I finished The Count of Monte Cristo — oddly at the exact moment he and his ploys finished off all his enemies. This was good. So what now?
A need for bloody violence was roiling in my gut and precisely at that time I found John Wick. Oh, this John Wick! The violence, the speed of the violence and deaths, and numbers of the black-clad wickeds! And almost all of them done in by one man (John Wick), his limbs and multiple guns which appear out of nowhere and shoot as long as he wants them to.
This is what I needed, a mass body count of vile people.
That was John Wick the Original. Without a doubt that the sequels would be equally violently satisfying (they couldn’t be less, since the first movie killed off absolutely everybody who wasn’t John Wick himself), I’ve “saved” John Wick II, John Wick III, John Wick IV. Any other John Wicks who show up on my screen, come on in!
I suppose I should be ashamed of moving from intelligently intricate vengeance plans in 19th century France to who the fuck cares, just kill ’em all fiction, but I’m not.
Tonight, though, I’ll be listening to a recital at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, so you understand I’m not relinquishing the exquisite arts for mindless violence. Not at all. I can do both — although not at the same time.