Haiku + Movie = Haikuvie
March 11, 2008 9:28 PM   Subscribe

Lumbergh and the Bobs
bring layoffs and misery
white collars, dark times


- An excerpt from the "Office Space" Haikuvie. What's a Haikuvie? A Haikuvie takes a movie and sums it up in 7 haiku. It is an attempt to capture the essence of the film and mix in bits of commentary and humor along the way. Warning: Haikuvies contain spoilers (if you haven't seen the movies).
posted by amyms (17 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
A Haikuvie takes a movie and sums it up kills it in 7 haiku. It is an attempt to capture kill the essence of the film and mix in kill bits of commentary and humor along the way.

Sorry, the word "haikuvie" makes me want to KILL KILL KILL!!!
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 9:38 PM on March 11, 2008 [2 favorites]


Am I the only person who doesn't understand haikus? Every one I've seen just sounds odd to me. I'm no poet, so I don't understand if that it how they are supposed to sound, of if I just read the crappy ones.
posted by trevor Manternach at 9:40 PM on March 11, 2008


I used to do this all the time, only in single haikus.

Arnie fights clear guy
with mud and rocks and sharp sticks.
"Get to the choppah!"
posted by brundlefly at 9:46 PM on March 11, 2008


Warning: spoilers aren't spoilers if you've seen the movie.

:-)
posted by Malor at 9:47 PM on March 11, 2008


Joker and Leonard
Living a blanket party
In a world of shit
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:47 PM on March 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


Oh, and trevor: Haikus are a translation of a Japanese poetic style. It's my understanding that it works much better in that language. In English, they mostly suck.

My personal favorite:

oh no godzilla
guns and planes cannot stop him
tokyo is ablaze

posted by Malor at 9:49 PM on March 11, 2008


Chigurgh flips a coin
"Call it." "Call it?" "Just call it."
"Your lucky quarter."
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:51 PM on March 11, 2008 [2 favorites]


Dan Plainview breaks legs
Drags self to assay office,
Strikes oil. No blood yet.

Plainview gets hot tip.
Packs up his orphan and he
Moves to Beverly.

Jackpot! A gusher!
Kid knocked flat, goes deaf.
Priest gets ass beat.

Standard wants the wells.
Union says "build a pipeline."
Dan ditches his "son."

Dan, fake bro: road trip.
Montage of brotherly love.
Dan pops cap, takes nap.

Bandy: "Have you, Dan,
Accepted Jesus Christ as
Your Lord and Savior?"

Priest comes, wants money.
Dan chugs gin like a milkshake.
Draaaaaaiiiiiinnnnage. Blood arrives.
posted by The White Hat at 10:05 PM on March 11, 2008 [3 favorites]


Top Gun:

Homoerotic
tension plays out with shirtless
beach volleyball game


So true. So unpoetic.
posted by Jimbob at 10:12 PM on March 11, 2008


trevor: If you want to be a pedant about it (and I do), these are not haiku, but merely something written in an English syllabic approximation of a Japanese form. From Lewis Turco's The New Book of Forms:
[Discussing the historical development of the haiku] "It became a poem based on image, emotive utterance, and ceratin other characteristics as well: spareness, condensation, spontaneity and ellipsis, plus a seasonal element--they are about spring, summer, fall, or winter. Ideally, the haiku, though complete in itself, is open-ended in that its statement reverberates beyond the poem into overtone."

In my opinion, the syllabic form is less important than the other stylistic elements. One of the best "haiku" in English is not in the syllabic form at all. Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro":

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

It's not a haiku, of course, but it bears more resemblance to them philosophically than most English attempts, especially those on the site. They could have been amusing if they were anything more than attempts to fit a prescribed syllable count, but oh well.

/overkill
posted by papakwanz at 10:34 PM on March 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


Reminds me of the old Movie-A-Minute, and sister site Book-A-Minute, which don't seem to be updated much anymore. I like this summary of Lost in Translation pretty well, but others aren't as funny as I remember... And a search of the Mefi archives for movie-a-minute teased out Ten Word Review, which still seems to be going.
posted by msbrauer at 10:56 PM on March 11, 2008


Haikus are about
terse brevity expressed in
one verse - not seven!
posted by rongorongo at 3:47 AM on March 12, 2008


I was all about this in early '06. My friends and I at work used to choose a random subject and then write verse after verse of shitty haiku. It got to the point where I even did Snow Crash as a film in haiku.

Here is our review of the Timbaland video "Scream" with Nicole Scherzinger -

Why on earth is she,
wearing a balaclava,
in this video?

Is she a car thief?
Maybe in Al-Queda?
Or just butt ugly?

A sock on her head
With eye holes cut in to it.
That is soooo not vogue.

A worrying trend,
Amongst the youth of today,
Argh! Hoodie menace!

What could have happened?
To make this appalling trend
I will never wear.
posted by longbaugh at 4:57 AM on March 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Whilst I am posting more awful (fake) haiku - brundlefly's Predator haiku could do with some expansion -

Blaine is a goddamn,
Sexual Tyrannosaur,
Chewing tobacco.

posted by longbaugh at 5:46 AM on March 12, 2008


If you want to be a pedant about it (and I do), these are not haiku, but merely something written in an English syllabic approximation of a Japanese form.

In Japanese, do they do "fake" haiku, or do they hold the form sacred?
posted by smackfu at 5:54 AM on March 12, 2008


Kindly add me to
The list of those dissenters
One poem, not seven
posted by Spatch at 8:26 AM on March 12, 2008


Ugh. From the Princess Bride one:

Hello my name is
Inigo Montoya, cries
the vengeful Spaniard


They split up the Inigo Montoya phrase across two lines rather than just use the five syllable and more perfect "you killed my father"?

Meh. I suppose that there could be cleverness here (see longbaugh's Snow Crash example for proof of this) but these need work before I can put them in that category.

Though, credit where credit is due, I do like this little verse:

Iocane powder
brings end to battle of wits
ha ha ha ha... flop

posted by quin at 10:02 AM on March 12, 2008


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