alternate reality. It’s very important that you stick with me on this. Otherwise it will never work. I need you to believe everything I am about to tell you is real. Let’s just say that we make practicing medicine mandatory in this country for four years. Right before college. You go to kindergarden, you graduate high school, four years reaching into people’s guts and stuff, right into Lansing Community College. It’s the perfect solution. More people means better care. Plus, if everyone learns how to take care of each other then they’ll know how to take care of themselves better and won’t have to go to the hospital as often. “Honey, dinner’s on the table. Oh, I also cut myself with a steak knife. I’m applying pressure to the wound, but could you get the gauze and sewing kit.” “Where are they?” “Next to the gun.”

Oh, also in this universe guns are mandatory. That’s why we had to make becoming a medical professional mandatory in the first place. Everyone is given a Desert Eagle at age five. People do not live long is this dimension. I’m sorry to break it to you, but most don’t even get to go to Lansing Community College.

Now you’re thinking you don’t want to become a nurse. You don’t want to become a doctor. It’s just like the army. They’ll find somewhere for you. You can work with computers.

You’re saying you don’t want to work in a hospital. They creep you out. You don’t like the sight of blood. Go to jail.

You’re saying you lost your arm in the war. You’re blind. You can’t work in a hospital. Go to jail.

These are important questions, but Big Brother does not like questioning. Go to jail.

So boom, there it is everyone. I solved health care. Put this one in the win column. Everything’s rose colored now. But wait. You’re saying, Alex, the problem is really cost. Congress doesn’t see a way to pay for it all. How are we going to pay for all of that? I say Fuck you.