The second-worst month of the year is upon us, and it brings with it the usual slate of crap and Oscar bait making its flyover country debut
6.1.2006
Let's see...Hostel, which the advertising desperately wants you to believe came from the mind of Quentin Tarantino, was actually written and directed by Eli Roth. It's apparently very violent. I don't know, I enjoy a good crappy horror film as much as the next man, maybe I'll give it a whirl. Also, Grandma's Boy, one of those Adam Sandler-produced films that looks like it could be a Sandler vehicle if only he didn't have so much artistic integrity. And, of course, BloodRayne, the newest film by Uwe "Alone in the Dark" Boll. Which alone would qualify it for "worst film of the year" consideration, but then there's the the IMDb synopsis: "In eighteenth century Romania, Rayne, a dhampir (half-human, half-vampire), prone to fits of blind blood..." Priceless.
13.1.2006
The New World hits the non-NY/LA world, and the rest of us get to orgasm over the prettiest damn 65mm golden hour nature footage of the year. Yeah, there's probably a plot there, too.
Queen Latifah stars in what is likely to be yet another waste of her talent, the dramedy (Worst. Genre. Ever) Last Holiday. The good news is that it's a remake of an Alec Guinness vehicle, so at least it's got a pedigree. Glory Road is a dreadful-looking "inspiring power of college sports" film by Disney, and I'll ban anyone who actually pays money to see it. Last and probably least is Tristan & Isolde, an MTV-era take on the Arthurian legend of star-crossed lovers. Yes, it's Arthurian. Yes, I'll be giving my hard-earned $6.75 to see it. No, I won't see it before The New World.
20.1.2006
Underworld: Evolution. Because the world really needed that. I wanted really bad to think that the original was fun, but it was really just grating. Transamerica hits wide, and I don't imagine I need to spread my opinion of that film again. Then there's the most curious release of the month, and maybe the year and the decade: Albert Brooks' Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. I don't know what to make of it. I trust Brooks, but the trailer just isn't funny or compelling, and I'll bet my year's salary that at the end we find that just because Muslims are morbidly unfunny doesn't mean that they're not people too, dammit! Will I see it? Probably.
27.1.2006
Less important than any of the films opening today is the glorious B-Fest, traditionally the best day of the year (especially for me this year, when it was in fact the last good day of 2005. Fucking cancer).
There are movies: Annapolis, a rousing "hurrah for our young men in uniform" type film that will of course prove to be a pack of lies; Big Momma's House 2, and again, why? Nanny McPhee, which, I don't know, might be cute, and it has a divinely inspired cast; Imagine Me & You, which looks all gender-bendery, "is she a lesbian?" indie rom-com crappy in the most leaden and obvious way possible (the trailer is unbearable); and Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, the new Steve Coogan/Michael Winterbottom film that looks like Adaptation. on steroids, and is probably the most exciting release of the month for me.
Lastly, Steven Soderbergh's Bubble, which right now is primarily buzzing because its theatrical, cable and DVD releases will all occur on the same day. Which means I'll be able to watch it in the Evanston CinéArts 6, and then walk right across the street to Borders to buy it, just like I did for the Kill Bill Volume 1 soundtrack.
31 December 2005
28 December 2005
AND NOW FOR A MUSICAL INTERLUDE
All the leaves are brown
And the sky is gray
I've been for a walk
On a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm
If I was in L.A.
California dreamin'
On such a winter's day
Stopped into a church
I passed along the way
I got down on my knees
And I pretend to pray
The preacher likes the cold
He knows I'm gonna stay
California dreamin'
On such a winter's day
YEAR-END MUSIC REVIEW
...or not so much.
After reading Jack's post on the subject, I gave some thought to doing my very own Best of 2005, until I realized, with some degree of horror, that I barely listened to anything at all this year. Actually that's not true - I listened with almost Kabbalistic fervor to just two albums, Mysterious Production of Eggs by Andrew Bird, and the monumental Come On Feel the Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens.
This became extra clear to me last night, when in preparation for an upcoming road trip, I sat down to create a list of my 20 favorite songs of the year, and couldn't do it. Not because I don't have 20 favorite songs - but because my objective list would be comprised almost exclusively of those two albums. And "The Bleeding Heart Show" from Twin Cinemas. And probably "Feel Good, Inc."
The point being, I ended up with an 18-track mix CD, of which 7 tracks are from one of those two albums. I feel like a miserable bastard.
After reading Jack's post on the subject, I gave some thought to doing my very own Best of 2005, until I realized, with some degree of horror, that I barely listened to anything at all this year. Actually that's not true - I listened with almost Kabbalistic fervor to just two albums, Mysterious Production of Eggs by Andrew Bird, and the monumental Come On Feel the Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens.
This became extra clear to me last night, when in preparation for an upcoming road trip, I sat down to create a list of my 20 favorite songs of the year, and couldn't do it. Not because I don't have 20 favorite songs - but because my objective list would be comprised almost exclusively of those two albums. And "The Bleeding Heart Show" from Twin Cinemas. And probably "Feel Good, Inc."
The point being, I ended up with an 18-track mix CD, of which 7 tracks are from one of those two albums. I feel like a miserable bastard.
27 December 2005
STRETCHING AND BLINKING, I EMERGE ONCE MORE INTO THE LIGHT
Christmas was...what it was. I guess I should admit, despite my whole little diatribe about family and loved ones, it was kind of a bit theoretical - I'm sure for many people their family and loved ones are one and the same, but I can name a solid dozen people I'd rather have spent December 25 with.
The one spot of truly wonderful news is that while I was at my parents' home, I spent some time looking through my old computer games that never made it to Evanston when I started college lo these many years, and as a result I have reinstalled Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri on my PC, and wasted much time last night trying to get my groove back. Fuckin' Gaians kept stealing all of my special projects.
Oh, yes, I also saw a Christmas movie.
He's hardly my favorite director, living or dead, but I cede to no one in my ardor as a Steven Spielberg apologist. Even when his films are flawed or simply flat-out bad, I think there's something interesting to dig at, and besides the man is one of the most internally-coherent auteurs working in America.
Thus, I had high hopes for Munich, his Tony Kushner-scripted take on the events following the assassination of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. And largely, my hopes were borne out, as this just might be the most morally engaged film of 2005.
Ignore every last damn word you've heard about whether or not this film is an excuse for the Palestinian terrorists. It's not. The film makes no effort for even one moment to argue that the events in Munich were anything less than evil. The questions raised by this film are not along the lines of "why have they harmed us, and do we deserve it?"
The film follows a team of four Mossad agents led by Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana). They are given a thematically convenient list of 11 Palestinian leaders who planned and executed the Munich events, and instructed to eliminate those leaders, excessive force encouraged. Along the way, wouldn't you know, these patriotic sons of Israel suddenly come to realize that they are killing men. Not innocent men, the film never argues that (but some of them may well be innocent of Munich). Nevertheless, in responding to violence with violence, the agents are simply perpetuating an unending cycle.
No one is blind to this reality. In ordering the hit, Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) rationalizes her decision with a line from the trailer that has wedged itself immovably in my brain: "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values." Meaning that nobody is under the illusion that this is a just response (and boy, do I wish the current American administration had evidenced a similar notion, but more on that later). But not responding at all would be equally unjust. And thus is the tragedy of Munich: to kill in revenge is evil, but to not kill in revenge shows weakness, and thus more killing will occur.
Uniquely in Spielberg's canon, the film is content to allow this ambiguity to stand. Nowhere else does he seem so comfortable with the notion that the world is primarily composed of moral greys. Certainly in Schindler's List, his other unabashedly great "adult" film, there is a simple, almost programmatic morality. Nothing like that here: it's easy to call Munich evil, but from there on, how far does one go? When does murder stop being evil? Actually, the film does answer this question: murder is always evil, because it never ends. Late in the film, the assassins commit a freelance act of revenge of almost unwatchable savagery. It's made clear that the men could never have perpetrated this act if there government hadn't already made revenge killing a morally accessible option.
The film is being positioned as a meditation on the perpetual state of conflict between Israel and Palestine. But that's not the most satisfying way to read it, for the reason pointed to in a conversation between Avner and a Palestinian youth: there is no position of compromise between these two groups. Their needs are mutually exclusive. They will go on killing each other until one side is dead, or one side is convinced that God was lying all along and no, it's that land, over there, that I promised you.
What Munich is really about, and fairly unobliquely, is the War on Terror. If you hadn't noticed it by the end (an impossibility), Spielberg makes goddamn sure you get it with the rather ham-fisted final shot, focused on the new-in-1972 World Trade Center. By this point, though, the parallels between the Olympics and the 9/11 attacks are entirely clear: each begat a period of national trauma, each resulted in a disproportionate response against men who may or may not have been at all involved. And the constant insistence that "Munich changed everything" is a direct and surely deliberate mate to the old canard of "America changed after 9/11." In a year filled to the brim with politically engaged films, Munich stands above them all, asking the question "is killing those who have wronged us right?" without any attempt to answer it, but making it clear that the world might be a rather better place if the powers that be had asked it a few years ago.
The film is not all grim and doom, although the final hour is utterly mirthless. For the first 90 minutes or so, Munich is actually a pretty taut 70's-style political thriller, more in the mode of Three Days of the Condor than One Day in September. That might seem irreverent, but Spielberg clearly came to the same conclusion, and thus one of the most amazing choices of his career: to shot the film in the style of an early-70's movie. He and Janusz Kaminski, who has recently been turning out cinematographic masterpieces about as easily as normal DP's focus a lens, have made a film with all of the flat focus and muted colors of any picture from that era. And the zoom lens! Never have I seen such purposeful zooming in a movie! During the five or six years that the technology was in favor, some great work was done with zoom lenses, but every single time it's used here, it counts for a lot.
The actors are all brilliant, especially Eric Bana. And where the hell did he come from? Is it possible that Spielberg was sitting in a dark room, screening Hulk and thinking to himself, "Yes. That is the man who shall support my epic about the morality of terrorist-hunting"? Geoffrey Rush is great for the first time in forever as the shadowy contact between the assassins and the Israeli government, and Daniel "the next Bond" Craig is the most memorable of the hit squad, in the role of the demented asshole who actually likes their work.
Not all is wonderful, I admit. For one thing, Spielberg doesn't trust his audience all that much, and so we get some fairly sledgehammery moments of thematic development. And while he keeps the soft focus fuzzy warm moments to an absolute minimum (this film is almost as bleak as Schindler's List, without that film's ethical righteousness), they exist. Also, there's a sex scene towards the end, which is good (sex is a rare commodity in Spielberg), but what is done with that scene is almost incoherent, given what we've seen throughout the film. I won't spoil it, but Cameron's review covers the same bases. Beyond Spielberg's personal sins, I found the requisite John Williams score to be surprisingly generic, a huge disappointment given his recent work with his longtime director (I found A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, and War of the Worlds to all have excitingly challenging and unexpected scores).
I will part with one last observation: Spielberg is universally slammed as being overly sentimental, safe and happy. Yet in 2005 he has directed this story of moral ambiguity and savagery, one of the bleakest things I've seen all year, and the 9/11-by-way-of-Bosch nightmares of War of the Worlds. How much more does he have to do to get some fucking credit?
10/10
The one spot of truly wonderful news is that while I was at my parents' home, I spent some time looking through my old computer games that never made it to Evanston when I started college lo these many years, and as a result I have reinstalled Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri on my PC, and wasted much time last night trying to get my groove back. Fuckin' Gaians kept stealing all of my special projects.
Oh, yes, I also saw a Christmas movie.
He's hardly my favorite director, living or dead, but I cede to no one in my ardor as a Steven Spielberg apologist. Even when his films are flawed or simply flat-out bad, I think there's something interesting to dig at, and besides the man is one of the most internally-coherent auteurs working in America.Thus, I had high hopes for Munich, his Tony Kushner-scripted take on the events following the assassination of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. And largely, my hopes were borne out, as this just might be the most morally engaged film of 2005.
Ignore every last damn word you've heard about whether or not this film is an excuse for the Palestinian terrorists. It's not. The film makes no effort for even one moment to argue that the events in Munich were anything less than evil. The questions raised by this film are not along the lines of "why have they harmed us, and do we deserve it?"
The film follows a team of four Mossad agents led by Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana). They are given a thematically convenient list of 11 Palestinian leaders who planned and executed the Munich events, and instructed to eliminate those leaders, excessive force encouraged. Along the way, wouldn't you know, these patriotic sons of Israel suddenly come to realize that they are killing men. Not innocent men, the film never argues that (but some of them may well be innocent of Munich). Nevertheless, in responding to violence with violence, the agents are simply perpetuating an unending cycle.
No one is blind to this reality. In ordering the hit, Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) rationalizes her decision with a line from the trailer that has wedged itself immovably in my brain: "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values." Meaning that nobody is under the illusion that this is a just response (and boy, do I wish the current American administration had evidenced a similar notion, but more on that later). But not responding at all would be equally unjust. And thus is the tragedy of Munich: to kill in revenge is evil, but to not kill in revenge shows weakness, and thus more killing will occur.
Uniquely in Spielberg's canon, the film is content to allow this ambiguity to stand. Nowhere else does he seem so comfortable with the notion that the world is primarily composed of moral greys. Certainly in Schindler's List, his other unabashedly great "adult" film, there is a simple, almost programmatic morality. Nothing like that here: it's easy to call Munich evil, but from there on, how far does one go? When does murder stop being evil? Actually, the film does answer this question: murder is always evil, because it never ends. Late in the film, the assassins commit a freelance act of revenge of almost unwatchable savagery. It's made clear that the men could never have perpetrated this act if there government hadn't already made revenge killing a morally accessible option.
The film is being positioned as a meditation on the perpetual state of conflict between Israel and Palestine. But that's not the most satisfying way to read it, for the reason pointed to in a conversation between Avner and a Palestinian youth: there is no position of compromise between these two groups. Their needs are mutually exclusive. They will go on killing each other until one side is dead, or one side is convinced that God was lying all along and no, it's that land, over there, that I promised you.
What Munich is really about, and fairly unobliquely, is the War on Terror. If you hadn't noticed it by the end (an impossibility), Spielberg makes goddamn sure you get it with the rather ham-fisted final shot, focused on the new-in-1972 World Trade Center. By this point, though, the parallels between the Olympics and the 9/11 attacks are entirely clear: each begat a period of national trauma, each resulted in a disproportionate response against men who may or may not have been at all involved. And the constant insistence that "Munich changed everything" is a direct and surely deliberate mate to the old canard of "America changed after 9/11." In a year filled to the brim with politically engaged films, Munich stands above them all, asking the question "is killing those who have wronged us right?" without any attempt to answer it, but making it clear that the world might be a rather better place if the powers that be had asked it a few years ago.
The film is not all grim and doom, although the final hour is utterly mirthless. For the first 90 minutes or so, Munich is actually a pretty taut 70's-style political thriller, more in the mode of Three Days of the Condor than One Day in September. That might seem irreverent, but Spielberg clearly came to the same conclusion, and thus one of the most amazing choices of his career: to shot the film in the style of an early-70's movie. He and Janusz Kaminski, who has recently been turning out cinematographic masterpieces about as easily as normal DP's focus a lens, have made a film with all of the flat focus and muted colors of any picture from that era. And the zoom lens! Never have I seen such purposeful zooming in a movie! During the five or six years that the technology was in favor, some great work was done with zoom lenses, but every single time it's used here, it counts for a lot.
The actors are all brilliant, especially Eric Bana. And where the hell did he come from? Is it possible that Spielberg was sitting in a dark room, screening Hulk and thinking to himself, "Yes. That is the man who shall support my epic about the morality of terrorist-hunting"? Geoffrey Rush is great for the first time in forever as the shadowy contact between the assassins and the Israeli government, and Daniel "the next Bond" Craig is the most memorable of the hit squad, in the role of the demented asshole who actually likes their work.
Not all is wonderful, I admit. For one thing, Spielberg doesn't trust his audience all that much, and so we get some fairly sledgehammery moments of thematic development. And while he keeps the soft focus fuzzy warm moments to an absolute minimum (this film is almost as bleak as Schindler's List, without that film's ethical righteousness), they exist. Also, there's a sex scene towards the end, which is good (sex is a rare commodity in Spielberg), but what is done with that scene is almost incoherent, given what we've seen throughout the film. I won't spoil it, but Cameron's review covers the same bases. Beyond Spielberg's personal sins, I found the requisite John Williams score to be surprisingly generic, a huge disappointment given his recent work with his longtime director (I found A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, and War of the Worlds to all have excitingly challenging and unexpected scores).
I will part with one last observation: Spielberg is universally slammed as being overly sentimental, safe and happy. Yet in 2005 he has directed this story of moral ambiguity and savagery, one of the bleakest things I've seen all year, and the 9/11-by-way-of-Bosch nightmares of War of the Worlds. How much more does he have to do to get some fucking credit?
10/10
22 December 2005
WISHING YOU ALL A JOYFUL AND GODFORSAKEN CHRISTMAS
I'm headed back to the wilds of northern Chicagoland to spend the holiday weekend with my folks, and I'm not likely to sit in front of a computer again before Monday. So I just wanted to wish all of my loyal readers the merriest most carefully non-observant of Christmases non-denominational winter fesivals.
Seriously, I would like to take a moment if I might to address the "War on Christmas." I've been avoiding it, because it's hardly the case that there's a lack of coverage of the liberal side of this issue, but I want to say, right now, that it's beyond ludicrous that grown men and women actually think there's a sinister plot to discredit and invalidate the Christmas holiday.
Let me use myself as a case example. I am, as many of you know, a ridiculously strident atheist. Despite that, Christmas is my favorite holiday of the entire year (barring less-traditional celebrations like B-Fest and Monty Python Day). This has never caused me any difficulty or consternation or confusion, because to me, Christmas is not and has never been a celebration of the (incorrectly dated) birth of a (historically uncertain) Nazarene baby. It's about the whole "friends and family and love and charity and humanity" gloppiness typified in something like Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
The fact is, prior to Victorian England, Christmas wasn't much of a holiday at all. Fundamentalists decried it as near-heresy, and for much of the history of the Roman Catholic Church, it was effectively just one more saint's day, although in this case it was less about a saint and more about the mortal son of God. It was the Victorian Christmas cult (spearheaded by...Charles Dickens) that codified most of the feasting, caroling and good fellowship that means "the Christmas season" to most Westerners today. And while the Victorians were not an unreligious sort, they were no more overwhelmingly Christian than America today (hell, probably less).
It's fine to bitch about the commercialization of Christmas, and within my lifetime I can recall Evangelicals doing just that (20 years ago, nobody would have been upset that Wal-Mart greeters weren't force-feeding consumers cod-Christianity with every cart distributed). But here's a fact: almost everyone I know, and many of them are atheists, agnostics, humanists or non-Christians, will be spending December 25th with their loved ones. Not, perhaps, a massive family get-together; but a day with the kids is just as good, if not better. Most of those people will be happy to be doing it. And I don't think a single one of them would even notice if a sales clerk greeted them with "Happy Holidays." Anyway, that phrase is just a shorthand for, "right now, I hope you're able to put the dreariness of the world to the side. Because for a couple of days a year, it's nice to not have to focus on it." I don't need to believe in a mythopoetic baby to find that a sentiment worth getting behind.
God bless us, every one.
Seriously, I would like to take a moment if I might to address the "War on Christmas." I've been avoiding it, because it's hardly the case that there's a lack of coverage of the liberal side of this issue, but I want to say, right now, that it's beyond ludicrous that grown men and women actually think there's a sinister plot to discredit and invalidate the Christmas holiday.
Let me use myself as a case example. I am, as many of you know, a ridiculously strident atheist. Despite that, Christmas is my favorite holiday of the entire year (barring less-traditional celebrations like B-Fest and Monty Python Day). This has never caused me any difficulty or consternation or confusion, because to me, Christmas is not and has never been a celebration of the (incorrectly dated) birth of a (historically uncertain) Nazarene baby. It's about the whole "friends and family and love and charity and humanity" gloppiness typified in something like Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
The fact is, prior to Victorian England, Christmas wasn't much of a holiday at all. Fundamentalists decried it as near-heresy, and for much of the history of the Roman Catholic Church, it was effectively just one more saint's day, although in this case it was less about a saint and more about the mortal son of God. It was the Victorian Christmas cult (spearheaded by...Charles Dickens) that codified most of the feasting, caroling and good fellowship that means "the Christmas season" to most Westerners today. And while the Victorians were not an unreligious sort, they were no more overwhelmingly Christian than America today (hell, probably less).
It's fine to bitch about the commercialization of Christmas, and within my lifetime I can recall Evangelicals doing just that (20 years ago, nobody would have been upset that Wal-Mart greeters weren't force-feeding consumers cod-Christianity with every cart distributed). But here's a fact: almost everyone I know, and many of them are atheists, agnostics, humanists or non-Christians, will be spending December 25th with their loved ones. Not, perhaps, a massive family get-together; but a day with the kids is just as good, if not better. Most of those people will be happy to be doing it. And I don't think a single one of them would even notice if a sales clerk greeted them with "Happy Holidays." Anyway, that phrase is just a shorthand for, "right now, I hope you're able to put the dreariness of the world to the side. Because for a couple of days a year, it's nice to not have to focus on it." I don't need to believe in a mythopoetic baby to find that a sentiment worth getting behind.
God bless us, every one.
21 December 2005
EWW! THE COWBOYS ARE GETTING THEIR GAY ON ME!
Michael Medved, raconteur and conservative film savant, appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show last night, where he had this to say about Brokeback Mountain:
Chronicles of Narnia per-screen average, 12/17-12/20: $2,058.67 (3,616 screens)
L.A. Times: "The so-called gay cowboy movie finds broad appeal outside the major cities":
"There's clearly an agenda going on here. It is part of the advocacy for mainstreaming homosexual behavior and promoting gay marriage, and it is also undermining the American cowboy ideal...I have nothing against the subject matter. The point is that these newspapers use entertainment to push political agendas. They do it all the time, it's indoctrination. I'll predict the movie will get a lot of awards, but will not do big box office outside of the big cities."Brokeback Mountain per-screen average, 12/17-12/20: $7,932.34 (69 screens)
Chronicles of Narnia per-screen average, 12/17-12/20: $2,058.67 (3,616 screens)
L.A. Times: "The so-called gay cowboy movie finds broad appeal outside the major cities":
"The closely watched debut in Plano, Texas, 'was a revelation about the accessibility of this movie,' said Focus head of distribution Jack Foley. 'This is not gay-dependent. Attendance at those theaters indicates the film has the attention of suburban moviegoers.'"Roger Ebert's review:
"It could be a 'gay cowboy movie.' But the filmmakers have focused so intently and with such feeling on Jack and Ennis that the movie is as observant as work by Bergman. Strange but true: The more specific a film is, the more universal, because the more it understands individual characters, the more it applies to everyone. I can imagine someone weeping at this film, identifying with it, because he always wanted to stay in the Marines, or be an artist or a cabinetmaker."Can we please take Medved's film critic badge away yet?
20 December 2005
A VICTORY FOR THE FORCES OF LIGHT
Judge John Jones of Pennsylvania has ruled "Intelligent Design" an unscientific, unconstitutional intrusion of church into state. I can't say I'm surprised (judges are smart people), but I think it's worth celebrating. America might be sliding into the Dark Ages, but at least we're not going too fast.
The usual suspects respond (via Pharyngula).
In lighter news, my blog is a dirty whore (also via Pharyngula).
The usual suspects respond (via Pharyngula).
In lighter news, my blog is a dirty whore (also via Pharyngula).
19 December 2005
FUCK POLITICS, I HAVE MOVIES TO WATCH
Apparently, in the two days that I've been removed from following current events (and turning 24 years old...blech), we learned that the president and all his men have systematically violated Americans' civil rights by illegally spying on us. I must have outrage fatigue, or something, because my response to this story was basically to think, "well of course he's violated the Fourth Amendment, he's George W. Bush." Possibly also because of the recent Mother Jones piece (not online yet, only in print) about how liberalism is kind of dead, and it's going to take years of foundation building and coalition forming before we can hope to do anything besides push the country back to the center.
In a baldfaced attempt to ignore all of this, two movies I've seen recently:
Memoirs of a Geisha
It's so, so pretty. The cinematography by Dion Beebe is just about as good as I've seen all year, not because it is radical but because it is so winningly conservative: all soft light across faces, silhouettes, lovely color combinations (bright pink cherry blossoms against delicate green bushes in one scene...heavenly). There's a breathtaking "building on fire" scene where the divine Gong Li is bathed in the gorgeous flames of a most photogenic Hell.
Attention also must also be given to John Myhre's production design, all full of tiny little wonderful details and shapes and colors. It's the very model of what we in the West have come to expect from films set in the pre-industrial East: all shoji screens and sliding doors, elegant and exotic and somehow both decadent and minimalist.
The cast is beautiful as well. The aforementioned Gong is perhaps the most attractive woman in cinema right now, and she's never looked lovelier. Hardly less so is Zhang Ziyi (quite the 2046 reunion going on) as Sayuri, the geisha of the title. And, into her forties, Michelle Yeoh remains quite gorgeous.
If it doesn't seem like I care about the story, well, director Rob Marshall clearly doesn't either. Following right up in the tracks of his earlier Chicago, he has created a work of theatrical flash and style, with all of the theme and story surgically removed. It doesn't work here at all, not even to the tiny degree it worked in the earlier film, because at least that was a musical. This is a film that aches to be An Epic Masterwork in the David Lean mold (Marshall has admitted as much), and it misfires terribly.
The BIG ISSUE about this film prior to its release, and a complete non-starter as far as I care, was "however can Chinese actors play Japanese characters?" The same way Anthony Quinn could play an Arab and Natalie Wood could play a Puerto Rican. They were cast because they're big stars, and they're attractive. The problem isn't that they're Chinese. It's that they're native speakers of Chinese. Or rather, that they're not native, or indeed fluent, speakers of English.
It's embarrassing, almost, to say it, but I was really taken out of the film by the obvious phonetically-learned lines, mostly delivered in a sort of Charlie Chan-accented English that, in the hands of a white person, would be subject to the most appropriate scorn and mockery. I understand that this is what happens when one speaks a language one does not know (certainly, I don't pretend that I could act in a Chinese film), but surely there was a point when it would have been smarter and fairer just to shoot the film in Japanese?
Not that Rob Marshall cares. This, to him, is not the story about a young girl who grows up and learns to be a geisha, and then realizes her life is boxed in. This is the story about pretty things happening.
It seems absurd even to comment on why the pace of the story is wonked out (WWII happens "at" this film, more than happens "in" it), or whine that the film doesn't grapple with the implications of what amounts to a culture of ritualized prostitution. This film was not made by a director who gives a damn about the characters or their psychology, or even their value as thematic placeholders, and it shows.
Damn, it's easy on the eyes, though. 5/10
King Kong
I'm going to start out with the worst thing I can possibly say about this film: it is indecently long. The first hour could be easily slashed to about 20 minutes, entire subplots (Jamie Bell as a Heart of Darkness-reading wild child) could be cut without harming the film in the slightest, and every single fucking setpiece goes on too long; some for about 30 seconds (the climactic dogfight), some for a full five minutes (the ill-advised "run from stampeding apatosauruses" scene). And beyond that, I think that it's kind of immoral for a b-picture (and it is unabashedly that) to be any longer than about two hours, unlike this lumbering, 187-minute giant.
Good. Now that's out of my system, I can gush.
I don't like CGI, just on principle. Everyone who knows anything about my film tastes knows that. So it's a big deal when I say that I loved - LOVED, I tell you - the effects in this film. My allegiance will always lie with the original (as indeed will Peter Jackson's), but this giant gorilla looks outstanding.
As acted by Andy "Gollum" Serkis, Kong is also the first CG creation outside of a Pixar cartoon who actually struck me as a character and a performance (the just-named Gollum always felt pasted on the frame to me, and it took me out of the film). Unlike the 1933 puppet, Kong in this film feels like an actual person, or at least an actual gorilla with actual emotions. There's one amazing scene, early on, when Kong has just captured Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts, valiantly juuuuuust barely failing to convince me she's not acting opposite a blue screen). Uncertain and scared, she decides to entertain the giant ape with some bits from her vaudeville routine. Kong's response is indifference, followed by amusement, followed by disappointment when she's done. It's a surprisingly tender and lovely moment.
Later, in the middle of Kong's Manhattan rampage, he takes Ann to Central Park, where they basically skate together on the frozen pond. I know, I thought it sounded ludicrous when I read about it, too, but it's one of the most romantic scenes in a movie this year (my thought as I watched: "If Brokeback Mountain is a universal love story "about" gay cowboys, is this a universal love story "about" bestiality, and is that creepy?").
That's the huge shift in this version of King Kong, and what might almost have made it better than the first if only it weren't bloated. It's no longer about a savage beast and a frightened blonde who screams a lot. It's about a giant animal of uncertain sensitivity, and a young woman who discovers, on balance, he might be a better match than the gawky writer (Adrien Brody) she was canoodling with on the ship. It's actually a love story, not an adventure film, and it's richer for it.
The problem is that this tends to take away from all of the non-Kong & Ann scenes, some of which are really well done. For once, Jack Black is not annoying as hell (he's given nothing "funny" to do, and this helps), and God save us all he actually manages to bring a center of gravity to the proceedings. Proceedings which include all of the original film's setpieces, with a few new ones tossed in for good measure.
The problem I had with Peter Jackson's direction was largely the problem I had with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He's a gawker. He like to frame his shots so that every! new! reveal! seems like the Biggest Fucking Deal In The History Of The World!!! And it gets tiresome. The very generic musical score hits us over the head with this, as well.
More basically, Jackson needs to sign a pledge to never again use slow-motion, and even more to please stop fucking with the shutter speed. It was a gaudy misfire in Gladiator, but ever since then it's been de rigeur for action scenes in Hollywood cinema. It's just stupid to see that characteristic jerky motion every time something minimally exciting happens. Plus, he needs to fire his editor: much as in the LOTR battle scenes, it's basically impossible to follow what happens in more than a basic "he died! That's bad!" sense.
Still, I haven't spent the last 24 hours thinking about the crappy setpieces. I've been thinking about Ann Darrow cradled in Kong's hand as she sleeps, almost certainly the most peaceful she's been in years. And I've been wishing like hell that it hadn't taken 90 minutes for the film to get to that point. 8/10
In a baldfaced attempt to ignore all of this, two movies I've seen recently:
Memoirs of a GeishaIt's so, so pretty. The cinematography by Dion Beebe is just about as good as I've seen all year, not because it is radical but because it is so winningly conservative: all soft light across faces, silhouettes, lovely color combinations (bright pink cherry blossoms against delicate green bushes in one scene...heavenly). There's a breathtaking "building on fire" scene where the divine Gong Li is bathed in the gorgeous flames of a most photogenic Hell.
Attention also must also be given to John Myhre's production design, all full of tiny little wonderful details and shapes and colors. It's the very model of what we in the West have come to expect from films set in the pre-industrial East: all shoji screens and sliding doors, elegant and exotic and somehow both decadent and minimalist.
The cast is beautiful as well. The aforementioned Gong is perhaps the most attractive woman in cinema right now, and she's never looked lovelier. Hardly less so is Zhang Ziyi (quite the 2046 reunion going on) as Sayuri, the geisha of the title. And, into her forties, Michelle Yeoh remains quite gorgeous.
If it doesn't seem like I care about the story, well, director Rob Marshall clearly doesn't either. Following right up in the tracks of his earlier Chicago, he has created a work of theatrical flash and style, with all of the theme and story surgically removed. It doesn't work here at all, not even to the tiny degree it worked in the earlier film, because at least that was a musical. This is a film that aches to be An Epic Masterwork in the David Lean mold (Marshall has admitted as much), and it misfires terribly.
The BIG ISSUE about this film prior to its release, and a complete non-starter as far as I care, was "however can Chinese actors play Japanese characters?" The same way Anthony Quinn could play an Arab and Natalie Wood could play a Puerto Rican. They were cast because they're big stars, and they're attractive. The problem isn't that they're Chinese. It's that they're native speakers of Chinese. Or rather, that they're not native, or indeed fluent, speakers of English.
It's embarrassing, almost, to say it, but I was really taken out of the film by the obvious phonetically-learned lines, mostly delivered in a sort of Charlie Chan-accented English that, in the hands of a white person, would be subject to the most appropriate scorn and mockery. I understand that this is what happens when one speaks a language one does not know (certainly, I don't pretend that I could act in a Chinese film), but surely there was a point when it would have been smarter and fairer just to shoot the film in Japanese?
Not that Rob Marshall cares. This, to him, is not the story about a young girl who grows up and learns to be a geisha, and then realizes her life is boxed in. This is the story about pretty things happening.
It seems absurd even to comment on why the pace of the story is wonked out (WWII happens "at" this film, more than happens "in" it), or whine that the film doesn't grapple with the implications of what amounts to a culture of ritualized prostitution. This film was not made by a director who gives a damn about the characters or their psychology, or even their value as thematic placeholders, and it shows.
Damn, it's easy on the eyes, though. 5/10
King KongI'm going to start out with the worst thing I can possibly say about this film: it is indecently long. The first hour could be easily slashed to about 20 minutes, entire subplots (Jamie Bell as a Heart of Darkness-reading wild child) could be cut without harming the film in the slightest, and every single fucking setpiece goes on too long; some for about 30 seconds (the climactic dogfight), some for a full five minutes (the ill-advised "run from stampeding apatosauruses" scene). And beyond that, I think that it's kind of immoral for a b-picture (and it is unabashedly that) to be any longer than about two hours, unlike this lumbering, 187-minute giant.
Good. Now that's out of my system, I can gush.
I don't like CGI, just on principle. Everyone who knows anything about my film tastes knows that. So it's a big deal when I say that I loved - LOVED, I tell you - the effects in this film. My allegiance will always lie with the original (as indeed will Peter Jackson's), but this giant gorilla looks outstanding.
As acted by Andy "Gollum" Serkis, Kong is also the first CG creation outside of a Pixar cartoon who actually struck me as a character and a performance (the just-named Gollum always felt pasted on the frame to me, and it took me out of the film). Unlike the 1933 puppet, Kong in this film feels like an actual person, or at least an actual gorilla with actual emotions. There's one amazing scene, early on, when Kong has just captured Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts, valiantly juuuuuust barely failing to convince me she's not acting opposite a blue screen). Uncertain and scared, she decides to entertain the giant ape with some bits from her vaudeville routine. Kong's response is indifference, followed by amusement, followed by disappointment when she's done. It's a surprisingly tender and lovely moment.
Later, in the middle of Kong's Manhattan rampage, he takes Ann to Central Park, where they basically skate together on the frozen pond. I know, I thought it sounded ludicrous when I read about it, too, but it's one of the most romantic scenes in a movie this year (my thought as I watched: "If Brokeback Mountain is a universal love story "about" gay cowboys, is this a universal love story "about" bestiality, and is that creepy?").
That's the huge shift in this version of King Kong, and what might almost have made it better than the first if only it weren't bloated. It's no longer about a savage beast and a frightened blonde who screams a lot. It's about a giant animal of uncertain sensitivity, and a young woman who discovers, on balance, he might be a better match than the gawky writer (Adrien Brody) she was canoodling with on the ship. It's actually a love story, not an adventure film, and it's richer for it.
The problem is that this tends to take away from all of the non-Kong & Ann scenes, some of which are really well done. For once, Jack Black is not annoying as hell (he's given nothing "funny" to do, and this helps), and God save us all he actually manages to bring a center of gravity to the proceedings. Proceedings which include all of the original film's setpieces, with a few new ones tossed in for good measure.
The problem I had with Peter Jackson's direction was largely the problem I had with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He's a gawker. He like to frame his shots so that every! new! reveal! seems like the Biggest Fucking Deal In The History Of The World!!! And it gets tiresome. The very generic musical score hits us over the head with this, as well.
More basically, Jackson needs to sign a pledge to never again use slow-motion, and even more to please stop fucking with the shutter speed. It was a gaudy misfire in Gladiator, but ever since then it's been de rigeur for action scenes in Hollywood cinema. It's just stupid to see that characteristic jerky motion every time something minimally exciting happens. Plus, he needs to fire his editor: much as in the LOTR battle scenes, it's basically impossible to follow what happens in more than a basic "he died! That's bad!" sense.
Still, I haven't spent the last 24 hours thinking about the crappy setpieces. I've been thinking about Ann Darrow cradled in Kong's hand as she sleeps, almost certainly the most peaceful she's been in years. And I've been wishing like hell that it hadn't taken 90 minutes for the film to get to that point. 8/10
WHY I'M OFFICIALLY, 100% NEVER GONNA READ PITCHFORK AGAIN, FOR REAL THIS TIME
Pitchfork's Top 50 Singles of 2005.
Kelly Clarkson, "Since U Been Gone": #4.
Sufjan Stevens, "Chicago": [not ranked]
Kelly Clarkson, "Since U Been Gone": #4.
Sufjan Stevens, "Chicago": [not ranked]
17 December 2005
THE GAY COWBOY MOVIE
The key shot in Brokeback Mountain comes early in the film, before the two ill-fated lovers ever act on their impulses, or indeed before one of them even realizes that he has such an impulse.Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), one of two 19 year-old men tending sheep on a Wyoming mountain, is bathing himself as he can best achieve in suhc primitive conditions, which basically means a sponge bath. Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), his co-shepherd, sits a good way apart from him, resisting as hard as possible the urge to watch. The camera is focused on Jack, Ennis a fuzzy blob in the background. And for ten or fifteen seconds, we watch Jack trying desperately to catch anything out of the corner of his eye without actually turning and gaping.
It speaks to the theme of the whole film, which is essentially the story of two lovers who want badly to not be in love, but can't help it. Eventually, of course, they sleep together, and fall desperately, deeply in love with each other, and for twenty years sneak off to that same mountain for trysts, becoming increasingly frayed as Jack starts to crave a life with Ennis, and Ennis just wants to be a normal man, with a wife and kids and a job.
The day after their first night together, Ennis gruffly insists the he "ain't no queer." Jack immediately agrees. Obviously, Jack is lying to Ennis, but who is Ennis lying to? Jack? Himself? Us? Is he even lying? Later in the film, after his attempt at marriage has ended, it is shown that Ennis doesn't want to be with a woman sexually, but it's not at all clear whether this is because he finds the thought of sex with women loathsome, or if's simply because he won't be unfaithful to Jack.
Nearly every review of this film has made the claim that Ennis and Jack's love founders because society will not accept two men together. This is not the case. Their tragedy comes because society has convinced Ennis that he must never be in love with another man. In fact, for a film set in the conservative West, there's very little obvious homophobia: when Jack and Ennis are discovered on Brokeback Mountain, their boss seems to object less to their relationship, and more to the fact that it kept them away from the sheep. Ennis' wife is horrified to see him with a man, but it's hard to tell whether she views homosexuality or adultery as the greater lie. One scene, near the end, seems to point to violent homophobia, but this scene is the subjective view of a character with a history of seeing phantom homophobia.
No, throughout the film, it's the lovers themselves that keep them apart. Ennis seems wilfully anxious to be caught; he deflects every one of Jack's efforts to build something more lasting than semiannually fucking in the wilderness.
Brokeback Mountain takes place across two very different physical places: the mountain and "the town." It would be simple to say that leaving civilization allows the lovers to indulge their emotions in a sort of noble savagery, but also wrong - in fact, the film reminded me of the work of Werner Herzog in a way (aided by the hopefully-deliberate choice of naming the rancher who first brings them together Aguirre), because it's not just about how nature frees us to be our truest selves, but more about how easy it is to go mad from the revelation of what that entails. They go to Brokeback Mountain to get away from adversity, but surrounded by the wild, they lose track of themselves, and essentially burn themselves up. By no accident is it that the angriest moment between the two lovers in the film takes place in front of an eye-poppingly beautiful lake vista.
More than that, though, I was reminded of Brief Encounter (a film I have a known affection for): it is the story of two people who fall accidentally in love, and become inviolably linked to each other through a series of regular but infrequent meetings. Like that film, their tragedy is because arbitrary social rules have convinced them that their love is invalid and "wrong." And the comparison makes an important point: no matter how liberal and radical the film looks, at heart Brokeback Mountain is a creakily old-fashioned love story. It would have been perfectly comfortable in the 30's, if not for the sort of insignificant fact that the leads are of the same gender. (The most amazing thing about the film: even as the leads violently thrust against each other in passion, it's difficult to think of them as "gay." Certainly, Ennis is in all ways other than his love for Jack, as straight as straight can be. If the film does nothing else politically, I hope that it will underscore how much of a lie identity politics are in this respect: being homosexual does not entail being a swishy Queer Eye stereotype, but is in fact perfectly compatible with being a taciturn cattle wrangler).
Ledger and Gyllenhaal are both perfect: especially Ledger, who takes the role of a inarticulate cowboy, completely unwilling to ever say much of anything, and reveals vast longing and need. In a scene where he never speaks, and never in fact looks towards the camera, he is able to communicate just with his body language, the curl of his mouth, how much he aches to be with Jack, even as his desire scares him.
Special love must also go to Rodrigo Prieto, who turns in perhaps his finest cinematography ever. Among the laymen, it is easy to praise a film for being beautiful only because it is pointed at beautiful things. Prieto demonstrates hoe much more beautiful vistas and mountains are when a great photographer is shooting them. More importantly, he captures the cluttered, stuffy interiors of the town perfectly. Watching the scenes inside, it is impossible not to understand why Jack and Ennis would want to escape to Brokeback Mountain whenever possible.
And of course, director Ang Lee. Not a slouch, by any means; yet this is so much richer than even the finest of his previous work. He contrasts the wilds with the town, and the love between the men with their relationships with their wives, with a remarkble subtlety that still manages to be absolutely clear. He also has an unerring knack for knowing when a closeup will have the effect of a gunshot, and when to pull back and allow us to take in the grandeur of the mountain, with the lovers merely one element of a great canvas.
This is a great film. It transcends, utterly, the trappings of "that gay western." It is neither of those things. It uses the iconography of the West because of that genre's relationship to personal freedom and men being their honest selves; it uses the specificity of a homosexual relationship to extrapolate a story which should speak true to anyone, gay or straight, who has been in love. There were points that the film made me cry. I can't speak any more to its honesty than that.
10/10
16 December 2005
FRIDAY RANDOM TEN: BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE EDITION
As in, 3 degree wind chill cold.
1. "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds," Jefferson Airplane, 1967. From Surrealistic Pillow; come on, it's good cheesy fun. 6/10
2. "Hotel Yorba," The White Stripes, 2001. I have a weakness for this song. It's cute. And almost certainly the catchiest thing they've ever done. 7/10
3. "This Old Guitar," Neil Young, 2005. From Prairie Wind, his most recent attempt. It seems maudlin at first listen, but then you remember that his dad died right before recording started, and Neil had brain surgery during recording, and it suddenly becomes a lot more haunting than saccharine. Great Emmylou Harris backup vocal. 8/10
4. "Cold Water," Damien Rice, 2003. Even by the Rice's neo-folk standards, this is a slooooow song. 5/10
5. "Sad Eyed Lady of the Low Lands," Bob Dylan, 1966. Honestly, it acheives nothing in 11 minutes it couldn't achieve in 5. But as the climax to Blonde on Blonde, I guess it earns it. 5/10
6. "No One Will Ever Love You," The Magnetic Fields, 1999. Not even close to my favorite track from 69 Love Songs, but it does have a really nice ghostly quality to the vocal. 6/10
7. "You Don't Move Me No More," Big Mama Thornton, 1955. My favorite female blues vocalist ever. Ever. Sadly, she doesn't give this one 110%...95% at most. 8/10
8. "Blue Condition," Cream, 1967. The sort of blues that makes me wish I'd given Big Mama 10. It's not that they're bad, but they're so white. 6/10
9. "Bring It On Home," Led Zeppelin, 1969. Okay, weird little blues run here. There's more of a dangerous sexual quality to this one than the Cream. Then, about midway through, it goes for hard rock, and sounds like every other Zeppelin track. 6/10
10. "Say It Isn't So," Billie Holiday, 1955. If I need to explain why Billie is an automatic 10/10, you really need to listen to more music.
Average 6.7/10
Bonus track: "When I See You Again," Fleetwood Mac, 1987. Thank God that wasn't in the audit.
1. "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds," Jefferson Airplane, 1967. From Surrealistic Pillow; come on, it's good cheesy fun. 6/10
2. "Hotel Yorba," The White Stripes, 2001. I have a weakness for this song. It's cute. And almost certainly the catchiest thing they've ever done. 7/10
3. "This Old Guitar," Neil Young, 2005. From Prairie Wind, his most recent attempt. It seems maudlin at first listen, but then you remember that his dad died right before recording started, and Neil had brain surgery during recording, and it suddenly becomes a lot more haunting than saccharine. Great Emmylou Harris backup vocal. 8/10
4. "Cold Water," Damien Rice, 2003. Even by the Rice's neo-folk standards, this is a slooooow song. 5/10
5. "Sad Eyed Lady of the Low Lands," Bob Dylan, 1966. Honestly, it acheives nothing in 11 minutes it couldn't achieve in 5. But as the climax to Blonde on Blonde, I guess it earns it. 5/10
6. "No One Will Ever Love You," The Magnetic Fields, 1999. Not even close to my favorite track from 69 Love Songs, but it does have a really nice ghostly quality to the vocal. 6/10
7. "You Don't Move Me No More," Big Mama Thornton, 1955. My favorite female blues vocalist ever. Ever. Sadly, she doesn't give this one 110%...95% at most. 8/10
8. "Blue Condition," Cream, 1967. The sort of blues that makes me wish I'd given Big Mama 10. It's not that they're bad, but they're so white. 6/10
9. "Bring It On Home," Led Zeppelin, 1969. Okay, weird little blues run here. There's more of a dangerous sexual quality to this one than the Cream. Then, about midway through, it goes for hard rock, and sounds like every other Zeppelin track. 6/10
10. "Say It Isn't So," Billie Holiday, 1955. If I need to explain why Billie is an automatic 10/10, you really need to listen to more music.
Average 6.7/10
Bonus track: "When I See You Again," Fleetwood Mac, 1987. Thank God that wasn't in the audit.
WELL, ISN'T THIS A BIT OF TERRIFIC?
Nifty. I go out for lunch, and Senate Democrats make the first step in reclaiming our civil liberties. I'll be honest, I have very little hope that this will stick: doubtlessly there will be some hopelessly lopsided compromise that renews the Patriot Act and then some, with a symbolic bone thrown to the moderates. But I am so in love with Russ Feingold right now, it's not even funny.
15 December 2005
TWEAKING MY LIFE. JUST A LITTLE BIT.
This post is concerned exclusively with matters of a personal nature, and if that's not interesting to you, please feel free to skip it. They can't all be predicting Oscar nominations.
So here's the deal: I'm planning on applying to the Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy, for my Master of Science in Education. It is my goal to become a high school English teacher.
First of all, this isn't out of the blue. I was thinking very strongly of doing this right out of college, but time and money raised their ugly heads. What is undeniable is that one of the things I'm very good at is expostulating on why books are good, and I think I'd like to do it for the betterment of man, rather than just because I'm pretentious.
Second of all, to all those whose immediate thought is "Jesus! I thought he wanted to direct films!": I still do. I'm not looking to do this for more than a decade or so. Plus, that's why there are summer vacations. I'm certainly not going to stop writing. And if I can produce a film, of any length, that gets me recognition on the festival circuit, or God willing money for another film, then all bets are off.
If all goes well, I could start part time as soon as September. "As soon as" in a relative sense, obviously. But between now and then I have a lot of things to do. Anyway, now that I'm committed to the idea, I wanted to share it with you all.
So here's the deal: I'm planning on applying to the Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy, for my Master of Science in Education. It is my goal to become a high school English teacher.
First of all, this isn't out of the blue. I was thinking very strongly of doing this right out of college, but time and money raised their ugly heads. What is undeniable is that one of the things I'm very good at is expostulating on why books are good, and I think I'd like to do it for the betterment of man, rather than just because I'm pretentious.
Second of all, to all those whose immediate thought is "Jesus! I thought he wanted to direct films!": I still do. I'm not looking to do this for more than a decade or so. Plus, that's why there are summer vacations. I'm certainly not going to stop writing. And if I can produce a film, of any length, that gets me recognition on the festival circuit, or God willing money for another film, then all bets are off.
If all goes well, I could start part time as soon as September. "As soon as" in a relative sense, obviously. But between now and then I have a lot of things to do. Anyway, now that I'm committed to the idea, I wanted to share it with you all.
14 December 2005
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL HIS LITTLE ANGELS, PLEASE WRITE
Showtime is "exploring" picking up Arrested Development if/when Fox cancels it.
I'm begging again, but for the love of Christ, please write to Showtime and tell them that you would looooove to subscribe if they picked AD up.
Showtime Customer Care Department
Showtime Networks, Inc.
1633 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
Phone no. 877-474-6984
(hat tip to Rebecca for reminding me)
I'm begging again, but for the love of Christ, please write to Showtime and tell them that you would looooove to subscribe if they picked AD up.
Showtime Customer Care Department
Showtime Networks, Inc.
1633 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
Phone no. 877-474-6984
(hat tip to Rebecca for reminding me)
AN ACTOR TALKS ABOUT DIRECTING ACTORS
I don't really like to do the "Heh. Indeed." thing, but this post from Pat was far too good to pass up. He uses the films of Cameron Crowe as a case study for how the relationship between directorial style and acting style, and while I suppose that's a pretty niche topic, I found it, honestly, very important (from Pat King! I know!), and it gave me a lot to think about.
Plus, I've ha a busy morning, leading up to my office'sChristmas Godless Winter Solstice party, so I don't have time to, y'know, write anything for myself.
Plus, I've ha a busy morning, leading up to my office's
13 December 2005
HERE BEGINNETH AWARDS SEASON 2005
With this morning's Golden Globe nominations and the recent LA, NY, Boston and NBR critics' awards, the end-of-year film award handicapping can begin in earnest.
I should point out that my interest in the Oscars is almost purely sporting. If anything, I view winning such an award as a mark against a film, although not so much so as if it were a Grammy (and don't they blow extra hard this year?). Which never has and never will kept me from spending almost all of my time from December through February speculating on the nominees and winners.
Thoughts so far for this year:
-No Munich love from the Globes surprises the hell out of me, and puts me in fear for its Oscar chances.
-On the other hand, the Match Point love comes from fucking nowhere, and excites me, as I think for this film to get that kind of attention from the HPFA, there must be something pretty strong behind all the Cannes buzz.
-Brokeback Mountain is the clear front-runner, with all four critics' groups giving it Best Picture. I'll remind you that a year ago, The Aviator was the Oscar front-runner, and leave it at that.
Right now, my money says that the Best Picture Oscar nominees will be:
-Brokeback Mountain
-Good Night, and Good Luck.
-Match Point
-Munich
-Walk the Line
And Best Director:
-Woody Allen, Match Point
-George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck.
-Peter Jackson, King Kong
-Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
-Steven Spielberg, Munich
This will of course all change by the time of the actual announcments, and I'll be posting about it at least once more before then, so consider yourself warned.
I should point out that my interest in the Oscars is almost purely sporting. If anything, I view winning such an award as a mark against a film, although not so much so as if it were a Grammy (and don't they blow extra hard this year?). Which never has and never will kept me from spending almost all of my time from December through February speculating on the nominees and winners.
Thoughts so far for this year:
-No Munich love from the Globes surprises the hell out of me, and puts me in fear for its Oscar chances.
-On the other hand, the Match Point love comes from fucking nowhere, and excites me, as I think for this film to get that kind of attention from the HPFA, there must be something pretty strong behind all the Cannes buzz.
-Brokeback Mountain is the clear front-runner, with all four critics' groups giving it Best Picture. I'll remind you that a year ago, The Aviator was the Oscar front-runner, and leave it at that.
Right now, my money says that the Best Picture Oscar nominees will be:
-Brokeback Mountain
-Good Night, and Good Luck.
-Match Point
-Munich
-Walk the Line
And Best Director:
-Woody Allen, Match Point
-George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck.
-Peter Jackson, King Kong
-Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
-Steven Spielberg, Munich
This will of course all change by the time of the actual announcments, and I'll be posting about it at least once more before then, so consider yourself warned.
OH, DELAY
The Supreme Court is going to take a peak at DeLay's redistricting shenanigans.
Say what you will about the conspiracy and money laundering charges from earlier this year, but I have always felt that this was a much greater problem - those in power using their power illegally to remain in power. I expect and accept a certain amount of corruption from the U.S. government. But the black heart of the modern Republican party is this Machiavellian dirty politicking, and it's heartening to see due process finally catching up to them.
Say what you will about the conspiracy and money laundering charges from earlier this year, but I have always felt that this was a much greater problem - those in power using their power illegally to remain in power. I expect and accept a certain amount of corruption from the U.S. government. But the black heart of the modern Republican party is this Machiavellian dirty politicking, and it's heartening to see due process finally catching up to them.
11 December 2005
LIONS AND TIGERS AND CHRIST, OH MY
Throwing my lot in with those who would have all American cinema reduced to feel-good morally upright Falwell friendly tubthumping, I spent money to see an opening-weekend screening of the ungainly-named The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.I tease, a bit. Because it's not really all that religious. Which is to say, it's no more religious than the book, and like the book you can seek out every single example of C.S. Lewis stuffing Christ imagery into it, or you can just accept it as a fantastic story of talking animals and magical furniture. I choose the latter, as I have always done.
Here's the thing: allegory is meant to be a separate layer of a text. Sure, you're an idiot if you ignore the allegory, or worse still don't notice it, but that's okay. You don't have to subscribe to the allegorical meaning. And in the case of Narnia, at least the first volume, the allegory is okay. The Christ-myth is an important Western text, and like many important Western texts, it is perfectly fair to reinterpret it with Christ as a lion and Satan as Tilda Swinton. Reinterpretation happens, and it's fine (e.g. Ulysses = The Odyssey, Clerks = The Divine Comedy, Bridget Jones' Diary = Pride and Prejudice). And I'd rather see a film reinterpret the Christ story than, for example, the fucking Fisher King.
With all that out of the way, how is the movie? Pretty damn irrelevant, actually. It tracks very close to the book, as much or more than the first Harry Potter film (to name one). I hate to be in the position of defending Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, but I have to credit him with taking the story places that every reader hadn't already gone. Here, we basically have a moving illustration of the book, down to the specific dialogue in places. The one great addition is a new opening scene, dramatizing the Blitz and showing the war-torn world of the children protagonists in a way that the book only alluded to. Less successful is the climatic battle, which as everyone has already noted, expands a page-and-a-half of the novel into a 20-minute PG version of the Helm's Deep sequence from The Two Towers.
If you haven't read the book, is it worthwhile? Probably. It's a fun story, if a bit leaden and long at times. The effects are really quite good, although a couple spots are pretty dodgy; particularly the Son of
The big problem is with Andrew Adamson's direction: the pace is very lackluster for most of the film, and the camera is very clearly being used to capture action, rather than to frame and direct the story. What energy exists comes largely through the performances, especially Swinton's bravura turn as the White Witch, which is so mustache-twirlingly evil that I'm actually looking forward to her reappearance in the sixth film, from the dullest novel in the series, The Magician's Nephew.
Assuming it gets that far. I've seen this in a couple of places, but I'm going to mention it anyway: the best possible analog for the Narnia series is the Harry Potter series. Which famously started out clunky and rough, largely because a hack director hewed too closely to a source, and robbed it of life. The big difference is that, by the release of Sorcerer's Stone, everyone knew that the books got a lot better. In the case of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, they really don't. It's certainly not everyone's favorite (mine is the anti-atheism polemic The Silver Chair), but everyone agrees it's right near the top. Whereas the last two are almost universally scorned. So I have little optimism that even if someone like Cuarón comes along to breathe some much-needed life into the visuals, they'll be doing it with an inferior story.
Oh, and one other thing: the score sucks hard. The Imogen Heap song at the beginning sucks, the Alanis Morrissette song at the end really sucks, and the synth-heavy incidental music sucks a thousandfold times worse than the Tangerine Dream Legend score it heavily evokes, which at least had the decency to be composed in the 1980's.
6/10 if you know the book
7/10 if not
10 December 2005
OIL, THAT IS
I know you're not supposed to do a "shorter" on yourself, but I'll save everyone a lot of agony if I do.
Shorter Tim Brayton's Syriana Review:
Shorter Tim Brayton's Syriana Review:
A hell of a lot happened, and I can't describe any of it. 9/10
09 December 2005
FRIDAY RANDOM TEN: AT THE MOVIES AGAIN EDITION
1. "Early in the Morning," Eric Clapton, 1978. Undistinguished blues-rock from, well, Clapton. 5/10
2. "Corrina, Corrinia," Bob Dylan, 1963. The very notion that there is such a thing as obscure Dylan is kind of cool, but it's not really all that good. 6/10
3. "Four Horsemen," The Clash, 1979. I see that "obscure and not really good by an overexposed artist" is to be the theme of the night. 5/10
4. "Like a Hurricane," Neil Young, 1977. The kind of anti-punk proto-hard rock jam that only Neil Young and Crazy Horse could possibly get away with. One of his best 8 minute songs, and that's actually saying more than it sounds like. 8/10
5. "My Funny Valentine," Ella Fitzgerald, 1956. From The Rodgers and Hart Songbook, not my favorite by a long shot, but it is Ella. 8/10
6. "Loves Me Like a Rock," Paul Simon, 1973. Oh dear. One of my favorite songs by my favorite modern songwriter, but cool? The very antithesis. White-boy gospel pop folk at its finest. 5/10
7. "This Protector," The White Stripes, 2001. See nos. 1, 2, 3. 6/10
8. "We," Neil Diamond, 2005. Yes, I bought 12 Songs. You have a problem with that? Yes, you probably should. 4/10
9. "Chains," The Beatles, 1963. Urgh. I like the early Beatles just fine, but their covers...not so much. 4/10
10. "Vidalia," Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, 1999. At least I ended well. I'd have a hard time explaining Andrew (Chicago-based!) Bird's style, but this album is pretty jazzy. The particular track is very eastern-Europe in tone. I just saw him live a couple weeks back, and he puts on a mind-blowing show. 10/10
6.1/10. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you.
Bonus track: "Twenty-one," Spencer Bates, 2002. From Everybody Has a Song. Those of you who know it may proceed to laugh.
2. "Corrina, Corrinia," Bob Dylan, 1963. The very notion that there is such a thing as obscure Dylan is kind of cool, but it's not really all that good. 6/10
3. "Four Horsemen," The Clash, 1979. I see that "obscure and not really good by an overexposed artist" is to be the theme of the night. 5/10
4. "Like a Hurricane," Neil Young, 1977. The kind of anti-punk proto-hard rock jam that only Neil Young and Crazy Horse could possibly get away with. One of his best 8 minute songs, and that's actually saying more than it sounds like. 8/10
5. "My Funny Valentine," Ella Fitzgerald, 1956. From The Rodgers and Hart Songbook, not my favorite by a long shot, but it is Ella. 8/10
6. "Loves Me Like a Rock," Paul Simon, 1973. Oh dear. One of my favorite songs by my favorite modern songwriter, but cool? The very antithesis. White-boy gospel pop folk at its finest. 5/10
7. "This Protector," The White Stripes, 2001. See nos. 1, 2, 3. 6/10
8. "We," Neil Diamond, 2005. Yes, I bought 12 Songs. You have a problem with that? Yes, you probably should. 4/10
9. "Chains," The Beatles, 1963. Urgh. I like the early Beatles just fine, but their covers...not so much. 4/10
10. "Vidalia," Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, 1999. At least I ended well. I'd have a hard time explaining Andrew (Chicago-based!) Bird's style, but this album is pretty jazzy. The particular track is very eastern-Europe in tone. I just saw him live a couple weeks back, and he puts on a mind-blowing show. 10/10
6.1/10. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you.
Bonus track: "Twenty-one," Spencer Bates, 2002. From Everybody Has a Song. Those of you who know it may proceed to laugh.
ANOTHER FUCKING PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Finally (it's only been out what, five weeks?) saw the new Pride & Prejudice last night.On one level, I hate to ask, "did we really need another one?" Need or no, we have another one, so that's a fairly futile question. But what's scary is that the answer is a qualified "yes."
The plot, quickly, for those who have somehow managed to avoid reading it: Elizabeth Bennett is the second of five daughters in a Napoleonic-era household. She meets Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, one of the most fantabulously wealthy men in England. They are both proud. They are both prejudiced against the other. When they finally get together, it is awesome and romantic.
Obviously, the touchstone against which all P&P adaptations must be judged is the 1995 BBC miniseries, the sort of film for which the word "definitive" was invented. Shockingly, the new film compares pretty well: for one, it's a hell of a lot shorter, and although this means that some plotlines have to be cut, and some sequences are much compressed, a normal person can actually, y'know, watch this film in something less than a weekend marathon. Additionally, there was clearly more money available for this production, as the art direction and overall quality seem a little less (there's no nice way to say this) BBC-TV level.
The acting is all quite good. Matthew MacFadyen has the most unenviable task in the film, making us forget Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, and he doesn't - but he's very good nevertheless. The rest of the cast is a mixture of "yawn-another-Judi-Dench-cameo," wonderful surprises (Donald Sutherland makes a great daft old British man), and unsurprising but solid performances by British workhouses (Brenda Blethyn, one of those actresses who just kind of supports the entire British film industry on her back).
The big deal is obviously Keira "Domino" Knightley, one of those Hot Young Things who never appears in anything objectively good, and then suddenly is perfect in a role that ends up generating awards buzz and all that. And she is damn amazing, considering what I would have thought her capable of. Maybe a touch too pretty (yeah, I hate that), but she nails the tomboyish headstrong qualities of Elizabeth Bennett.
On the technical end, the film is solid if unspectacular. There's an annoying "lookatme!" quality to a lot of the cinematography (especially in Elizabeth and Darcy's joyous climactic reunion, which Roman Osin just golden-hours the hell out of), but at least it's easy on the eyes. Joe Wright chooses to direct in a lot of long takes, including some very ambitious tracking shots that serve, to my mind, to tie the disparate strands of the parties and households of this world into one whole. I know of some who disagree with me, but I think it worked.
What makes this film most interesting, though, is how earthy it all is. We're used to the world of Austen being full of drawing rooms and white panelling, but pigs and chickens are more of a surprise. And mud! This is a muddy film. Lizzie gets mud on her, gets criticized for being muddy, and I'm just sitting there thinking, "yes, it should be muddy. Wow."
Full disclosure: I am an Austenite, through and through, and although Pride and Prejudice isn't my favorite of hers, I think it's one of the great works of 19th Century English literature. If your experience with Jane is less happy than my own, you should maybe think about giving this one a miss: I loved the film for much the reason I loved the novel. If you didn't love the novel, then...you suck. Go away and read your precious fucking Hemingway, or whatever you Jane-haters like.
8/10
08 December 2005
THE GREAT MOVIES
A review of my triumphant return to movie-viewing:
The Star Wars Holiday Special has shown me all that I expect it ever shall, which I guess is to be expected after having seen it four times. Except it had already shown me all that it ever would after the first screening. Why do I return? Masochism. Sheer masochism.
At this point, it is absolutely the case that I find nothing whatsoever amusing within the film. Literally the only joy I got out of watching it last night was the evident pain of the SWHS virgin sitting next to me. That's what this film reduces you to: delight in the misery of your fellow man.
If you haven't seen it, don't. Trust me on this, I'm a professional.
The evening's second feature was a distinct improvement: Troll 2, one of the classic bad movies of the modern era. It's ranked at #7 on the IMDb Bottom 100, which speaks more to the thin skin of most IMDb users (I have seen Zombie Lake, and Troll 2, you're no Zombie Lake), but also really doesn't seem all that unfair. After SWHS, just about anything would have been enjoyable, but I found Troll 2 as funny as just about any bad film I'm familiar with.
Unlike most films of this type, it is not chiefly bad for its screenplay or its direction (although those are certainly not good), but for its acting. None of the performers seemed to be acting on the same physical plane, and two of them (I shan't name names, but if you've seen it you know who I'm talking about) are clearly - oh, so clearly - reading off of a cue card.
Of course, this is the film that gave us the infamous line, "Nilbog! It's 'goblin' spelled backwards! This is their kingdom!" so I don't want to put all the blame on the actors.
Lastly, and most importantly, there is a character named Sheriff Gene Freak. I do not know how you can possibly avoid running out and renting this immediately, given that knowledge.
The Star Wars Holiday Special has shown me all that I expect it ever shall, which I guess is to be expected after having seen it four times. Except it had already shown me all that it ever would after the first screening. Why do I return? Masochism. Sheer masochism.
At this point, it is absolutely the case that I find nothing whatsoever amusing within the film. Literally the only joy I got out of watching it last night was the evident pain of the SWHS virgin sitting next to me. That's what this film reduces you to: delight in the misery of your fellow man.
If you haven't seen it, don't. Trust me on this, I'm a professional.
The evening's second feature was a distinct improvement: Troll 2, one of the classic bad movies of the modern era. It's ranked at #7 on the IMDb Bottom 100, which speaks more to the thin skin of most IMDb users (I have seen Zombie Lake, and Troll 2, you're no Zombie Lake), but also really doesn't seem all that unfair. After SWHS, just about anything would have been enjoyable, but I found Troll 2 as funny as just about any bad film I'm familiar with.
Unlike most films of this type, it is not chiefly bad for its screenplay or its direction (although those are certainly not good), but for its acting. None of the performers seemed to be acting on the same physical plane, and two of them (I shan't name names, but if you've seen it you know who I'm talking about) are clearly - oh, so clearly - reading off of a cue card.
Of course, this is the film that gave us the infamous line, "Nilbog! It's 'goblin' spelled backwards! This is their kingdom!" so I don't want to put all the blame on the actors.
Lastly, and most importantly, there is a character named Sheriff Gene Freak. I do not know how you can possibly avoid running out and renting this immediately, given that knowledge.
07 December 2005
CINEMA FROM THE BOWELS OF HELL
It's been several days since I've watched a movie, in a theater or at home. And for me to go more than two or three days without a movie is a very dire and possibly unhealthy state of affairs.
Which is why tonight I shall end my drought with miserable, awful shit. To be precise, The Star Wars Holiday Special. Viewing no. 4, if we're counting.
To wash the taste of that pile of steaming crap out of my mouth, I'm following with...wait for it...Troll 2.
Ah, the joys of being a bad movie cinephile.
In all honesty, this evening is in honor of a dear friend, soon to leave Chicagoland for ever an' ever...I'll miss you, Carol.
Which is why tonight I shall end my drought with miserable, awful shit. To be precise, The Star Wars Holiday Special. Viewing no. 4, if we're counting.
To wash the taste of that pile of steaming crap out of my mouth, I'm following with...wait for it...Troll 2.
Ah, the joys of being a bad movie cinephile.
In all honesty, this evening is in honor of a dear friend, soon to leave Chicagoland for ever an' ever...I'll miss you, Carol.
06 December 2005
NUTS
Unfogged, via Pharyngula. Ordinarily wouldn't do this sort of thing, but for reasons fairly obvious, I think it's worth repeating: Gentlemen, please feel your balls on a regular basis.
05 December 2005
PLEASE WATCH ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
I'm going to beg. If you or anyone you know is counted by Nielsen, please have your television tuned to Fox from 7:00-7:30 this evening. A new set of Arrested Development episodes begins airing tonight, and barring an extraordinary ratings surge, this run (probably 6 Mondays, although that is not clear) will be the last gasp of AD on Fox, and more likely than not, anywhere on television.
There is nothing else on. It is a Monday in December. Every other network is showing a rerun. The Discoverys, Historys, HGTVs, Food Networks andMTVs are not going to show anything tonight that they haven't aired before and will not air again.
Please help us save our show.
There's been a strange and awful thing I've noticed in the last few weeks, and I know I'm not the only one. TV history is littered with the corpses of series that clung to life for a short while and died, despite the best efforts of a devoted fanbase. The fans of such a show are viewed as eccentrics, harmless cranks whose overwhelming love for "their" show - Star Trek, Firefly, My So-Called Life - is as charming and admirable as it is objectively goofy.
Not Arrested Development fans.
We are hated.
Matt Roush, in a recent TV Guide article (which, unthinkably, don't seem to be archived), mentioned that he can never remember receiving so much mail directed against a group of Save Our Show campaigners. The tenor of America at large - such as they notice us - seems to be "Shut up! We want our War at Home!"
I think we fans bear much of the blame for this. For one, it is an undeniable fact that Arrested Development survived far longer time than any show with its ratings and price tag could have expected, and I think many people - the Firefly, Wonderfalls, etc. fans - can be excused for finding little patience with us for whining over a "mere" 53 episodes.
More importantly, though, is the tenor of most of the AD eulogies I've seen around. By and large, they express the opinion (and I don't mean to exempt myself, I've done exactly the same) that Arrested Development died because American viewers were too bone-stupid to like the show. I can understand pretty clearly why that would engender bad feelings towards myself and my comrades-in-arms.
But the fact of that matter is that Arrested Development truly is a show for smart people. Not because it name-drops Kant and Proust (that would be the perpetually ratings-starved obscurity Frasier), but because it does not hold the audience's hand. Ever. Watching Arrested Development is a matter of devoting yourself fully to the ride. You can't turn it on while you're walking the treadmill. You can't make dinner and watch it. You must pay absolute attention for 21 minutes. There is no braying laugh track to tell you what is funny. And unlike most of its single-camera bretheren, it does not subscribe to any of the vocabulary of the sitcom to telegraph its jokes (take Malcom in the Middle. By all means a revolutionary show, but it still builds its jokes setup-beat-punchline, and is generally paced like a much-smarter Everybody Loves Raymond.) It is, more than any other show in the history of American network television, an intellectual investment.
I love Arrested Development. I love it more than any other narrative television series in history. I cannot name one series to have produced, in an entire run, the number of formal innovations that AD indulged in during its pilot. I remember being amazed at how the BBC version of The Office played with reality television conventions, but Arrested Development knocks it out of the park. I have been fond recently of proclaiming that it is not only the first sitcom with an omniscient third-person narrator, but the first sitcom to explore the meta-narrative implications of possessing an omniscient third-person narrator.
The cast is one of the most uniformly brilliant ever assembled. In even the greatest ensembles, there are usually one or two clinkers. Not here. All nine members of the main cast bring their A-game to each and every episode.
And above all, it is deeply felt and humane. For all its radicalism, Arrested Development is a show about a family, and it proudly subscribes to the tradition of a warm moment at the end where two people realize that they need each other. Lessons are learned on this show, nearly every week.
Michael: "What have we always said is the most important thing?"
George Michael: "Breakfast."
Michael: "...family."
George Michael: "Family, right. I thought you meant of the things you eat."
There is nothing else on. It is a Monday in December. Every other network is showing a rerun. The Discoverys, Historys, HGTVs, Food Networks andMTVs are not going to show anything tonight that they haven't aired before and will not air again.
Please help us save our show.
There's been a strange and awful thing I've noticed in the last few weeks, and I know I'm not the only one. TV history is littered with the corpses of series that clung to life for a short while and died, despite the best efforts of a devoted fanbase. The fans of such a show are viewed as eccentrics, harmless cranks whose overwhelming love for "their" show - Star Trek, Firefly, My So-Called Life - is as charming and admirable as it is objectively goofy.
Not Arrested Development fans.
We are hated.
Matt Roush, in a recent TV Guide article (which, unthinkably, don't seem to be archived), mentioned that he can never remember receiving so much mail directed against a group of Save Our Show campaigners. The tenor of America at large - such as they notice us - seems to be "Shut up! We want our War at Home!"
I think we fans bear much of the blame for this. For one, it is an undeniable fact that Arrested Development survived far longer time than any show with its ratings and price tag could have expected, and I think many people - the Firefly, Wonderfalls, etc. fans - can be excused for finding little patience with us for whining over a "mere" 53 episodes.
More importantly, though, is the tenor of most of the AD eulogies I've seen around. By and large, they express the opinion (and I don't mean to exempt myself, I've done exactly the same) that Arrested Development died because American viewers were too bone-stupid to like the show. I can understand pretty clearly why that would engender bad feelings towards myself and my comrades-in-arms.
But the fact of that matter is that Arrested Development truly is a show for smart people. Not because it name-drops Kant and Proust (that would be the perpetually ratings-starved obscurity Frasier), but because it does not hold the audience's hand. Ever. Watching Arrested Development is a matter of devoting yourself fully to the ride. You can't turn it on while you're walking the treadmill. You can't make dinner and watch it. You must pay absolute attention for 21 minutes. There is no braying laugh track to tell you what is funny. And unlike most of its single-camera bretheren, it does not subscribe to any of the vocabulary of the sitcom to telegraph its jokes (take Malcom in the Middle. By all means a revolutionary show, but it still builds its jokes setup-beat-punchline, and is generally paced like a much-smarter Everybody Loves Raymond.) It is, more than any other show in the history of American network television, an intellectual investment.
I love Arrested Development. I love it more than any other narrative television series in history. I cannot name one series to have produced, in an entire run, the number of formal innovations that AD indulged in during its pilot. I remember being amazed at how the BBC version of The Office played with reality television conventions, but Arrested Development knocks it out of the park. I have been fond recently of proclaiming that it is not only the first sitcom with an omniscient third-person narrator, but the first sitcom to explore the meta-narrative implications of possessing an omniscient third-person narrator.
The cast is one of the most uniformly brilliant ever assembled. In even the greatest ensembles, there are usually one or two clinkers. Not here. All nine members of the main cast bring their A-game to each and every episode.
And above all, it is deeply felt and humane. For all its radicalism, Arrested Development is a show about a family, and it proudly subscribes to the tradition of a warm moment at the end where two people realize that they need each other. Lessons are learned on this show, nearly every week.
Michael: "What have we always said is the most important thing?"
George Michael: "Breakfast."
Michael: "...family."
George Michael: "Family, right. I thought you meant of the things you eat."
SHORTER GUARDIAN NARNIA REVIEW
Damn crypto-Christians better not trick my kids in believing in God!I wish I lived in Britain.
03 December 2005
THE RIGHT HEROES
Facts:
-Blanching almonds, while easy, takes a really fucking long time.
-Having a cold and baking is a dismal combination.
- I have, in the past four days, baked the following types of cookies: chocolate chip, chewy chocolate chip, gingerbread, coconut macaroons, orange macaroons, Sienese macaroons, chocolate butter, molasses spice.
But, my public awaits the continuation of my Liberality for All review. And I do not ignore my public, for more than a week or two anyway.
The events that, God knows, led us to where we are today.
And now...
Sean keeps yammering on about how feckin' kewl he is, because he broadcasts in defiance of The Man, on underground and illegal channels. He name-drops the "Coulter Laws," the U.N. anti-hate speech laws, thus explaining why Malking and Drudge are the two greatest criminals in the country. The idea is not bitterly unclever, even though we all know thatthe proposed legislation is in fact called the "O'Reilley Law" such a law could never be passed. Sean calls Jeff, a caller,"lib," and chortles about how he just violated one of those very laws. Because "liberal" is hate speech, and that's why everyone one the left uses it. We're reclaming the word. Like gays and "queer."
In narration, Reagan keeps talking about The Few, The Proud, The Brave, The Conservative, while we see a small cabal of listeners in a warehouse of some sort enjoy Hannity ripping Lib Jeff a new one because Jeff says in very polite tones that it might be worthwhile to give Ambassador bin Laden (after two weeks, I'd forgotten how goofy that was to type. Who the fuck is this guy?) the benefit of the doubt. Sean launches into a laundry list the the evils perpetrated on America by the "liberal left": the military has been left under command of the U.N. (accompanied by a picture of a very sad U.N. peacekeeper stroking a tattered American flag, which looks more Of Mice and Men than anything); "God" was taken out of the pledge and off of money (picture of a penny, "In Peace We Trust," and I agree, that's a horrible sentiment); Iraq, Iran, and the Unified Republic of Korea have all recently acquired nukes. And given that the Bush-led country has made it all but certain that two of those countries will have nukes long before 2021, I don't see how this is a...oh, right, because in RightWingLand, the preznit is gonna take on all of those evildoers and stop their nuke programs. Gotcha.
Reagan keeps blathering onto the next page about how "entitled" his generation feels, just like every other generation in American history except the ones what fought WWII. Reagan calls the Hannity show, and Sean compliments his voice (HoYay!) Reagan admits that he'd like to be in radio. Sean and Reagan talk about F.O.I.L. - the Freedom Of Information League - who have in life no greater motive than waking America out of its liberality-induced haze. It is composed of both pundits and their devoted listeners. I will thus be hereupon referring to F.O.I.L. as the DA - Dittohead Army.
The U.N. Good Taste police find a Greyhound bus broadcasting Sean's show, and realize that it is being radio-controlled from...I don't know. And it doesn't end up mattering. Sean hears them, and asks "Oscar" and "G-Man" to get ready. Reagan Won't! Stop! Talking! and I'm not going to synopsize it anymore. The U.N. men burst into Sean's room in the back of the bus, and he...
He...
He shots a lightning bolt out of his cybernetic left arm and stuns the police.
I'm going to need a moment.
Okay.
Sean tears open the roof of his bus as G-Man promises to be there in ten seconds. Sean bursts out of the bus with the words "It's CRUNCH TIME!" in big fonts, so you know he's being a Bad Ass. Oscar remains in communication with Sean, and technobabbles a bit about setting up Sean's arm for an E.M. Pulse. G-Man arrives ("At least 12 seconds!" bitches Sean...Sean, it is you!). The U.N. men try to arrest the two, and then the second great moment of this comment occurs. One U.N. official identifies as "Herr Liddy" (making him 90 years old, and I hope to hell he turns out to be a clone, or something), but Liddy ignores him, cradling the rifle Sean has just tossed him, and monologuing, "The XM-9...You know, I evaluated the XM-8 model for the NRA. Before the organization was officially disbanded...So many cold, dead hands."
I hope Frank Miller is watching his back, because that is some writing, my friends.
Liddy acts all "I luuuuuuvs my gun," and gets all snotty with the U.N. guards about how he can reprogram any gun to get around the user-identification chip. They draw a bead on him and Hannity, and then Sean triggers his arm EMP, and the guards' guns deactiveate with a "zmmm" noise. Reagan says "...has been diverted by poor leadership," and I am seriously confused, until I realize that it's a continuation of a thought from one page and five fucking panels ago, and even when I reread it, it's stupid, so I'm not quoting it. Liddy snarks that the U.N. men would call a "rifle" a "gun," and and he and Hannity peel off on a motorcycle as the U.N. fires and Reagan jerks off all over my comic book.
Liddy and Hannity speed away as the head guard fires at them with a Luger. Liddy speaks of it admiringly. A luck shot nails Sean's cyberarm, and sends it into overload, or something. It goes THOOM and shoots out blue waves of something apparently deadly. Actually, I guess it's a bigger EMP. Anyway, Sean drops his laptop, and Luger-User picks it up with look of fear and disgust. Doubtlessly, this is because Sean's porn is prominently displayed on the desktop.
Liddy and Sean drive...okay, I can't follow the geography at all. Some dialogue passes that implies the laptop was deliberately left behind, and they enter a submarine that looks like a sperm in barbed chainmail.
Sean names it the "Manatee," and asks Oscar to bring it in by remote. Oscar says he's lost the signal from Sean's cyberarm. Sean asks if a new one is ready, and Oscar does his best Q impression as he whines that it's only been three months. Sean's nose is bleeding from his EMPs, except I hope it turns out to be cancer, like Scully in season 4 of The X-Files.
The Manatee comes to rest with a "spooch" noise that confirms, to me, it's spermishness.
"Do you think the info on the laptop surved the EMP?" Liddy asks, and Sean say he hopes so. Ollie (yeah, that Ollie...we don't know it yet, but it's that Ollie) pops up to talk about the success of "Operation X-Ray," which and involved taking an x-ray of bin Laden's briefcase. It is not clear to me whether "Operation X-Ray of bin Laden's Briefcase" had already been taken, and that's why that had to settle for the floridly poetic name they went with.
A dog runs up to Sean and says "ruff! Ruff!" I though you should know, because the framing of the panel certainly wants to make sure you notice.
Ollie North proclaims in horror that bin Laden has smuggled "an Iraqi designed suitcase nuke" into the U.N. Liddy ominously wonders when it will detonate. Sean picks up his dog, Marty, and says hi to him Because nukes are one thing, but Marty, he's a good boy! Whosagoodboy? Martysagoodboy!
Reagan yammers about how saving America will take "bravery and ingenuity and..."[segue to last page]"the right heroes determined to make it happen." The last page is a heroic tableau of North in the upper left, Liddy in the upper center, Hannity square in the middle, and Marty in the bottom right. Marty does not look happy that the Left controls America. Everyone else looks constipated. Actually, Sean looks kind of drunk.
To be continued...
-Blanching almonds, while easy, takes a really fucking long time.
-Having a cold and baking is a dismal combination.
- I have, in the past four days, baked the following types of cookies: chocolate chip, chewy chocolate chip, gingerbread, coconut macaroons, orange macaroons, Sienese macaroons, chocolate butter, molasses spice.
But, my public awaits the continuation of my Liberality for All review. And I do not ignore my public, for more than a week or two anyway.
The events that, God knows, led us to where we are today.
And now...
Sean keeps yammering on about how feckin' kewl he is, because he broadcasts in defiance of The Man, on underground and illegal channels. He name-drops the "Coulter Laws," the U.N. anti-hate speech laws, thus explaining why Malking and Drudge are the two greatest criminals in the country. The idea is not bitterly unclever, even though we all know that
In narration, Reagan keeps talking about The Few, The Proud, The Brave, The Conservative, while we see a small cabal of listeners in a warehouse of some sort enjoy Hannity ripping Lib Jeff a new one because Jeff says in very polite tones that it might be worthwhile to give Ambassador bin Laden (after two weeks, I'd forgotten how goofy that was to type. Who the fuck is this guy?) the benefit of the doubt. Sean launches into a laundry list the the evils perpetrated on America by the "liberal left": the military has been left under command of the U.N. (accompanied by a picture of a very sad U.N. peacekeeper stroking a tattered American flag, which looks more Of Mice and Men than anything); "God" was taken out of the pledge and off of money (picture of a penny, "In Peace We Trust," and I agree, that's a horrible sentiment); Iraq, Iran, and the Unified Republic of Korea have all recently acquired nukes. And given that the Bush-led country has made it all but certain that two of those countries will have nukes long before 2021, I don't see how this is a...oh, right, because in RightWingLand, the preznit is gonna take on all of those evildoers and stop their nuke programs. Gotcha.
Reagan keeps blathering onto the next page about how "entitled" his generation feels, just like every other generation in American history except the ones what fought WWII. Reagan calls the Hannity show, and Sean compliments his voice (HoYay!) Reagan admits that he'd like to be in radio. Sean and Reagan talk about F.O.I.L. - the Freedom Of Information League - who have in life no greater motive than waking America out of its liberality-induced haze. It is composed of both pundits and their devoted listeners. I will thus be hereupon referring to F.O.I.L. as the DA - Dittohead Army.
The U.N. Good Taste police find a Greyhound bus broadcasting Sean's show, and realize that it is being radio-controlled from...I don't know. And it doesn't end up mattering. Sean hears them, and asks "Oscar" and "G-Man" to get ready. Reagan Won't! Stop! Talking! and I'm not going to synopsize it anymore. The U.N. men burst into Sean's room in the back of the bus, and he...
He...
He shots a lightning bolt out of his cybernetic left arm and stuns the police.
I'm going to need a moment.
Okay.
Sean tears open the roof of his bus as G-Man promises to be there in ten seconds. Sean bursts out of the bus with the words "It's CRUNCH TIME!" in big fonts, so you know he's being a Bad Ass. Oscar remains in communication with Sean, and technobabbles a bit about setting up Sean's arm for an E.M. Pulse. G-Man arrives ("At least 12 seconds!" bitches Sean...Sean, it is you!). The U.N. men try to arrest the two, and then the second great moment of this comment occurs. One U.N. official identifies as "Herr Liddy" (making him 90 years old, and I hope to hell he turns out to be a clone, or something), but Liddy ignores him, cradling the rifle Sean has just tossed him, and monologuing, "The XM-9...You know, I evaluated the XM-8 model for the NRA. Before the organization was officially disbanded...So many cold, dead hands."
I hope Frank Miller is watching his back, because that is some writing, my friends.
Liddy acts all "I luuuuuuvs my gun," and gets all snotty with the U.N. guards about how he can reprogram any gun to get around the user-identification chip. They draw a bead on him and Hannity, and then Sean triggers his arm EMP, and the guards' guns deactiveate with a "zmmm" noise. Reagan says "...has been diverted by poor leadership," and I am seriously confused, until I realize that it's a continuation of a thought from one page and five fucking panels ago, and even when I reread it, it's stupid, so I'm not quoting it. Liddy snarks that the U.N. men would call a "rifle" a "gun," and and he and Hannity peel off on a motorcycle as the U.N. fires and Reagan jerks off all over my comic book.
Liddy and Hannity speed away as the head guard fires at them with a Luger. Liddy speaks of it admiringly. A luck shot nails Sean's cyberarm, and sends it into overload, or something. It goes THOOM and shoots out blue waves of something apparently deadly. Actually, I guess it's a bigger EMP. Anyway, Sean drops his laptop, and Luger-User picks it up with look of fear and disgust. Doubtlessly, this is because Sean's porn is prominently displayed on the desktop.
Liddy and Sean drive...okay, I can't follow the geography at all. Some dialogue passes that implies the laptop was deliberately left behind, and they enter a submarine that looks like a sperm in barbed chainmail.
Sean names it the "Manatee," and asks Oscar to bring it in by remote. Oscar says he's lost the signal from Sean's cyberarm. Sean asks if a new one is ready, and Oscar does his best Q impression as he whines that it's only been three months. Sean's nose is bleeding from his EMPs, except I hope it turns out to be cancer, like Scully in season 4 of The X-Files.
The Manatee comes to rest with a "spooch" noise that confirms, to me, it's spermishness.
"Do you think the info on the laptop surved the EMP?" Liddy asks, and Sean say he hopes so. Ollie (yeah, that Ollie...we don't know it yet, but it's that Ollie) pops up to talk about the success of "Operation X-Ray," which and involved taking an x-ray of bin Laden's briefcase. It is not clear to me whether "Operation X-Ray of bin Laden's Briefcase" had already been taken, and that's why that had to settle for the floridly poetic name they went with.
A dog runs up to Sean and says "ruff! Ruff!" I though you should know, because the framing of the panel certainly wants to make sure you notice.
Ollie North proclaims in horror that bin Laden has smuggled "an Iraqi designed suitcase nuke" into the U.N. Liddy ominously wonders when it will detonate. Sean picks up his dog, Marty, and says hi to him Because nukes are one thing, but Marty, he's a good boy! Whosagoodboy? Martysagoodboy!
Reagan yammers about how saving America will take "bravery and ingenuity and..."[segue to last page]"the right heroes determined to make it happen." The last page is a heroic tableau of North in the upper left, Liddy in the upper center, Hannity square in the middle, and Marty in the bottom right. Marty does not look happy that the Left controls America. Everyone else looks constipated. Actually, Sean looks kind of drunk.
To be continued...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
