Interrobang

Away We Go: Loving you is easy cuz you're beautiful.

2009-11-05T17:20:00.000-08:00

This is the kind of film to watch when you're warm and cozy inside several blankets, and rain comes down outside. It's a film about finding comfort in a world where dysfunction is inherent in the process of trying to wade through a world such as that. It's about the simplicity and strength of love, and how when things get awful, we can turn in toward that love and find warmth. Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski play an unmarried but long-term couple who become pregnant, and must take a good long look at all the bits of their lives before they can create a home for their soon-to-be-family. And it's clear that this is the kind of couple that has most of the right priorities in mind. We learn that they left Chicago for the woods of Colorado to be near Burt's (Krasinki) parents. We see that Verona (Rudolph) is ill at ease, but basically loves Burt, and Burt, while a little frantic, seems to have his family's best interests in mind. They would probably raise a child just fine without the journey they undergo.

So why does this story take place? Well it isn't really a film about a baby. Unlike Knocked Up or Baby Boom, Away We Go takes only a passing interest in how the details of the pregnancy affects the couple. It seems more as a catalyst for them to take the aforementioned good long look. They travel to different cities to reconnect with various friends and family members (I expected the issue of money to be a bigger concern, but it's as passing as the pregnancy), and watch as ever-healthier, though always-complicated family lives play out before them, allowing to them to decide, not just what kinds of parents, but what kinds of adults they'd like to be.

Sam Mendes' open thoughtful composition works beautifully for Away We Go, and it's the most mature I've seen him. I know he likes to hide behind his "subtle" British pomposity, but he basically makes broad, nearly cartooney choices for the looks of his films, and while in 2000 that was breathtaking and original, like waking up or being born, these days it seems as obvious as using a camera. That he can make a film with clutter and life and layers of energy (rather than just layers of color) is a great thing.

Many of the choices seem mature here. I guess people called the couple boring, or the film a tour of banality or some such rude thing, but I just found it to be about good people staring wide-eyed at the world around them, and the lives they've wandered into, and making strong choices about the future. That's such a statement about life today, that adding some dark drama would have seemed panderous. Is that a word? The quality of pandering? What the fuck ever, I don't care. The point is this film was really good.

Can I say a bad thing about it? Hmmm. It certainly had a formula. The chapters of the story were announced at the beginning like an index, and we watched it go through them. But if you accept that it isn't a weakness. The overall flow was really nice and the conclusion, while predictable, felt right.

Oh and Maya Rudolph is gorgeous. She has officially made it onto my list of acceptable cheats. Nat that she's be interested. Or that I'm in a relationship. Just saying. What were we talking about? Some film? Pixar's Up. Good stuff, man. Up, Up, and Away We Go. Nice.

The Wrestler: please tell me that NES game is real...

2009-09-20T17:55:00.000-07:00

It's always very powerful to play audio of something in a person's head over an otherwise bland scene. When Mickey Roarke walks thorugh the grocery store warehouse toward the deli, and we follow behind him listening to the roar of the crowds that we know to be from his many hundreds of wrestling matches, there's a heroism in him that we can connect to, and that he has to work here, and can't spend the rest of his life being a hero to thousands, is really very sad.

Or can he? Live as a wrestler and so die as a wrestler? We spend a lot of this film following him as if he were on his way out to the ring, even though he's just heading to his landlord's, or shopping for supplies, or jogging through the lonely woods. It seems that when he's alone, he is perpetually in his hulking persona. It's only when he's with his lovely daughter (Evan Rachel Wood looks very different with dark hair), or his beautiful near-girlfriend (Marisa Tomei is so beautiful all the time!) that we see that he isn't always the taught-muscled Ram, because he has a connection to these people that's so brittle it could snap at any second. I often think about that idea: what is it like for a badass warrior to be tender with those he loves? Does he accidentally hurt them sometimes? How do they reconcile that? The Wrestler doesn't deal with that completely dead-on, but it works a little with such questions. And what it does is very... freeing to watch. I almost feel like the movie poster for this film could have been that shot in Disney's Beauty and the Beast where the tiny hand of Belle is held by the gargantuan paw of The Beast. Not really, but ya know.

The Outlaw Josey Wales: they lie horses down and hide behind them, don't they?

2009-09-20T17:21:00.000-07:00

Clint Eastwood is obviously a really sweet man. Watching this excellent film (finally!) I kept expecting a dark ending, like the great Jeremiah Johnson or Eastwood's latest (and arguably greatest) Gran Torino. And sorry to semi-spoil all three for you, but this one ends on a good note. As much as I appreciate the poignant bittersweet final thoughts, I'm still a person who likes joy, so whenever things got tense in Josie Wales' gritty world, I found myself tensing along with it, thinking "please, please, please don't turn to shit...". You just cheer for the wounded-and-so-altruistic hero, and you want him to finally have a happy life after toiling for two hours. And Clint certainly is altruistic. Everything I've seen of his tackles issues of human darkness and decency. His films peel back the obvious and talk, instead, about the real issue. They insist that all people are good, at some level, and that things will be okay if we can show some restraint and actually pay attention to one another--even if we all look and act weird, from our own perspectives. That's not a groundbreaking message, but when it is told so purely and wisely (not smashing us over the head, but also not being embarrassed by it, either), it feels really good. And from such an angry, squinting, sneering leather-faced badass... it somehow rings even more true.

And can we hear it for Chief Dan George? I love this man. He's basically playing the same character as in Little Big Man: finding the line between completely hilarious rambling and zen wisdom, and then dancing on that line to remind us that we shouldn't take zen wisdom more seriously than we need to. But there's nothing wrong with that. Micheal Cera always plays the same character, and I can't get enough of that guy. ...Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Buddy comedy starring Chief Dan George and Micheal Cera?! Oh wait he died in 1981. Woah, he died on September 23rd... that's in three days. Godspeed and rest in peace, Chief. You are a wonderful person.

I've really grown to love the shaggy-edged 70's western. The messy camera work, the cluttered composition, the oft-glacial pace. It feels like film. It's warm and fuzzy and blurry and soft. Like Abbey Road. The long hair and shaggy beards. The occasionally confusing action. It's something that turned me off as a little kid, because it was confusing compared to today's simplistic composition. Watch American Beauty and then watch Where the Buffalo Roam and the contrast couldn't be more alarming. I'm not dogging any one style--it's all choice--but it's interesting that as our society becomes more complicated and layered, our films grow closer to cartoons: clearly outlined, with strong colors, and nothing unnecessary left in-frame. It's nice to go the other way and feel bathed in the media of film. And the touchey-feely 70's vibe.

Extra points for Mat Clark as they bartender, which I was like "where have I seen him playing a bartender before...?" It was Back to the Future part III. Rad, right?

Adventureland: Prequel to Zombieland, obviously.

2009-09-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

Temporarily removed due to my using of this as a writing sample.

Gran Torino: Shovin' it into overdrive.

2009-09-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

I've had this film from Netflix for about a month now, maybe more, and I kept picking up the disc, considering putting it in, and then ultimately setting it back down, 'cause I figured it'd be pretty heavy. And I'm not always in the mood for that. You know how it is: sometimes you want Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and sometimes you want the Spongebob Squarepants Movie. I can't believe I just typed Spongebob Squarepants. But never you mind this little digression. The point is that I finally sat down to watch Gran Torino, and I was surprised. Maybe because I was ready for heavy, I didn't feel turned off by it's weight. But, no, because it's not weight that gives me pause, it's melodrama. It's a skill-less manipulation of emotion that totally pisses me off, even as it works.

But here, Clint Eastwood (the very name is mythic) just tells a story. He makes us feel welcome and communicates with us, and so when things turn dark, and they do, we don't feel manipulated at all. We feel like we were in the same place, witnessing the same events, and we were not so much taken to this point, as journeyed along next to everyone else. It's really pretty amazing how he does that.

I've only seen one other film by Eastwood (seriously, how can you type that without feeling like you're in Hoyo de Manzanares), but what was very clear to me in Gran Torino was how no-nonsense a filmmaker he is. Right from the start there's just no fat on the scenes. At first it seemed corny--having a kid act disrespectful in a church and then immediately cutting to Eastwood sneering and growling in displeasure--I figured I had the entire film's theme (that of youth culture not seeing eye-to-eye with the strong elderly figures of our past) all figured out within a few seconds, and I was all geared up to see the film as cool, but not good. But after a few more scenes I realized that subtlety isn't interesting to Eastwood in the same way as what I've come to expect from modern film making. He wants us to understand the scenes, and feel the arc of the story slowly building, and forget all that other shit. Not that he is technique-less, simply that Eastwood seems freed from many other filmmakers' need to stylistically innovate all the time. The style of the story itself, and the straightforwardness of all the actors allows the film to just be exposed in front of us. It reminded me of On The Waterfront in how it had a few honest characters in a small area saying honest things to one another. It was very simple. But, like any good fable, deeply complicated. Like the character he played, Eastwood's film is very open about being angry. And that's going to be boring to little kids, but profoundly captivating to most everyone else.

All of this made for the moment, when things turned dark later on in the film, where I was genuinely shocked and scared and hurt, and found myself, eyes stinging, shaking my head, and both Clint and I were murmuring "no, no, no...". And I'm sorry if that alone spoils anything, but I bring it up to illustrate just how absorbed I was by this relatively casual movie. That there were long sequences of genuinely nice things happening, and that those sequences were genuinely a lot of fun to watch, really speaks of how little one has to do when one has good material, and still make solid, powerful, classic art.

Apparently there were rumors that this was the last Dirty Harry movie, which I think is perfect. The setting and subject matter feels very much like the aging badass waned to take on a different kind of violence, in a different setting. Wanted to deal with things that to him seemed very modern. He still connects it very strongly to the past, and makes the violence simmer within the pasts and potentials of these people, but it does so in the suburbs, in middle-America. A place that most old men are used to being safe and simple. For Eastwood to deal so directly with something that's a lot harder to pinpoint than any of the Dirty Harry stories shows how much of a badass he really is.

Extra points for Norm Gunderson himself, John Carroll Lynch.

The Royal Tenenbaums: immediately after writing this, Max realized it was true.

2009-08-23T00:29:00.000-07:00

It's pretty classy that Gene Hackman didn't become a "Wes Anderson player" after this, what with his doing an amazing job. In a few years, Wes may digitally ad a ghostly image of Hackman into Darjeeling.

And meanwhile, Bill Murray is so low-key he's almost unrecognizable (Herman Bloom feels like Buster Keaton). Everything with Dudley is genius silent-comic timing, and Murray's silent pain for Margo simmers regally behind the scruff-beard. And of course Steve Zissou was a replicant.

This entire world is a royal family and their kingdom. Suitors try to marry into their family, and townspeople fantasize about being blood-related, even through it's deep disfunctions and continual strife. The king, of course, returns, and hilarity ensues. And one really can't say enough about Wes Anderson's subtle (and really not-at-all-subtle) humor. That it can be funny the way a person reacts to something that isn't funny at all, like say suicide, or that it's both hilarious and tragic that each character is so shut-off from one-another is a difficult thing to deal with. It's hard to realize that the audience is supposed to be horrified one moment and laughing the next, without ever letting go of the horror. It isn't just a comedy, and so the humor is much weightier. I laugh much harder.

I remember when I saw this in the theatre, and having seen (and fallen in love with) Rushmore, I was a pretty tough judge. I felt like with Rushmore, Anderson had set out to make a film that appealed to him, and his sense of teetering subtlety. Maybe there would be a group of people out there who got it, but oh well if not. And it seemed to me, then, that with his next film he had learned that there was indeed a market for his strange little universes, and so he turned up the volume. The subtlety is less, the abruptness is more, the control of his world is firmer, and I was felt like the guy who liked this band before they hit it big. I felt like he had already become a caricature of himself. But looking at Tenenbaums now, having seen it probably 20 times, I am more apt to see it as a film, all by itself, and not analyze it in the Great Anderson Continuum. As difficult as that can be.

Now I just love the beauty of the sequences, and boldness of the art design, the precious chemistry between those wonderful Wilson Brothers, the grace of each actor living in their own, selfish universe, and the genius of a story that can equip all those actors with so many pieces of each of their characters, and have them all hate each other because they are family, and love each other because they are family. Anderson is very emotionally manipulative, and can float a little on the "style before substance" side of things, but he is so in the best way, and the film is so lovely because of it.

But the last shot--Wes Anderson's trademark, slow-motion curtain call--is inferior to Rushmore's. So there.

Ghost World: the sequal to Zombieland, I'll bet

2009-08-21T14:18:00.001-07:00

There's a reason Ghost World didn't become more than a cult favorite and its this: a documentary filmmaker was tapped to direct. Yes, he knows comics, and yes, he knows reality, and those things are reflected here. In fact, one of my favorite elements of the film was the layer of unnecessary detail throughout the film. Beds creaked metallicly whenever anyone moved on them. A champagne cork loudly hit and bounced all over the floor. The streets looked dirty and boring. And the characters, of course, don't think anything of these things. Because to them this film is reality.

But those are moments between the events in the film. And the events were flat. I felt like I was watching an awkward student film, where the rehearsals where filmed and used. Characters can be awkward, that's fine, but actors shouldn't be. The performances made clear to me that Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansen (both of whom I like and would probably marry) have a single layer to what they can do. These people are not "all of America reflected in the meandering, jaded suburban youth" or whatever the comic (that the film is based on) probably conveyed. They are naive, self-aware, self-important brats who would sooner be cruel to alleviate their boredom than actually ask themselves who they are and why they aren't doing anything with their lives. Wait, I guess that is America. Shit. Well, still, the performances were really flat.

And so to were the "quirks" that made the characters so "different". Maybe it all seemed very fringe in the late nineties, but Ghost World seemed way to proud of Steve Buscemi's out-of-print, old-timey vinyl collection. That subculture really isn't very uncommon, and when Buscemi's character is just sort of blasé about his 1930's art and music collection, I couldn't keep my eyes from rolling. Not that Steve Buscemi didn't do an awesome job... I could watch him grocery shop. And the most interesting part of the film was when he's rebuked by Thora Birch's character, an we watch him try to reason out the logic of an emotional teenager. But then the resolution of the film was to have a mystery bus (oooo spooky!) pick Birch up and drive her on to her next stage in life. Wow, symbolism!

I don't know... its wasn't horrible, and it wasn't even forgettable, really. I guess it just seemed tacky. Or maybe the fandom for the film seems tacky. In another decade it'll just seem quaint.

Point, at least, for an uncredited Teri Garr. She should have hooked up with Steve Buscemi. Although I'd hate to do that to Bob Balaban... It's fun to say "Balaban". Go ahead, do it.

Link and Zelda's Infinite Replaylist

2009-06-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of a videogame nerd, since they take up so damn much time, and I have a lot of other, seemingly more legitimate time-sinks. Studying film is certainly one of them, and writing these little entries here helps me with that. But when a certain game comes along, and it is rare, since I own no game systems made after, say, 2003, I find that I am obsessed with it. It owns me, this game. Our fates are inexorably mingled and the game seems unhappy when I'm away. Or... maybe that's just projection, I don't know. What is clear is that lately, I got all nostalgic about a game I played back in said aught three: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. This game came out right after Nintendo's under-rated system the Game Cube came out, and I played the heck out of it way back then. It was a lazy fun summer, filled with magic brownie-eating, festival attending, amazing girlfriend-having, and of course, the Zelda. I was immediately enamored with the visuals of the game--how cartoony and yet classy it felt. Friends were annoyed ("this just looks like a Homestar Runner cartoon!") both by the game and the asymmetrical Game Cube controller, but I loved it. It felt like a toy, int he classic kid's sense of the word. It was colorful, musical, fun, and slick. There was so much to do, and it was all so rewarding. I was all about it. I can recall being at work and seeing products that we sell that were representations of treasure chests (coin banks, pinatas, what have you), and just having the deepest need, in the base of my gut, like seeing a beautiful woman, to open those treasure chests and find out what was inside. I was in love with the game.

Well, the summer ended, my girlfriend got sick of me and moved to the midwest, and the Game Cube was returned to the guy who lent it to me. The full reality of life set in, and Wind Waker became a memory, more faded with each moment. Until recently. My friend Leslie and I were talking about how great the game was, and she said "I own it, do you want to borrow it?" and it was good. I said "hell yes, please!" and dove into it again. I was amazed by how much I didn't remember. Maybe it was all those magic brownies, but each new moment of the game was truly new. There were a few "ohhhhhh yeahhhhhh...." moments, the way a memory buried deep beneath piles of brain feels when it's tugged, and we feel almost humbled by the realization that we knew all along. But not as many as I expected. The game was somehow as distant as elementary school, and just as perfect.

What I love so much about Zelda games (they comprise a great deal of my "must play" list) is the world, and it's object-interaction. That you can journey across a vivid and varied land is always fun, but it seems so alive! I know that these places continue to exist and thrive when I'm not there to see them. And there's something so exciting and fun about the very-Zelda motif of a once-great civilization, now in ruins, grown over by weeds and indifferent creatures. The Metroid games do the same thing, but in a spookier way. Stumbling across a dead race that flourished before Human history began is pretty eerie. But in Zelda, the land of Hyrule, and it's people, the long-dead-though-still-watching-as-gods, the Hylians, are benevolent and ancestral. The hero of the games, Link, isn't discovering secrets so much as reuniting with his people. It's intriguing and mysterious in a much more fun and virtuous way. Just that image of a stone structure, half-buried, peeking out through tall wild grass, beneath the sun and winds of a beautiful day... it evokes more than a good story: that is childhood. That is exploration and curiosity and potential. That is humanity.

And the items Link collects! The boomerang, the bow, the bomb, the mirror, the ocarina, the grappling hook--these are the tools of true adventurers. There's a kind of high that comes over me when I've traveled half of Hyrule, and then am rewarded with some cool weird tool, like the Hook Shot, and I realize that I have seen, in my travels, lots of little places where I could have used that Hook Shot. Unlike the linear progression of most games, the Zelda world grows ever-outward, and with each new item or ability gained, comes dozens or hundreds of figurative doors that just opened.: "Wait, any wall with a big crack down it, can be bombed? ...I've seen hundreds of those! I have to go back! There's explorin' to do!"

And in the Wind Waker episode of this series, there are all kids of really bright combinations and tweaks on the by-now-expected ways of interacting with the objects of the world. At one point, an enemy attacks you that can only be harmed by a beam of intense light, but no such thing seems to present... You look up to see tapestries hanging on the walls, one of which has sunlight slipping through. The player must run to a good vantage point, equip the arrows, set one of them alight, and fire at the window-covering tapestry. Then watch in awe as it catches fire, falls from the wall, and gently floats, flaming, down into the room. Now the player can stand in the beam of light and use their Mirror Shield (how cool is that?!) to reflect the sunlight into the still-encroaching monster, and turn them to stone. How the player dispatches the stone-monster is another little puzzle.

And what of the aforementioned Hook Shot, and it's ability to latch on to distant targets and pull Link up to them? How much more complicated it becomes when a player realized that if Link puts on the heavy Stone Boots, that when the Hook Shot latches onto the targets, those targets will actually be pulled down to Link, as he's now too heavy to get brought up. When this dawns on a player, a host of opportunities throughout the many dungeons arise, and there's that high again.

Ya know when you watch a film and the characters do one crazy, cool thing, and they say "we went on a little adventure today"? One event is certainly a little adventure. But not so with the Zelda series. Link journeys through every conceivable landscape, fights a vast array of enemies, some recognizable, but others very alien, and finds all these hidden tricks, traps and puzzles. By the end of the game, so much has happened, that you feel in your bones that the term "adventure" has absolutely been earned. Exhausting but rewarding. Like that summer relationship back in '03.

Zelda means a lot of things to me. Implies, represents, insists on a lot of things. To have finally reached the end of The Wind Waker closed a chapter in my life that had been left open, and was now covered in dust. Oh, and the last boss fight was pretty bad-ass, too.

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist: Micheal Cera is the thinnest of all men

2009-06-02T18:41:00.001-07:00

Music is insane with it's presence in our lives. It's so personal and central, yet usually a backdrop. There's something about how our brain is trained to directly associate what's happening visually with what's happening auditorily, so we find ourselves thinking of a certain stretch of road when we recall a favorite lyric. And nevermind the intense mind-fuck of rediscovering a childhood album, and witnessing the intimate memories of then and now mingling into a helix of autobiographical moments.

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, though set in the lives of several people who adore and revolve around music, and played amidst many band and song motifs, is not really about music in and of itself, anymore than it's about Brooklyn and Manhattan, or the ever-grossening gum that gets transferred from mouth to hipster-mouth like the stand-in for a joint at a straight-edge party. The film is, instead, about young romance, or rather, young people innocently bumbling into and past love. And it captures that pretty darn well. But in it's intent to also be about music, it seems to think that including a hundred references will suffice. When Nora (played by Kat Dennings, with whom we are all, now, infatuated) announces that she, too, lists the (fictional) band "Where's Fluffy" as her favorite, we get a moment of how central music and bands are to the early fumbling of pre-lovers. When you're excited about someone, how can you not explode your excited opinions all over them? And what are me more excited about, than music?

The only problem is, this movie didn't have enough of that. Even if music isn't the fulcrum of the pristine new connection between Nick and Nora (since organic conversation goes all over the place), there were only a few precious scenes that allowed these lovers to breathe. What I'm saying is, I could have watched an hour and a half straight of these two perfect young actors getting to know each other. Reaching sensitive feelers and learning each other's precious rhythms and energies. That's proto-love--and it's the part of my teenage years that I recall most fondly, and can't help hearken back to when I find new love. Those moments are gold, and replay endlessly in our memories. Um... just like... music? What?! Yeah. So the metaphor is as appropriate as the coupling. It's youth. It's energy. It's love. And the film could have glided perfectly on these moments (the DVD's two commentaries ask for more of such scenes, which I find telling).

The thing is, I have nothing against the other scenes. The Scooby-gang-esque chase through The City, and resulting counter-romance between Lothario and Dev, and the sagacious advice from Thom (who needs a sequel/prequel all his own) is all fun and appropriately "teen movie"-ish. The oft-mentioned Ari Graynor is great fun, too--how could you be bored with a beautiful and talented comedienne's delivery of party-drunk gone into pathetic-drunk? It's all very fun.

But my issue is not with fun. It's with magic. A film about youth needs to exude youth. "Nick and Nora" had it, but it didn't glow with it. The book has a passage about each moment being a song, and life being bigger than that. If the film could have showed me that infinite playlist of songs, I would have been teary-eyed by the end. Instead, I found myself thinking "what a great film". Though I still have a crush on Kat Dennings.

(Extra points for Mark Mothersbaugh!)

The Station Agent: Why aren't all librarians this forward?

2009-04-07T08:47:00.000-07:00

So many independent films with small budgets and shooting schedules set out to be whimsical in their deep sadness, and poignant in their subtle quirks. They try to create characters that bounce off each other with an awkward profundity that endears us to the tiny budget. Unfortunately, this often results in a lot of silence that says nothing. In an attempt to make us understand that a lot is happening, nothing happens.

What a relief, then, that The Station Agent avoids all these failings, and somehow, while living up to the small-budget-indy-comedy-drama stereotypes, it avoids them. I have a theory that it's the actors. When the aforementioned "so many independent films" try to leave all story to subtext (cuz putting in just normal text costs money), it's up to the actors to perform that subtext. If they cannot, then the long shots of uncomfortable faces, and the quasi-improvisational dialogue falls flat on it's ass. We end up feeling like we're watching a high school video project.

Peter Dinklage is the man. He sits there and carries these facial expressions that say so much. The way an aged actor like Jack Nicholson or Brian Cox or Angelica Houston can sit perfectly still and silent, yet communicate a sea of emotion. It's overwhelming to witness. These actors make us feel each emotion, but, of course, we aren't totally aware of the most of them. It reminds me of those moments... You know when you're following some thought-path, this way and that, with one idea or memory reminding yourself of, or guiding yourself to, the next... And at some point you reach a conclusion, and you return to the real world, but there's some sort of lingering emotion... or--even more subtle--some hint of an emotion. You feel ill at ease, and you can't be sure why... I always try to take the time to backtrack the thought process, and figure out why I feel the unexpected way. Usually, it turns out that while I sped down the proverbial thought-path, I passed some mental turn-off, or chose some branch that brushed past an emotional memory. Let's say I hear a song, and I think about the song, and what it means to me. I go through all the memorable times I listened to it, or it played in the background, and it's a fun little exercise. Some might say it's a little masterbatory, but there we are. In any case, as I move on to some other thing, I realize I'm feeling wistful about something. But I can't pinpoint what. So, I step back through the list of memories, until I realize that one of those song-memories involved an ex-girlfriend (for instance), and that ex brings up a lot of wistfulness. Possibly the ever-dreaded "unresolved emotions". I stand there, letting the half-triggered feelings-bomb run down me, and then I move on.

And that's what good acting is like. The faces and voices and movement of these wonderful people, these modern-day jesters, play in front of us, and trigger personal emotions, and experiences. After a scene is over, we may shift uncomfortably in our seats, because we are left with a small lost of emotions and thoughts. The depth of which we are barely aware.

That's what this film was like. And certainly, it had it's misfires and it's confusions (like the thing in the end with the train, and the smash-cut to the next day? What, exactly happened? Or better to ask: why didn't the director let us know what happened?). But with so much honest interplay, there was little to take away but respect and appreciation. So thank you.

Jerry Maguire: Show me the appeal!

2008-12-23T14:57:00.000-08:00

I have felt the pressure from the world to see this film since it was released in, what? 1996? Besides Cuba Gooding Jr. quoting himself when he was on Saturday Night Live, the local radio DJ going on and on about the line "You had me at hello" being one of the greatest romantic-comedy lines in history, and a continued sense that this movie was central to American culture, I had friends, family members, and girlfriends saying how great the film was. I had scenes being recreated for me by said girlfriend. I felt like I was missing something central. Something amazing. So, today, I took advantage of Netlfix's generous instant-viewing feature, and responded to the general familiarity everyone around me seems to have with this nineties classic. And I couldn't fucking stand it.

Now, certainly we all have that anti-popularity circuit in our brains that enjoys disliking the things that the world goes nuts over. Simply because of it's popularity, we approach bands and shows and films with suspicion. Or we don't approach them at all. I shook my head through the entirety of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because of my sense that country was really hung up on it. Or, worse, a small section of the film-going public that adored dumb action, and liked to think of themselves as clever, thinking audience members, and "finally, here's a movie as smart as I am!". Yes, I certainly have to regularly fight the chip that sits plumply on my shoulder as I try not to judge a cultural movement. I mean, surely it's not the thing we disapprove of, it's the response to the thing. We must constitute ourselves to enter into something with all that behind us. We must chill the fuck out.

And I did, going into Jerry Maguire. I went in just interested to see what all the whatever was about. I knew I liked Cameron Crowe (I need to review Say Anything), and--say what you want--Renée Zellweger is a total cutie! And I can't escape those memories of my sister and ex-girlfriend telling me to see the film. Hell, even my own nerdy grumpiness allows for the occasional rom-com, and the mid-nineties has the treacly-est of them all! I was in the mood to like this movie! I wanted to tear up at "you had me at hello"! So what went wrong?

To start with, the script isn't that strong. This movie is about a somewhat high-concept character going through a semi-complicated story-arc. The world of sports superstar's agents is a fairly unknown one, and the process of breaking down, intellectually and emotionally, to change your view of the universe is a complicated this to understand, let alone show. Cameron Crowe needed to write a smart script with a lot of subtle, realistic details. And I saw none of that. Everyone says big broad things to each other, in big broad pop-corn eating major star movie ways. Most of the dialogue was intended to impress the audience with it's bounce and zing. It all tried to be really cool. And in the process, it left out what the story was trying to do: explore the issues of this man, and the people around him. Most of the time I just felt confused. I mean, there are three main characters, and two secondary characters, and they all want a lot. This film is about people really wanting things, and hitting their heads against the wall they don't quite get them. These people are desperate for various forms of happiness, but for some reason I couldn't hear what they were actually saying. And I'm not convinced they were saying anything.

Lots of films are constructed this way: people say ridiculous things to each other in an escalating game of "surprise the audience". How else to connect with people when the scene itself is boring? Then, after one person acts crazy, the other person smiles and shakes their head, and then we smash-cut to a montage. Often, this takes the form of a commercial airliner taking off, while a recording of a voice mail plays, all set to a Rolling Stones song. It's generic American movie making. And I guess I had Crowe pegged as a better writer/director than that.

Second, this confusing mish-mash of emotions in every direction is not in any way helped by the manic Tom Cruise. He grins both when he's happy and when he's frustrated. And when he's scared and when he's sad. He grins when he wins and grins when he loses. Then he holds his head in his hands when something else is wrong. Or is it. Maybe he's just tired cause this film is so exhausting. As someone lost as to what just happened, or where this movie is heading, watching for clues in Tom's dizzying performance did not help. The thing is, Tom Cruise can deliver an appropriate performance in films like Magnolia, when every subtle detail is significant, but in Jerry Maguire, where the action is broad and, ultimately unimportant, Cruise just compounds the assemblage into a series of mis-cues. It's like in kindergarten when you were fingerpainting, and you added every color to one spot, and it became a sullen, poopy brown.

I think all of this has to do with what I was trying to pin-point back there: the generic American film. We have been instilled with certain cues in film, that lead us to expect certain things. There's a rhythm to major movies that's very shallow and shmoozy. Much like Tom Cruise. It's annoying to witness, but sometimes, you can't help but be in the mood for it. Like watching TGIF. Sometimes, you just aren't up to thinking about anything. Like I said, I never associated Cameron Crowe with that kind of irrelevance. I think he tries to rise above that, but he goes about it the wrong way. Instead of focusing on how to make real choices with his characters, he just piles on more emoting for them to do, and no one listens to one another. It's as if each character is in their own little film, and they have nothing to do with the actual movie being made. This could be an interesting choice, but even at this, Crowe won't commit, and the bland movie rhythms maintain.

There was one moment I can recall really appreciating in Jerry Maguire: near the beginning, when Jerry is fired. He looks around the restaurant for a moment, and we hear snippets of fellow diners. We hear a group singing "Happy Birthday", and another couple chatting and clinking their glasses. Then Jerry looks down and the camera slowly zooms in on a glass of ice water, and we actually hear the ice cracking as it warms. That moment took me there. That moment was real, and it said so much about how we find ourselves, in the most significant moments, focusing on the most trivial details. Or rather, how trivial details become as central as anything else. That's the kind of detail I wanted from what could have been a life-changing film. Instead I was just annoyed. I guess the girlfriends, sisters, and radio DJ's were wrong. I'm glad to say I can no longer wonder if I should see this negligible distraction.

The two best things I've ever written are for people I'll never see again.

2008-07-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

Lofty, above street, deep-roaring, and stairs, like steep sleet,
We are pulled up to perch, by an angel who smiles silently, and enjoys our choices of drink.
We shift and stretch and find our high seats and over a foundation of putanesca and shot glass shot put
We sip
Then kiss
Then slip, rest, and list.

I love and reason and recount what I want to make you smile
I grin and spin the times of tales in cross-hatch grit
I am white-knuckled. And am pulling for us.

But in your place of knocking and kneading, your flipped curl and thin-shaped sneer
You slide me, hand hidden, eyes heads up, the announcement that you'll cry for me.
You'll mourn my few sugars, my many wines, my wonderful words.
Even beyond the tearing and losing of coats,
Beyond the gasp of goodbye to hearts and homes,
You wish that I would live like the strength of a monk. Inscribing a serif of "oh".

But I am held by loss, or pursued in sweeping winds by change in death and fire.
I am looking to love such small things as you, and your movement--your tied skirts and quotes--and instead, I am shown a curve more subtle and withstanding than language.

The truth, it seems God wants me to know, is here: nothing is, but instead only can be.
Potential, as brief catch and release, can form what we wish were real,
But it will slip away, and reform, and be unrecognizable, right before us.
We are lumbering giants, missing our steps, and missing the points, and any writing, culture, opinion, is false.

So why did I want you, if I stand here to sign that you, and I, and want, are disgusting?
Perhaps because, in such chaos, I need kindness.
I can mourn for me, just fine.

There should be a website at lolnowaythatshilarious.com.

2008-05-31T02:19:00.000-07:00

It would document the constant influx of internet memes (primarily humorous ones), and blogs would discuss the slow change in their style, thus prompting a look at our culture. Like ew.com but smart.

Primary Colors: Secondary Art

2008-05-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

A lot of character drama. So much so, that I was never wrapped up in the plot, the way the characters obviously were. It's clearly supposed to be very fascinating, the things they're all discussing, but I'm too busy noticing the quirks of this mish-mash of folks. Like The West Wing at it's worst. Fine acting, but the beats were all minor variations on classic clichés.

The idea of exploring very famous people's personal lives is an exciting one. Especially the rise of a regime: how real people met and felt about one another, and loved what they were doing, and fought to make an administration happen. That' a worthy goal in the telling of a story... but it never really happened. The movie was far too busy trying to entertain me with the weird shit Billy Bob Thorton was doing, and pulling me out of the movie when no one punched him in the face for doing it.

This was made, I think, for dull people. They are more easily impressed by boring quirks.

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With: Seriously. I do.

2008-05-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

It does feel like CUrb, with Jeff's natural tendency to improv in a floaty way. He feels like a hyper-sweet boy, living it up with his friends. He loves doing the one kinf of comedy he's capable. I'm curious to see how he will do his character in WALL•E. The main theme, as he points out in his commentary, is very reminiscent of Curb, but the feel of the story is so very different. We aren't exploring the idiosyncrasies of neurotic rich people, we're just bumbling through life, making people around us smile, if we can. That's a more open, simple goal. I love both.

I'd like to know more about Sarah Silverman's character--why she's so abrupt, why she changes gears often, and seemingly flawlessly. She has a story, I think, and if this were a Woody Allen picture, we'd see more of it. But even if Garlin is inspired by Allen, he doesn't seem to know a great deal about that character. I'd like to see more Jeff Garlin films, and in those I'd like to see him evolve a sense of story for each major player.

Overall, it's the warm sense of friends coming together to male a movie that I take away from this film. It generate a richness, not so much to the world in which the story takes place, but as to the production itself. That appeals to me.

Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind: didn't suck, didn't blow

2008-05-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

This film is a lot of fun. It's filled with classic adventure, beats of shocking action, complex wists of who's on who's side, and long beautiful moments of exploration. It's Miyazaki's graceful, zen, metered-out reveal of his world that impacts most powerfully. Age-old story constructs, set in bizarre new worlds. Like Star Wars, in it's paradoxical ingenuity.

His strange creatures and environment play before us so convincingly that their shocking bizarity is so beautiful, it hits us to the core. It silences us. There are moments in all of his films where I find myself mouth agape, unblinking, not breathing, just floored. Like a child. He creates--seemingly in front of us--things that have never been, and yet act close enough to the natural world that we know and trust, that is an assault to see. And it's in the context of being ancient , pre-human, so we are humbled. Like meeting God, and learning he's an abomination. Which, ya know, could probably be exactly what it's like.

This film is responsible for three things: Metroid, Chrono Trigger, and, most obviously, Princess Mononoke. We are all in a debt of gratitude to this relatively obscure 80's marvel of the proto-Studio Ghibli.

The American Disney dub was pretty golden, too. Having Patrick Stewart, Edward James Olmos, and Mark Hamill all interact, well... the gods of sci-fi were grinning brightly. It was like if Dumbledor and Gandalf hung out. But maybe less gay.

I sound like I'm on drugs but I'm not.

2008-03-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

HEy Happy Birthday to Jake Clement, the man who baptised my babies in beer! We went out last night to wish him a good 26th year, and it was a truly pleasant evening of good friends around a big table having good conversation. I felt like I'd arrived, and with the people I love dearly. Is it tragic or wonderful that my social life has lately felt like highschool--the good old days. Perhaps it's no good that I live in the same place, and one could say it's profoundly stagnant that I am close to the same people. But I feel a change in my relationship with this place and these people, and it doesn't feel stagnant at all. It really doesn't feel like highschool at all. It feels, to me, as if I have left and returned. As if we have all gone out and restructured our lives, and returned with a calm confidance and knowledge of the way of things. What's familiar about my attitudes, I think, is simply that I have the ease I used to. And, perhaps, I am allowed, finally, to build something new and strange in some far away land. Or at least finish this movie I'm making.

I think that must be a part of it. There's a lightness when one keeps up with the moving spotlight of what we "should be doing". Like those levels in Mario games that scroll slowly along, and it's up to Mario to keep up, or be pushed, lo, into the pits, where all of our fears and goombas await. The stress only comes from the possibility that you won't be ready to move on when the game forces you to. As long as you can keep up, it's easy. It's fun. Unlike in Mario, however, is the very present possibility that a great many amazing things can be accomplished. Rather than just getting to the pre-determined end, we watch as the level around us changes. We shape reality as we interact with it.

I woke up from a very bizarre dream, long before my alarm went off. I remembered relatively little, and as I tried to focus on more, I began reflecting, also, on the general state of things. Of last night, of my friends, and all of our lives. Of the throughlines in a lot of my dreams. Of the distinct possibility that God is pressing His face up to the glass that seperates the True Universe from our little fishbowl lives, and He's mouthing something to me, but the distortion is too great, and I can only vaguely understand. Anyway, I think it's a kind thing He's saying, and it's nice that I'm even worth the attempt.

More on this in time.

Something much more important than film: "...voteobamavoteobamavoteobamavoteobama..."

2008-02-09T11:08:00.000-08:00

Have you seen the music video will.i.am made? It's at www.barackobama.com. He made it because he watched a speech Mr. Obama gave, and was inspired to.

It hits a little corny, but it's still so powerful, the underlying words, that one finds themselves taken aback. It's hard not to get a little emotional about the idea that the future of the entire world is within our hands, right now. We are told this from childhood, but the tangibility of it comes into focus quite suddenly when you listen to Barack Obama speak.

And that itself is, I think, what people are so overwhelmed by. That, in this entirely post-modern, jaded, bored society, something true can still be real. Perhaps it's because we hear the self-empowering message "we can", that Barack's message hits a somewhat abandoned part of us. It's deeply familiar. Like hearing a song for the first time since you were a little kid, when you heard it many times. Or like coming home from a long trip and getting to hear your lover's voice again. It's like resting after a difficult journey.

8 years of learning to filter the president's words into something we can understand, and of trepidatiously watching our own country from afar, because we have no say or control. It starts to become a thick skin. Of course it's cool to be apathetic: there's nothing amazing happening at the helm of our nation. Or planet. Or species. Suddenly, though, there's a prospect that we can not only witness, but help along a positive and basically immediate future... Intelligence is familiar, but forgotten.

Have you ever watched an episode of The West Wing, or Star Trek: The Next Generation, and wondered why real human beings can't lead like President Martin Sheen or Captain Patrick Stewart? They serve as our fairy tales, and give us something to want. But here is a person running for the office of the president, who is as confident and intelligent and focused as those in fiction.

He exudes joy and we look suspiciously on, until we hear his message, and the ease with which he delivers it, and genuinely seems to believe what he is saying, and we suddenly get it. He reminds us that we have the ability to affect change all around us.

That's why I'm going to head over to the caucus today.

=max

If you wanna hear even more political ramblings from the kin, head over to Woodard Bay.

Eagle vs Shark: No Matter Who Wins... We Lose.

2008-02-01T17:14:00.000-08:00

A lot of people gave this film crap for feeling like Napoleon Dynamite, but this cannot be true. What's really present here that no one seems to notice is absent in the Great Dynamite, is the presence of real people. I mean, certainly it's a little cardboard cutout-ey, but I feel like I know the main character, Lily. She is quirky, she is off-beat, but the actor wasn't trying so hard to make us laugh that she left behind the additional dimensions of her character. When Napoleon or that girl from that movie hurt, we laugh. Perhaps their hurt evokes a small "ohhh...", but it's a cute moment. When Lily (the titular Shark) is hurt, it hurts us. It's hard to watch not because it's awkward, but because we don't like that she's in pain. In fact, the spell of awkwardity... awkwardness... whatever... that spell is broken because she is suddenly real.

And reality is present, too, in the setting. The suburban streets and backyards and parks are small amid the beautiful New Zealand. The sunny, bird-chirp-ey mornings against weathered, slatted fences felt like childhood. The laziness in everyones movements and schedules, while probably not indicative of the entire culture, had a time and place to it that Nappy Dyne intentionally eschewed.

I've been prepped for the New Zealand deadpan by the insanely good Flight of the Conchords (the very hilarious Jemain Clement's role in this film was what inspired me to netflix it), and so the subtler displays of emotion were fine.

Ghostbusters

2008-01-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

"Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you!" --Louis Tully, as Vinz Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer.

Each time I see this classic, I notice a little more, and the world it inhabits feels a little richer. When I was little, the most interesting parts, by far, were the ghosts. At six, I understood that the scenes in-between the ghost busting sequences were important, and I even enjoyed a lot of it, but it was when the film was earning it's keep as something called "Ghostbusters" that the really fascinating stuff was going on. That indescribably, but completely unavoidable charm of having a small team, all wearing a cool uniform, decked out with high-tech equipment and a crazy vehicle, going back and forth between their awesome base, and missions where they deal with out-of-this-world phenomena... It's Star Trek, it's Men in Black, it's The Justice League... it's genius. And there's a quiet beauty to having each of the uniformed bad-asses not quite be up to their own legacies. One's too nerdy to actually deal with real life, one's an excited little boy and can barely deal with how cool all of this is, and one is just too sardonic to believe any of it's real. When the setting and equipment is much cooler than the people who use it and deal with it, and yet when they still somehow manage to rise to their own shaky level of cool, you have something that's essentially... perfect.

Peter: Got your stick?
All: Holding.
Peter: Heat 'em up!
All: Smoking.
Peter: Make 'em hard!
All: Ready.
Peter: ...Strike!

First Post of the Year

2008-01-08T08:49:00.000-08:00

I am tired. I am tired like not enough fuel, if sleep is a quantifiable sustenance, and I didn't get enough. The coffee makes me jittery but no less tired. It's like having a dirge mashued up with a jig.

Last night I got word that I could, in fact, move out of my apartment. My associate, or tenuous friend, or recently somewhat less tenuous friend Cameron could move in, to replace me. The gun had been fired, and now I was to move into the house on which I had payed a deposit, though no rent. This impending feat only vaguely snuck up on me like the hot flashes of too much NyQuil, at the moment I was handing my apartment keys over to my ex-landlord. Without these keys, I thought, I wasn't to sleep here ever again. A call to Shawn--who, by the way, has got to be the most loyal friend I have ever had--and I had access to a truck. Big stuff only, I thought to myself, now in my room, emailing Comcast, USPS, Voter Registration, the lot.

Shawn arrived, and before his truck's door had been slammed behind him, he was telling me he just layed out some woman-abuser at the gas station, oh, two minutes ago. This night would not be--had not been--normal. Chaos was in the air, like a mischievous spark. Like walking through mist, under power relay lines. The crackle and hum of who-knows-what-next. Like Anasazi.

Bed in the truck in seconds, truck in the busy street as we hoist and huck. Ex-landlords strolling by, watching the farse, making passive-aggressive comments. I'd hurt their feelings by opting out of their apartment. They'd hurt mine by being dicks.

Off to Red Robin to repay Shawn for his generous help, though he was still swimming, I think, in adrenaline from his recent tussle, and so barely nibbled his chili. I was ravenous and experienced the first time I have ever taken up the offer of "bottomless fries". We sat and had a few drinks and talked about life, and death, and hallucinogens. We discussed film, and women, as we tend to do. I mentioned I still owe he and his girlfriend a separate dinner entirely for their help with moving me into the recently vacated apartment, back in June. Did I mention most loyal friend ever? I have had closer friends, and I have loved friends more, I suppose, but he remains one of my favorite people, and he defines old-school "I've got your back" friendship. He has earned a mirror of such loyalty in me. Even if we don't ever take shrooms together.

Oh Tennenbaum, or total lack thereof...

2007-12-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

And so this is Christmas... We, or at least I, am built on a foundation of loving Christmas. Since day one, it has been about sitting in the insulated little nuclear family pod known as the living room, replete in our many family dynamics, built on tragicomic neuroses--each with our own, though the little baby me only barely being introduced, yet, to the wonder of passive aggression-- and getting cool new stuff. The lizard brain relishes these ceremonies. Shiny, packages, mystery within, beckoning with the promise of "whatever is inside me, you can have all for your own". No strings attached. In many years, we will learn that nothing in the entire universe is like this. No thing or one or act is simple or free, but here, on Christmas morning, behold: if you open a package with your name on it, you *get* whats inside. You are the complete master, dictator, administrator of the thing. The item. The toy. It is non-negotiable, it is bliss, and as I said, it is false. But this is only the foundation of Christmas. This is only our youths. Everything is face value here, and so... this is Christmas.

Time, we all know, glaciers on, and by 15 or so, we begin to hear, and indeed recite, our parents' woes about the performance side of Christmas. Will the kids get enough, will it be the right thing, will it interrupt the flow of money to various bills. Even as most of us understand that Christmas is about family, togetherness, joy, and maybe even that little baby who was nailgunned to a Christian Church... or something... even in that wisdom, we still want cool stuff, and our parents still want to provide it. They know full well that it's materialistic and shallow, but damn it, it's our childhood, and they love the simplicity and purity of such a ceremony, and if they can keep it going until we're 20 and avoiding our parents in favor of our significant other's family for the Great Holiday, than they will do so. They will keep the facade up if they can. And Gold bless them for, basically, wanting us to always believe in Santa Claus. Or always believe in them. But we won't, because they can't always provide to the extent that we all want, in our childish heart of hearts. People get poor, people get sick of one another, families twist and bend, and occasionally, families move from one rental house to another on the 1st of January, and why are we wasting valuable time playing with new toys when we could be packing?!

In essence, life creeps through the cracks and we are taught that the Ideal Christmas is a myth. Nothing is ideal. We learn that we should take what we can get, and be happy with that, and there is perfection in the little of things, but as much as life is a series of beautiful moments, it's simultaneously a series of complications, missteps, and compromises. It's all in the details, and that can be very good or very bad, or any of the points in-between that huge gradient. The devil and God live there, both. And we learn this. And we become adults.

So how wonderful is it that we can come full circle to what it's really about: family and love. How deeply satisfying it is that after our initial let-down, that we can see that it doesn't matter: that the perfect facade is *only* a facade, and love remains. The reason our parents slaved to *want* that Santa-laden, myth-filled day... is still there, but the back-breaking effort can be dropped, like a fur coat, and we can simply be. On Christmas. With the people who we love and sometimes can't stand. Life is sketchy and chaotic and that's okay. That's a merry Christmas. The nailgunned baby is nodding in agreement.

Because of Winn Dixie: My other dog is named "Albertsons"!

2007-12-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

Okay let me level with ya. I Netflixed this cheesy/heartwarming kids film for one reason: It features the great Dave Matthews, over who I have a "broner". Well wasn't I pleasantly surprised when the film itself was really good! Now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to dislike the film... I was just expecting to...! Anything with an aw-doe-wabow dog running around an old country town, while an equally aw-doe-wabow little girl gets pulled along behind him (by his leash), and the two of them make great friends with a precious cast of older eccentrics (that everyone has long ago written off), makes me high-tail it for the nearest John Woo explosion-aganza. I mean, come on, I'm a dude (with a penchant for some alt-rock jamb band with complicated world beat rhythms and richly personal poetry). I tend to avoid this kind of film. But Hope Floats, this was not. Keeping in mind it's based on a childrens book (not like "Cat in the Hat", more like "To Kill a Mockingbird"), I was really impressed with some of the themes it tries to impart on the little girl, and so, vicariously, the little audience. This is certainly a childrens book for the more mature 4th graders of today. Never before have I seen alchoholism, crime, depression, and abandonment dealt with in a way that wouldn't just zip right past an 8 year old. But here Cicely Tyson was, getting across ideas that some 40 year olds haven't gotten their minds around. One lesson in particular, that really incorporates all the others I mentioned: people do bad things, but that doesn't make them bad people. Certainly, we've seen this espoused in various children's programming before, but here it comes across the spectrum of age, in a way that literally connects the young, the old, the ancient. Haven't we all met amazing people who deserve respect and love, even after their jail time, or their need for booze, or their own apparent belief that they must pull away from those that respect and love them in the first place.

And haven't we usually sighed, and feeling useless, justified pulling away, in repsonse? Perhaps what's so much fun about a happy-go-lucky kid's story is that little SohpiaAnna Robb isn't interested in, or perhaps capable of giving up. She and her annoying tick-farm keep pushing and exploring in just such a way that the nearly-departed come slowly back to us. Bless her heart, as the corny gets cornier, they even have a dinner party. You can't help but grin. Just like the dog. Did I mention the dog grins? Yeah, it's kinda weird.

It's possible you stopped being able to concentrate at the mention of Cicely Tyson. It's possible you're as huge a fan as I--completely, droolingly obsessed with she who was Binta. She who was Sipsey. Well, worry not, she is brilliant here. Real in her children's book charicature. As is the great Eva Marie Saint. As is Dave Matthews. This cast is eclectic to say the least, in that way kid's films can be. A cultural mashup that makes perfect sense if you're 10.

He really is brilliant in this. This understated mix of calm and creepy. You instantly know he hides some secret (that turns out to be darker than I predicted, actually), but you also get the sense he can be trusted. An outsider, looking in. I'm biased, of course, but Dave is a really good actor. Or maybe a selfless, comitted one. I don't know if we can pit the man againt F. Murray Abraham, but he's more interesting than most leading men today. He was even pretty good in Where the Red Fern Grows. Which. Was. Awful. Anyway, the song he sings here, in Dixie, is called "Butterfly", and it's beautiful.

Even the little girl, one newcomer AnnaSophia Robb, is pretty darn good. She has a naturalism that puts one at ease. When she could have been too cute to keep my lunch down, she just seemed like a kid. Rough and tumble, baseball tossing, cute little kid. I mean, she ain't know Dave Matthews (or F. Murray Abraham), but as child actors go, I could definitely stand to see her in more work.

So, I enjoyed it, once I had the proper "this will probably be annoying" filter on. I found myself reflecting on the children's book, as an author, or a publisher: kids change so quickly, that every year or two is a new chapter of life. I mean, to me, all kids are basically kids. If a school is on a field trip somewhere, all I can think of is Groundskeeper Willy shouting "Augh! Too many wee ones!". But When AnnaSophia (who I think is 10 in this), calls little 5 year old Elle Fanning a baby, I suddenly remembered how 4th graders seemed young, when I was in 6th grade, and back in 4th grade, oh the 2nd graders were infants! Zygotes! Keep 'em form barfin' on my Ghostbusters shoes, thank you! So a story like this has a tiny window of target audience. Must be difficult to hone in on one time in a person's life, and write to that. Or, conversely, it must be hard to take a piece of writing, and identify the proper age group who would get what the book/film is tyring to say, but not be bored by it. The original author did amazingly well. Even I found it interesting. But then again, I *still* have a pair of Ghostbusters shoes.

Clerks II: Dante's Paradiso

2007-11-20T08:48:00.000-08:00

The first half hour of this film hit me in the way of most Kevin Smith's films: a bunch of uncomfortable actors reading speeches they memorized just seconds before the camera rolled. Speeches about characters with bizarre hangups that keep them from interelating in a meaningful way. About high-falutin' issues they hold with society. Stances they can take that are unexpected, and creative, sure, but not of any real weight. In short, a bunch of grown 8th graders being different, just to be different.

But as the actors and I got comfortable with the roles, the film began to form in front of me, into somthing about something. I witnessed Randal open up, and become three dimensional. I witnessed Dante step back and see the world around him. We watched as stagnant youth grew quickly into something powerful, and pertinent. Clerks was about getting over onesself, and not pushing people away due to dickery. But Clerks II is about life. About being faced with a handful of major decisions, and realizing that the only best choice, is the one with the most personal growth. The least obvious, and most dfficult. A film about picking up the pieces, and building something true. Well done, Kevin Smith. Your decade shows.

Californication: The XXX-Files

2007-11-18T19:17:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but when I popped in my DVD of the new Showtime series "Californication", I was expecting it to be bad. I didn't want it to be bad, but I thought it would be. I'm not sure if the ads somehow made it seem dumb. Perhaps the sbect matter seems tried, but not true. Perhaps I was genuinely frightened that David Duchovny, who I really loved in The X-Files (or at least the first 4 or 5 seasons, before I just couldn't keep track of the madness), wouldn't work. He always seemed like such a square as Mulder, and here we're to buy that he is a once-prolific, now blocked, writer in LA, heartbroken over the one that got away, filling the void with many, many hot LA women. And whiskey. He plays, here, a sweet grown boy, filled with darkness and neuroses, balancing, or at least reacting to, a multitude of different relationships. The structure seemed somehow to be cliché city, and so it was the execution that would decide it's merit.

And I am here to announce, for those that haven't assumed the best, or checked it out and judged themselves, that the execution of Claifornication is great. I don't really understand how it is that a premise so obvious can be interesting, but it is. Perhaps it's obvious because, after The Sopranos, all new TV shows are structured on the idea that the protagonist must be hit from many angles of his life, simultaneously, and he must react in a way that's both stronger than you or I, and very reminiscent of what we would do in the same situation. But there's a grace applied to the writing of this show that jumps between the protagonist's different worlds less in a juxtapositionally shocking way, and more in way that leads the audience, or me, anyway, to smile knowingly and say "yep. That's what life's like." Between intimate sexual details being open conversation, and little kids dealing with first crushes, Californication seems to be fascinated with the ways in which a a person can be multiple things to another person. Th writers don't shy away from whatever comes down the pike at them.

Maybe it isn't so interesting a show. Maybe it just feeds us what we all know about love and relationships, and how life is about those things failing, and so it's nice to see a classy fella like Duchovny reinforce it. That he can see the humor in the tangled web, and keep fox-trotting on, is re-assuring. That he can say something hilarious in the face of a bunch of people who are pissed off at him, and smile only for a second before actually responding to their anger, is what's interesting, and charming. In the shiny world of television, everyone is socially successful, but here Duchovny does it with an earnestness. He isn't getting out of trouble with a laugh, just reacting in his half-lidded, impish way. The issue is never circumvented.

It's genuine, and it's very funny, and it's an important series to be airing right now. Netflix that shit.

No Country for Old Men: A Coen Brothers film.

2007-11-17T02:19:00.000-08:00

Well now. we all saw it. No denials or backtracking or yip-hawin': this film is it. The first film of the current age. This is sort of the Bloodsimple of the new cycle. The I Ching of this most-fascinating period in our Human history: the end.

Right? Is this American society not the Rudolph's Nose-obvious "red flag" of excess? We have culture to a level of Meta-God. For every amazing piece of art you see, and fall in love with, and show me, I can show you a powerful sign of the obnoxiousness of our species. A perfect example of why we are worth saving, and why we aren't. Right now, we may be witnessing the height of the loudest race in the universe. Or, who knows, maybe we'll stick around while we spiral down into a hell of our own design: see how many beautiful things we can take out with us.

Film is a very powerful attempt at focusing on ourselves. It's inherently very narcissistic, or--if you must--masterbatorial, but in all that, there emerges some of the most beautiful selflessnesses we can embody. We are affected by film (and, perhaps art) to the same degree that it knocks us on our asses with how flawed we are. ...And freaking wonderful we are. In that moment of vertigo our chests feel at the exact heart of a film, it somehow manages to be both selfless and self-centered.

the coroner told tommy lee jones that old men like he and the sheriff are only the latest in a continual change in society: the eldest looking back on their own youths, and deciding that the present is rougher than the past. Basically, post-modernism is "what's coming to you."--like the crazy killer is what's coming for the hero. (And most everyone else.)

Thank god for Stephen Root. Meanwhile, what is up with the mother? She is pure cartoon non-character. Confusing.

Barry Corbin, you are my favorite ever. Truly.

Anyway, beautifully filmed; shots like perfect paintings; writing thats shocking even while comforting, a structure that punches structure in the face, then cradles it and weeps, while it dies. Javier is playing the place the Coens see themselves ending up--tragically. Like all of the rest of us.

extra points for not knowing the number of floors in the building. Is that counting the Mezzanine?

=max

P.S.: perhaps Ebert says it says it best.

I wrote this one the night before the fire. Weird!

2007-10-25T04:26:00.000-07:00

Having someone who knows the path
And who helped with thick gloved hands
To lay the ties
Looking with assurance at this source
Of time and place
As if they're proof it really is.
Knowing.
From fallen arc of hair
From sound of rain on coat
From trembling lip in wind
Taking gold shavings that lie around ground
And stuffing them in my briefcases, pockets, mouth.
We can look ahead, squinting
From glint on melting tar
And crouch to hear the hollowed Earth resound.

So when I step away again
The unmapped space
Between Mercury and the Sun
Will whisper a brief nod
And the road unkinks
And falls straight
Like silk on skin.
Our each four feet place great steps
Wide with grin
And the source will furrow and quote the day we spotted the trick in the box
The spot we drew the lines in
The reason the next zoom-out is coming around
Into view.

Or not having any of it.
Knowing it's slipped up and away
Many times.
Hands in pockets, dust long tarnished
Trickle a path this way and fro
Slip in wind and bitter splinter spray
Shudder to know you had it
But you looked it straight in the eye
And said "goodbye".

Dwarves Giants Wizards

2007-09-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

In talking, I realized the perfect gift. You should have it, but it's...
Too much light for this, here, now
In looking, I have traced the great twisting roots, mapped with soot and soil,
Have looked each one of you in the eye
To try

But here in the beneath, by crusted let-goes and neverminds
I must seem like the lost cause
Your great steady steps plod like epochs from wise stern to venerable bow
And I crinkle and sweep within the crumpled deep

That I've found these trickle-lines between the curvature of stone and earth,
Does less to impress than I guess I'd figured.
When I give you my deepest grin
It's a safe and pleasant reminder of my genuine hope for us both
And you safely move away
With great intent to be wooed
On the horizon.

enThralled

2007-08-02T00:21:00.000-07:00

I can't look at you and figure out the path to certainty.
And I can't touch you to trace the creases of a path or plan.
This way of watching and
gasp
thinking
is along a cosine of intangible twists
And finding a rule that satisfies is a broken attempt
So I paw at the door, and make faces scrunched and sarcastic when you peak
and poke
leaving lines in a fading breath mark

And I wisely give up.
Rest on we the slips and gentle pushes of the way things are.
Lean on the quick flick of a look
That hints vaguely of giants in your bloodstream.

Is it maturity through age and pain, I ask, that keeps me grinning when our tongues miss
Or am I just that thrown by the rolling hills of some quiet sleeping god
Out of breath when I fall/scared of death while I climb
And if your tiny painted toes
perfect nodding smile
and bravery
keep me, seemingly infantile here in the summer of 2007...
Well, I will feel you, but feel for nothing.
Feel only to touch, and give, and stupidly try to keep up.
I'll clench my eyes and, grinning, step out.

Simpsons Movie: I've LITERALLY got Yellow Fever!!!

2007-07-14T03:50:00.000-07:00

I owe a large part of my soul to The Simpsons, so I've been ever protective of it. Of what I consider the show to be, at it's heart. Defining it by Golden and Silver eras, I all but dismissed anything past season 9.

But the show is an ever-changing organism, like anything, and even if the final episode should have been the "Behind The Laughter" one, it wasn't. And so I think it's best to accept the current Simpsons as a different, newer entity than the one that I grew up on. Its still The Simpsons, just not, ya know, Simpsons Proper.

I have a feeling that this thing really will last a thousand years (or so), as Matt Groening predicted in Futurama. This new movie is not the beginning of the end, the way the X-Files film was. It is the first pillar in the great entertainment empire. Something about the wide-screen aspect ratio. The much bigger color pallette. Hans Zimmer scoring it. No matter what happens, it will be a grand show.

In any case, whether they make another season and finally let it rest, or The Simpsons will go on to shape the history of mankind, I'm really excited to see the movie. Maybe giddy. Definitely scared.

Radio Days: And now you know the REST of the story.

2007-04-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

It's crazy that that little kid claiming to be a young Woody Allen is, in reality, a young Seth Green. I can see how he moved up in the industry. He's very interesting and expressive. Ron Moore's sentiment that child actors need to be treated like props doesn't apply here. Paired with Woody Allen's warm recollective voice over, there's a definite warmth to the scenes he paints form his supposed childhood. Woody's a good storyteller. Besides the episodes that create Radio Days all having great punchlines, just the affection in his voice for these lost days carries across to us, the audience. Even with better technology, medecine and understanding of our world and universe, Radio Days manages to make the mid-forties seem perfect, in that A Christmas Story, everything has a proper answer sort of way. Life was tidy, even if it really wasn't. But, eventually, it is: when Julie Kavner (Marge doesn't do this actress justice) says "The world would be such an amazing place if it weren't for certain people", she nails it. It's naive, and overly simplistic, but that doesn't mean it's incorrect. Everyday life is completely full of things that amaze and inspire. From an artist's perspective, every second of every day boasts brilliant composition, and emotionally rich moments. Why is it that when we see light, we are struck by it's beauty? Sunsets, the city at night, Christmas trees... it always hits us as amazing. Reality's cup runneth over. Certainly, death and destruction is a part of life, but that's because that's how the universe works, and as sentient life, we have a choice to hurt or to help. Choose love.

Anyway, I loved the character Mia Farrow created for this film, since she's usually very Mia Farrow-ish, and here not as much. Here she was like the gangster's girlfriend in Bullet's Over Broadway, and she did it really well. And seeing Diane Keaton for just a bit was wonderful. Woody's leading ladies sort of orbit one another, but here they passed quite closely, and the Neurotic Jewniverse shook for a minute. Finally, it's Wallace Shawn's little weasel of a voice actor that sticks with me, because of his comment that over enough time, even the biggest stars, and most pivotal moments will fade to nothing. More existentialism from Woody Allen. And he's always right.

Many extra points for a not-yet-famous Larry David.

Reign Over Me: Verb Preposition Me. Please.

2007-04-02T02:15:00.000-07:00

I seriously love me some Cheadle. The m,an exudes class in everything he does. Every action he takes is a man of strength. He can't not play a likable character. Does that make him a limited actor? Maybe, but I bet if he read this review he'd be like "The FUCK I can't!" and BAM! He's LeStat and we're all like "Ohhhh!" the way a crowd does when a pretentous critic gets schooled in a fundamental way.

What I liked about this film is that it was often a big surprise to me. There was an entire sequence of scenes near the end when I was totally up in the air about what was next. And maybe I shouldn't have even been thinking about what the film was doing (as in a good film should cut me away from that umbilical and I should find myself floating free in the moment), but come on. We've all seen film, we've all been through the flips and bends of a thousand movies, and it doesn't take someone who is very interested in film to feel that a story playing before us is about to move in certain ways. And certainly, this film wasn't without that, here and there--it's an American film with very bankable stars--but it was close enough to the characters to use the structure of plot the way a master mechanic uses only muscle memory when reaching for a tool. It never looked up. Good or bad, that's honest. And pretty rare.

I like watching people scoot around New York. It has a tactile presence that wasn't there before I'd visited. And it really is like a crazy complicated jungle. Something you can have a great time in if you know not to fuck around. The concentration of people... it's dangerous like a fire. But it's still so beautiful. Like a person's face.

Reign Over Me gets extra points for it's brief inclusion of John de Lancie. Many points.

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World: Wh-wh-wh-whooooaaaah!!!!!

2007-03-22T17:50:00.000-07:00

Sort of the 60's equivalent of today's Ocean's 11 and 12--get every big name you possibly can and then try and see what kind of "plot" can string them all together. It was a lot of fun, to be sure, even if I couldn't appreciate who everyone was. The Three Stooges stood out... even if they looked like someone had opened the Arc of the Covenant nearby...

I enjoyed the cutting back and forth between each group, and it was only marginally confusing (since each character was pretty similar--again, coming from my "Born in '82" mind) keeping them seperated. The many tactics and forms of transportation kept it fun and wacky. Which, really, is about all you can say about this film.

As soon as Spencer Tracey got involved in the chase it got a little... scattered. Why was this calm, intelligent man acting as goofy as all the buffoons out and about California? It broke the setup of the film, and while that's a good thing to do during the last act of a story (everything is turned on it's head!), this film was too broad to pull a twist.

Still, it's well worth watching, if only for it's place in our culture. I had seen the Simpson's spoof of it about a thousand times, so it was deeply satisfying to understand where all that had come from, even if it was a little dumb.

Extra points for Jimmy Durante actually kicking the bucket.

Little Miss Sunshine: Are all 7 year olds such Super Freaks?

2007-03-15T01:56:00.000-07:00

The way you place a small group of characters in a series of motel rooms seperates the characters in a clean way. But when they move to a new loaction like a VW van, and you place them in a new arrangement, you force new relationships to form. What you view as that person, exposes unexpected complications.

Steve Carrell is a brilliant guy. I feel like he's one of the few actors who doesn't give me at least some sense that he's pulling one over on me. Watching him act on screen is like hanging out with a person, in the real world. It's sort of what Jimmy Falon tries to do with skit comedy, but a lot less fucking irritating as shit. That is to say that Steve Carrell succeeds. And I'd be so excited if he were my semi-suicidal uncle. Is that weird?

I am curious to know more about the husband and wife--why they love each other, what they can't stand about each other... I figure the lack of exploration into those two is a classy thing:
like the Grapes of Wrath earring thing. Whatever we project on the story, to fil in the blanks, becomes much richer than anything they could go into. Or, perhaps, because we only have a vague beginning of a guess as to what those blanks hold, we sort of assume the best.

This film had a good emotional hold on me, and when each character hit their low (and in that moment revealed to us what they were really all about), I leaned forward in my seat, and felt very close to what it was they were going through. The literals were all fairly foreign, but the emotional places felt super familiar.

In the end, as much as I like Greg Kinnear, I wonder why no one thought to cast Adam Arkin as Alan's son. Could have been cool.

Bullets Over Broadway: Don't speak, do watch

2007-03-13T16:23:00.000-07:00

This film was really interesting to me... I think because it was about giving up who you think you are. There's all this pomp and circumstance surrounding John Cusack's character, and that character's glorious writing career... and yet we never see it. It's never proved. I wonder if Woody Allen is trying to say something, here, about existentialism (the way he often is): we accept what we are told, to the point that a thing is true because we believe it. In any case, John Cusack's character spends all of his time thinking of himself as a writer, and more to the point, an intellectualist. And it causes all the problems for him because he secretly isn't. He wants desperately to think of the world in a more simplistic, honest, down to earth way, while his writer friends are busy insisting that the world is as we define it: we set our own moral codes, we assign value to everything. Too wishy-washy for what we need: love.

It affects me because it's a sort of zen moment, where you let go of something you've been holding onto all your life. It feels like closing your eyes, and letting your fears and inxieties wash over you, and slip away. It's deeply sad, and yet exciting. It is the most literal example of change in a person's life. That Cusack finally does this shows us that he is a man, in the sense of a grown-up.

Meanwhile, Diane Weist is awesome! So hilarious! Comedic genius. Chaz Parlimentari too. Woody Allen has this rhythm and sense of humor where if you've let yourself fall for his charms, you laugh your ass off. That is to say, that once you find him funny, he is hilarious, again and again. Never a dull moment. However, I can see his style not gelling with some, wherein all the jokes just fall flat. More eye-rolling than side-splitting.

Kramer vs. Kramer: Weirdest Seinfeld episode ever.

2007-03-12T02:12:00.000-07:00

I was watching some DVD extras, and Dustin Hoffman said, in an interview, that he became interested in doing the film because he had recently gone through a divorce, and he said he felt extremely raw about it. The idea that you--yourself--would actually do that. Get to a point in your marriage when you would be forced to undue everyting you took great effort to do at your wedding. That, somehow, as one goes through their life, they slowly learn, agian and again, that they must do things they never thought would be necessary. We learn that life is about compromise.

That concept, in an admittedly vague way, floats about in Kramer vs. Kramer (a Freddy vs. Jason prequal, I'm pretty sure). The "villain" character, played by Glenn Close (the titular "Kramer"), is never un-relatable, and even in her standard-female-craziness (it's science, look it up) we can understand what she's going through. Or, least, that she's going through something big, and we kind of forgive her. Of course Hoffman (the titular "Kramer") is the character with whom we actually connect, and it's really heart-warming watching him return from his obsesison with work, back to his family. He does what many of us would never do: accepts that what we see as important in life should maybe come second, and what he have taken for granted needs to be first. That's a strong statement to follow through, that a person always has the ability to snap back to what they love--what they need--no matter how deep their head may have been up their ass. The long tracking shot of Hoffman running his son to the hospital says it all: we will reach for extremes when we truly love. That's an amazing thing to witness, and, as a human being, be a part of. It's the inverse of Borges' "The Shape of the Sword".

Then, though, that redemption gets tested (the titular "vs."), and against a self-important ex-wife, and a judicial system streamlined to favor mothers, the father makes a stand, and the son (who is curiously absent from the title) can stay in his safe little world. Sometimes the happy ending isn't necessarily the lame-ass cheesy one.

Roman Holiday: Dating was never so hard.

2007-03-12T01:43:00.000-07:00

God damn Audrey Hepburn was cute! No one can get enough of this strong-while-adorible woman. I'm learning about her legend and have relatively recently had a reason not to confuse her and Catherine. I'm an Audrey convert, and if I ever get the opportunity to meet the lovely and talented Natalie Portman, I can assure you I'll look her in the eye and say "You're no Roman Holiday, but you'll do."

This old flicker-show was like a snappy play. It slid smoothly through a series of cues, and acting back then seemed like a more technical skill... somehow... than it is today. Like the style today (and indeed, in most film after the screwball-comedy of the 40's) is free-form, and those daffy art-deco thespians were performing the narative equivalent of a villanelle. In any case, the hero was a clear hero, and the conflict was a broad conflict, and the jokes were a mild slapstick. But the two people caught in the silly-then-tragic plot were real people to me. So as fake a production as classic film may look, the story somehow transcends that, and we're left with a thread of real emotions.

I think we would all do well to watch this film again.

This Film is Not Yet Rated: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the MPAA

2007-03-12T01:36:00.000-07:00

After I saw this film I went home and wrote:

"A documentary that was a good show... in the way that rich people call losing a bit of money fun, after the guy next door films it. I mean this is a bunch of jerk face blah blah! If you have a hard time living in our society--what with our intense movie-rating system--I'm sure you can try your part at being a hermit, and the very concept of entertaining others will be ina dimension beyond you or anybody you know."

I just came back to it, and feel, perhaps, I should re-iterate. Tonight, I would say:

This film (Is Not Yet Rated) was charming and quick and cohesive. I never felt lost or dis-interested. Still, it seemed pretty derivative of movies like Bowling for Columbine, and that pack of spelling bee documentaries. The way Eragon held onto the tail of Harry Potter, and, what's this? The Spiderwick Chronicles are coming in '08? Safe, fun film making. We see it all the time. But I guess I have to pause... when a documentary is as trendy as the fantasy novel remakes. The CG-celebrity-voice-acted-jokes-that-go-over-kid's-heads-Pixar-or-Dreamworks flicks. There are obnoxious, but unavoidable, trends in the movie industry. That's fine. But Documentaries are supposed to be about truth. About recording reality. Journalism ought never to be a fad.

But it is. And a documentary about the distribution of movies in America is proof. Who, really, is hurt by the MPAA's rating system? Artists at best, businessmen at worst. This Film is Not Yet Rated can't quite muckrake, because it is about a negligible isue. I guess I felt bad worrying for movie directors, when the afor-mentioned Columbine, and many other great docs, tell tales of the truly hurt. This film was an interesting discussion into the way entertainment is set up, and--granted--how that might be a little flawed. But did I learn anything about the strange parts of the world? Did I make realizations about what it is to be a human being? Did I learn to see the world along a new dimension? Not so much. This documentary was less truth and more entertainment.

I had more fun at Fahrenheit 9/11.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension: If only the crew had had a Priddy Penny! Woo!

2007-01-13T18:21:00.000-08:00

The way Legend is a fantasy version of Bladerunner, Buckaroo Bonzai is clearly a sci-fi version of The Princess Bride. The film seems to take itself just seriously enough that when it suddenly, and briefly, isn't trying really hard, and is in factbeing subtly and brilliantly hilarious, I feel like the wool has been pulled, and I'm the dumbest guy in the room for not getting it. Much like Wet Hot American Summer, it took me a good half of the film to understand that it was a lot smarter than I am, and that I have no idea what this film is about. A stealth tongue-in-cheek that reminds us of Mel Brooks but stands, I think, more in the category of John Carpenter. It's 80's Micheal Bay in the best way, until it suddenly isn't, and that circular logic is exactly why it's a cult film. It has crept it's way into my mind too. I can honestly say I hope there will one day be a "Buckaroo Bonzai against the Crime Syndicate" or whatever the hell the end credits promised. Keep in ind I just saw this recently, long after I noticed the in-jokes peppered throughout all nerd-dom, and I saw it in my friend's livingroom, not some smelly darkened, b-run, Midnight At the Crust Theatre, full of whooping Jeff Goldblum fans, screaming "No matter where you go...!" at the screen. Well, I guess my friend did yell that a few times... but still. Buckaroo Banzai and the who cares dimension zork whatever has a power beyond it's embracing fanbase because it is so many things at once, and when something is trying that hard to be the best ever, well, you can't hold anything against it. I mean, Christopher Lloyd? Jon Lithgow?! That sad-faced guy from Ghost?! Sign me the fuck up.

Extra points for directly inspiring The Life Aquatic.

The Departed: Mark Wahlberg is the stuff dreams are made of.

2006-12-21T00:12:00.000-08:00

The Departed was crazy cool, as I think you all know. Never before, at least that I can remember, have I seen a film that left me trembling in the seats. Ya, know, one of those flicks where you occaisionally say to yourself "Oh, right, it's just a movie, I can relax..."

The film kept coming back to the reflection of a human's life--on several axies. That is, the converse and inverse of the soul. A good guy in a den of bad guys circles around a bad guy that's infilrated the good guys. They spiral ever close to one another, and the whole time, Jack Nicholson's words ring in your ears (and I paraphrase): "it doesn't much matter whether your a crook or a cop, cuz they're both the same when you have a gun pointed to your head."

Each facader came across he tracks of the other, but it wasn't until the ramped up last third of the film that the two counter-protagonists directly interact, and now our opinion of these foils is so informed, like if Alien fought Predator. Oh, they did? Well, then... if the Ghostbusters fought the Ninja Turtles. And the Beatles fought the cast of Seinfeld. Either way, we win.

The reason, though, the film was so tense, and demanded my constant scrutiny, was because of the ever-present dread it laid out. Everyone felt so... brittle... so precariously tip-toeing through life... Who knows when our best friends are suddenly our enemies, or we can't count on our only hopes... or Brad Pitt turns out ot be part of Edward Norton's imagination?! And who is this Keiser Soze?

Your thoughts, please.

2006-11-25T00:56:00.000-08:00

Film has had a great bank of characters that will forever be in our minds. They are real people, as far as our maps of the universe are concerned. They will live forever.

So.

Who are the most memorable? Specifically, who do you think is the most memorable villian, in film history?

Lemme know what you think. I'd love to know what your thoughts are. When you first read that question, who immedietly popped into your head? I have some ideas, but I want to hear the gamut, as far as people opine.

Hook it up.

The Muppet Movie: Careful, this review uses the word "Muppet" 9 times.

2006-10-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

The Muppet Movie has the infinite wisdom and charm of a bunch of talking felt creatures interacting, however briefly, with a confusingly diverse range of celebrity cameos. Everytime Kermit the Frog talks to James Corburn, something awesome is necessarily happening. Bob Hope selling Fonzie Bear ice cream while Richard Pryor simultaniously sells Gonzo enough baloons to lift him into the air. Gold. Jim Henson was creating magic. End-of-the-Rainbow grade shit. And sometimes, the Muppets sing amazing songs and it makes me want to be a Muppet. Be made of love and felt. Play the banjo-- or no, fuck it, if I were a Muppet I'd learn to play the piano, so we can finally make that music video for that Ben Folds Five song. You know the one. Anyway, the movie is a lot of fun. Something about the rhythm of Muppet jokes. Kermit has this disbelief in the film's humor, but he's the most hopeful character in any movie ever made. Muppet or non-Muppet.

Quite Unlikely

2006-10-14T20:02:00.000-07:00

Burn your brad if you have it near. Keep me on my feet if I want it. Issue is I do, but like a new want. Certainly, all these writings we keep in scratched up folders blast on about the stuff, but I am new here. Woke up, just born, never sleep if I can avoid it. The last knuckle on has little to hold, but I do, and red, or hurt, well good. If there's a stop in the street, I outta lick it. Not to trade off, but to keep up. So sweet, crisp inside sticky like the orange peels. So light flicker through trees, the eye shuts again again, so you smell like an orange peels. More on a stamp than we'd think, and going over over it over, it's slick, and ancient and god. And if I can feel His curve on the back of my neck, well, I've come a long way. If the signs are cut and painted, well, take a look. Cant help where you see, but if you see here, I'll make what you see something to scream about. Anything at all is new. I love you.

Days of Yore

2006-09-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

I was out for a bit, but when I came back I became a little obsessed with one of the weirder things I've seen: Fishing with John. It's really great, but this guy says it best.

The Assasination of Richard Nixon: I spoil this one pretty hard-core.

2006-08-16T22:01:00.000-07:00

speaking of anti-heroes, this film told the story, through one man's extreme, of what our society is doing to people. He is a 10, but the rest of us probably have like 1, 2 or 3 in us. That's very cool, but it was still challenging to watch since the guy was SUCH a loser that I was embarrased for him. I understood his pain when he dealt with Naomi Watts, but I was just pissed when he though he could be a salesman--he had no charisma at ALL.

It ended with very little emotional connection to his death, and thats not suposed to happen.

The Grifters: Extra points for my boy J. T. Walsh

2006-08-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

Noir. John Cusack looks like an alien--his eyes are too far apart from one another. It's sometimes hard to concentrate on what he's saying because of it. But he was still really good, against equally good Angelica Houston and Anette Benning. In a way, the no-nonsense attitude the movie had made it seem more honest. Or more immediate, or something.

But it was still very 50's comic-booky. You become afraid of people as John Cusack becomes afraid of them. You're swept up in the plot. Probably because every character is bad and good. There were a lot of levels to the characters, some of which came and went very quickly, and unexpectedly. The way current TV dramas try to be interesting by using ten different plot threads, except in a film like this it's all in one or two characters. The side of the person you get to see transforms strangely, and it keeps everyone in the room on edge. Thank god there wasn't any twist ending--if this film were made today it would have been revealed in the end that the two ladies were working together the whole time, which is dumb, so it's great that that wasn't tacked on. Jim Thompson, the writer who's novel, this is based on, writes with a kind of relentless pessimism, like he needs to really reach through and grab his point. A twist would deny the characters Thompson's dark chaos. No one wins in this bleak life.

Anyway, after all this blah blah-ing, I wanna discuss the anti-hero soon. Maybe watch some High Fidelity, or something. Stare fixedly at John Cusack's in-human/angelic face... and maybe it'll have Annette Benning's beautiful breasts.

Snatch: Oh I get it! It's like a vagina! HOT!

2006-08-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

Style requires substance and plot twists dont count as substance--Snatch is a framework with nothing but plot and style. No heart. Besides, Guy Ritchie already made a film in this style, so it's been done before! Why rehash the thing? What do we see that's new? I suppose you could say the same for a lot of what Woody Allen has done, but at least Woody experiments. Guy just uses the same theme over and over, with slightly different specifics (when, where, who).

The funny thing is, when the film first came out, I really dug it--I liked all the tricks and the crazy-quick pace storytelling. I think Snatch just doesn't have any shelf life. For a film like this, seven years is a long time.

Brad Pitt was a lot of fun, though--not being able to understand him is a good bit. And who could hate on Benicio Del Toro? If you did, he'd flip you. He'd flip you for real.

Hotel Rwanda: Why won't any hotel give ME good scotch?

2006-08-16T21:40:00.000-07:00

Don Cheadle is so cool. He's a great example of what a star should be. What that is, is the quality of being different in every movie, and yet always remaining that person. Don Cheadle, like Mark Wahlberg, I was realizing the other day, is always very Don Cheadle (or, ya know, very Mark Wahlberg), but definitelly creates a character each time. Or like Gene Hackman--they're basically character actors, and yet you always know you'll get a certain quality form them. A certain "them-ness" that is reassuring, like an old friend, while also a guarantee of a great stamp--like a seal of greatness. Not that the films they are in will necessarilly be good, but the actor themselves will be an exciting while comforting presence. Like a new album by an favorite band.

Hotel Rwanada was a really powerful film (thank you for visiting my website, here at NoFuckingDuh.com). It forced us into the scary situation that millions of people were deep within for 100 days. A situation that's sort of a horrifyingly real version of Dawn of the Dead. In that surreal mess, everyone needed to do anything they could to get anything even slightly better than death. Such a basic dimension of life, that in this case was completely unnecessary. One of the characters (Dube) asks Paul Rusesabagina (Cheadle) why would anyone actually go through with killing (what turned out to be) a million people. Paul says that they are angry and insane. And that's clearly the case, but I found myself wondering if that was it. And I think the insanity is actually more a mental seperation between how excited the Interhamwe soldiers were to be a part of something huge and powerful, and what was actually happening at their hands. It's not so much an insanity, I suppose, as it is a phenomenal ability to block off the context of the situation. I mean, that's the only way anyone could do any of the things they did (and so many people do around the world): somehow convert the people being killed into objects, or concepts. We do it everytime we get pissed at a slow-moving car on the freeway, and we speed past it: we aren't thinking that it's a person we're scaring by honking and blazing past, we've lowered the person, and their car, to an object to avoid. Or when we're horribly rude to a retail employee: "I'm not getting the service I deserve, so I will scream at this thing-in-a-uniform in fornt of me!". Not that you or I or anyone we know is ever going to kill anyone (let alone a million, for chrissakes), just that the human mind if capable of anything, and I believe that with enough propaganda and a desperate enough living situation, any human being who has ever lived is capable of what went on in Rwanda, and what still goes on in Congo, and every other place. We are all angels, we are all devils. Keep in mind your power, and use it for good.

The film also sort of whispers the question: why do these things keep happening? And why aren't the incredibly rich countries swooping in to obliterate the possibility of it happening? I understand that we got screwed in Somalia, so we were all scared to do anything for Rwanda, but what kind of pussy explanation is that? And what of Sudan? I'm not particularly interested in adopting a political tone here on this movie journal, but then I guess I don't feel it's in any particular political camp's interest, any more than any other political camp, to want to lessen suffering, and extend love to anyone we are capable of reaching. It isn't all that amazingly noble a thought, that if you can help, you should. And especially in Africa. As Fela Kuti said, and I paraphrase, why is the birthplace of our species getting shafted the hardest?

The reason, obviously, we can ignore it, is put very well by Joaquin Phoenix (that name is ridiculous to type), when his character says that violent, disturbing footage on the news, well get Americans to stop eating their dinner, and say "Oh God, isn't that aweful?" and go right back to their dinner. We need, as individuals, to reconnect to that idea that the act of witnessing people being hurt, needs to result in the reaction of going to help them. If our country is so rad and cowboy-core, then why aren't we chivalrously aiding damsels in distress, like say our poorest slums, or the poorest slums of the world, knownas Third World countries. We need to put some soul and heart into our national policy (so, first as individuals, then as a nation), and do things because they need to be done--our principles dictate so, instead of this intellectual cost-benefit bullshit, where we decide that the country in question can't do anything for us, so why would we do anything for them? If you really need an answer, then here: the poor kid whose country we rebuild could become the next Heisenberg. Or the next Paul McCartney. Or the next love of your life. We are all standing at the crux of an infinite set of fifth-dimensional paths, and in our hands is the choice to bring an infinite number of possiblities to reality. Choose life. Choose love. Give, and begin to live.

Anyway, back to my boy Cheadle, I love that fact that the only reason these people survived, is because Paul Rusesabagina is a badass. His skill in constantly keeping up a professional facade, in knowing exactly what to say to keep tensions from rising, his general ability manipulate people without them knowing it. To the point where, as Ebert said, a warlord would act calm in the hotel lobby just becuase it would feel uncouth to raise a fuss, and Paul can actually turn a tense situation around, so that he's making demans to a man holding a gun to his face! Total badass. And that makes him a hero. My hero.

Extra points for Jean Reno.

Galaxy Quest: I kinda wish I had just watched a Star Trek film, instead.

2006-08-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

This movie is hilarious. Every character is doing their own thing, and no one is supporting the hero, really. It makes for this wonderful sense of chaos when the shit hits the fan, with everyone reacting the way a real person would: "I hope I don't die". We are all the protagonsists of our own movies.

Tony Shalhoub is awesome in this (but when isn't he?), and he's pretty blatantly stoned the entire time. Not that that has to be the joke, but there's little area for alternate explanation.

There's a cut scene that provides signifigance to the rock monster being shoved out into space: Alan Rickman says a rock's motivation would be "make the vibrations stop!".

The entire thing kind of reminds me of that Futurama episode where they meet all the old Star Trek actors, and Shatner and Zapp Brannigan stand off. The inherent love of Star Trek this film has is pretty wonderful, and the nod, in the end to a spin-off (The Next Generation, or, if you want to get especially dorky about it, Star Trek Phase II) makes me think of a sequel, which might be better, since a movie's spoof-i-tude kind of fades as it becomes it's own franchise (As mentioned in my Flint film reviews. And it would necessarily still be so silly that there are truly infinite directions it could go.

On the other hand, it was only pretty funny. Often, the character-driven humor would have been funnier, if the timing had been right. I hate to be a hater, here, but I'm thinking the director wasn't all that used to ensemble comedies... or maybe sci-fi comedies... but how many people are used to that non-genre? I don't know... some of the jokes seemed pretty obvious... and it's not like it's all that old (1999), so I think maybe the writer just watched too much TV before penning the screenplay. Meh, it was so much fun that the occasional awkwardity is pretty overlookable. Yes, those are both words. As of now.

Jeremiah Johnson: The other horse was like "Uhhhhhhh..."

2006-08-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

My love of this film is directly related to my love of Northern Exposure, which, itself is based on a very deep love of the wilds. The mountains Robert Redford rides through, and makes his home in, are [cliche]a character themselves[/cliche], and I felt a very wide, strong connection to that character, and this film. The idea of living outside the laws of society, and surviving on your ability to make good decisions is very powerful. And not just camping, but actually travelling--covering ground each day, pitching a tent in a new place each night--opens up a dialogue with nature, with the Earth. I think that's why humans are obsessed with building so much shit. Changing so much of what's out there. Because we, as individuals, feel inconsequential, compared to the universe (or our neighborhood of it: this planet), so we overcompensate for our small... ahem... statures, and build and buy the biggest truck we can find. On some level, it's terrifying to face an entity that says and does EVERYTHING... and yet is completely silent. Some peoples' answer is to worship it. Seems a little tacky, but that's humanity for ya. I feel most comfortable spending time with it. "Let us sleep outside tonight/Lay down in our mother's arms/For here we can rest safely."

So anyway about the film. Robert Redford is great. He has this off-handed bemusement, and it makes him very powerful. It's perfect that he weds a Native American, as he has a Zennitude that blends well with native peoples. I really enjoyed watching him suck at the beginning, and then seeing him slowly get better at suriving, hunting, trapping, until by the end he's a total badass. He takes down anyone and everyone who comes at him, and all the while he has this grim determination: it's the other side of the character, but it's still very honed. Makes me think of Final Fantasy, or even Princess Mononoke. Out on your own, against the wilds, stumbling across the occassional ally, slowly becoming stronger, more awesome... only thing missing was a last boss.

The music reminded me of Sneakers' score, but more Western-y. And it was a Western... but only so far as the other characters he meets. The crazy old man being the coolest one. ...When it's just him and his family, it's more sensitive than a Western. It's about only claiming what you build for yourself, and respecting all the rest.

Oh, and when the whitemen come to his door, which sets all the fucked up shit in motion, Jeremiah (Redford) hears them coming because of a crow cawing. Perhaps it was a Storm Crow...? Mmm?

"You have ever been a herald of woe. Troubles follow you like crows, and ever the oftener the worse ... Here you come again! And with you come evils worse than before, as might be expected. Why should I welcome you, Gandalf Stormcrow? Tell me that."

Alright, I'll be good, I've had my fun.

Where the Bufallo Roam: Oh I get it, the Lawyer is the bufallo!

2006-08-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

This movie was strange. Entertaining in that messy sort of seventies way. I felt confused, cluttered, which was perfect for a story about Hunter S. Thompson, but it made me feel a little distanced from the movie. I was constantly aware that I was watching, which isn't supposed to happen. Why did I feel this way? I don't know... Bill Murray was a part of it. He's so very Bill Murray, that I kept thinking of his Saturday Night Live stuff. He definitelly works for Thompson, though, and for Gonzo energies: he's never completely serious about anything, so he's never phased by anything. But I couldn't avoid comparing his performance to Johnny Depp's, for better or worse. I think maybe I just need to watch it again, now that that's out of my system, cuz Murray did a fine job.

Peter Boyle, on the other hand is INCAPABLE of faking the cool 70's acid head. When he says "man" or "dude", it's like my dad saying it. And when he freaks out on Thompson, it completes the sense that the lawyer (Boyle) isn't very good at being Gonzo: he's too focused. Too particular in his insanity. He seemed a caricature of a person. Like I said, it was very 70's. Broad strokes.

And that's probably where the distance comes in. It was so broad, and off-handedly bizarre, that I couldn't forget "this is a 70's drug movie!". Made it seem like an extended sketch. Never really hit home. The cinematography worsened that, by refusing to focus on any one thing. I feel like today we've gotten very good at directing one's eye to specific parts of the frame. Composition is strong and simple. Back then it was often very cluttered and ambiguous, and this movie even more so. I often didn't know what I was looking at, my brain trying to sort out the cavalcade of information. It's interesting that my mind is trained in such a way, living in the time I do, such that I would favor a certain directness in film composition. It doesn't ALL have to be stark, not at all. But when you watch a Wes Anderson film, there's a beauty to everything he films, such that every frame is liek a painting. Or, as I've said before, an album cover.

Still, this movie was very kooky, and a lot of fun. Extra points for Rene Auberjonois.

Sour Grapes: Prit-tay... prit-tay... prit-tay funny stuff

2006-07-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

I love me some Larry David, so when I'd read he had written and directed a film, I gung-ho-edly watched it. I guess it's hated by many (Roger Ebert listed it as one of history's worst films, or something?), but I thought it was great! It sort of struggles for a sense of cinema, so I can see people feeling uncomfortable, watching what comes off more as a pre-cursor to Curb Your Enthusiasm than anyting you'd find on the big screen. Curb Your Enthusiasm, by the way, is a fucking brilliant show, and I strongly recommend renting the seasons on DVD.

But it still works in many ways. The oddball plot points are surprising, and yet somehow relatable, and the random quirks he throws in just to throw them in are all very funny, and say things about the characters. And, because it's a single film with a single theme (rather than a series), the bad things that happen to the characters register more as karmic retribution rather than an arbitrarily cold universe, like the one Seinfeld and Larry inhabit.

I just think Larry David is more comfortable in the TV arena, but a lack of experience generating that film tone just means he should make more movies! I'd watch.

Man Bites Dog (C'est arrivé près de chez vous): Maybe it's NOT so black & white...

2006-07-12T22:48:00.000-07:00

My weird friend Alex insisted (for about a thousand years) that I see this film, and I have finally gotten to it. It's a "mockumentary" (but the lack of wacky tone leads me to label it a pseudo-documentary) by a group of film students about a french serial killer (aren't all serial killers french... I mean deep down?). They follow him around as he kills anyone who he can make money from, and they seem game to assist him as he needs it. The film is urging us to think about the blurred line between news item and reporter, and at which point do we, as observers, want to follow the news silently and objectively, and when do we feel we should stop the disaster on which we are reporting. And, finally, do we encourage the news item when we report on it?

All that's fine, but what struck me was how the film looked and acted like something from the sixties, or seventies (on grainy film, in black and white, full of french people making quaint jokes), even though it was made in 1992! It didn't really have a time, I suppose, since it was about (french) people, but now that I know, I really dig how innocent it seemed. I felt like it was trying to shock me with it's sudden violence, and disturb me with it's unblinking eye. I don't know... I guess I've been conditioned so that when a lunatic is waving a gun around, someone in the room is going to get suddenly shot.

What I think more what I took away was how much of a smarmy bastard the main character was. He loves to recite poems he's written, and make toasts, and off-handedly mention his large penis. He loves that he is the host of every situation, because he is the one with a gun, and no concience. This spills out into his attitude to the camera crew following him, as he enjoys orating about society, architecture, friends, love... and it is interesting to listen to. Indeed, I assumed it was the point, or heart of the film, so I payed extra attention to his philisophical waxings. Like I said, it has the un-self-aware pompousity of a sixties European film. And when it gets going, visually, it's extremely engrossing. My favorite moments were beautiful black and white close-ups of abandoned buildings, or sugar cubes dissolving in tonic, or simply the beach, the sky, pigeons. I should have known it was made in the past 15 years: it seems to get bored with it's heart, and return always to it's stomach. Whatever that means.

Jarhead: Oo-rah Booya

2006-06-28T22:24:00.000-07:00

What an amazing film. There have been many movies that deal with the strange disconnect between one's war life and home life. Cryptonomicon had passages about the idea, and that must have colored what I saw here in Jarhead, but even so, there was a class in Jarhead that I haven't seen elsewhere. It says many things that I have not heard before, yet make a lot of sense, and it doesn't say it directly. Sam Mendes is British, that's probably why. He knows how to paint something for you, and then say it, but in a simple enough way that it was the painting that you think of when the words are spoken. What I mean to say is, that the final words of Jake Gyllenhaal evoke all the imagery of the entire film. That's an accomplishment.

And the imagery is absurd. Is resounding. I'm envious of the production that made this possible. The scope that's suggested in the desert. Stands next to Lawrence of Arabia, and in some ways surpasses it because of the insane nighttime fire stuff. Beautiful, horrifying. And yet not that canned epic every large-scale film tries for. It somehow remained a small story in a huge setting. The emotion on Gyllenhaal's face as he stands, and just looks. It's unsurprising when he does outwardly emote. The simple look communicates everything to the point that the action is a followthrough. And I love that he kind of goes insane, then comes back when he returns home. Rather than have him just go further and further nuts, we see that war, the desert, and in many ways most of all, the company of marines, starts to change the shape of his brain, and when he returns to our society, he slowly mends. Still, those ending words put a cap on that thought.

Grace. The film felt like when you are on the verge of crying, but you don't want to miss anything, so you hold it in a little longer. Deakins and Newman help fuel that oil fire.

Ed Wood: what I want to be one day (other than the crossdressing, heh heh... oh who am I fooling?!)

2006-06-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

What a crazy movie! Very much fun. Full of treats. It took me a while to become comfortable with the 50's-esque cornball delivery of just about all the dialogue. And, in fact, Sarah Jessica Parker never felt right. But perhaps that was a choice, since she's wrong for Ed, and she's wrong for the life that surrounds him. Or maybe Parker just sucks. In any case, I really did feel like I was in this little family of weirdos, and I love the idea that if a group of people feel right making work, and that work isn't hurting anyone, then it doesn't matter how that work is judged. It's the making, not the appreciating that is what these people loved.

Hey, is just occured to me that "meter" is latin for "measure", which means the unit of measurment, a meter, is totally dumb. "Oh that room is four measures wide." What? I weigh 100 units. What the fuck is a unit? Who cares, I weigh it. Asshole British.

The Birthday of the Damned: Part II: Second Blood: Hunters: Zero: First Blood.

2006-06-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

Confusing Metroid parody aside, let me know expound upon what was actually the day I used to age by one year. Can you believe that? That we expect to put off aging for the entire year, if we pay for it, all at once, on the date we were born (supposedly!)?! Is that not pathetic? We're so afraid of aging--of growing brittle and helpless--that we invent just one day when all of the sudden we finally turn one year older, and now we're [insert your old ass' age here--24 for me]. Anyway, let's return to our blog (ew!), already in progress.

The next day I was woken by my parents, letting me know they were on their way up, and that I should be up and ready for their present (can I be loved too much? I don't know!). So I slept a little longer, then shuffled to the front door, and welcomed them in, asking them to excuse the dinosaur themed "volcano of spode", streamers, wall hangings, banners, and balloons. And Ryan, asleep on the couch, guitar still in hand from the sing-along the night before. I shoved aside the semi-empty keg cups and roaches (thank you "Big Joint" and Brianna!) so they could set down the cake they had bought me, next to the dinosaur cake Erin had made(!), and after some brunch, we drove out to Redmond. My mom had bought me tickets to Cirque de Soleil!

Can I tell you how bizarre this show is? Nevermind that I was tired and still drunk, nevermind that a king-sized tent full of people crowded around it like we were in the Colosseum. Nevermind how strange, in principle, the very idea of the circus is. The Cirque is insane! The dreamlike music (all live), the brilliantly creative costumes, the mechanics of the stage (and lights, and said costumes), the themes that floated, ghost-like, throughout the show, and the epic movements! The flipping, swinging, spinning, sliding, and all out flying of these performers, and characters, is fucking astounding! These people are all out super heroes, and they are here to show you what you have been missing, as the owner of a human body. They're like the nerdy kid who shows you all the feature on your cellphone you had no idea existed. "You mean I have the ability to hang from a hulahoop with my neck?! Just cause I was born with this thing? Well shit why am I sitting on my ass?!" Indeed, many little kids, after the show, taught themselves summersaults and cartwheels in the park.

The show was nuts. The presentation is a huge part of it, and they show such restraint, not flipping themselves all over the sky in the first piece. No, they certainly build slowly, then end with an "OH SHIT BITCH, THESE PEOPLE ARE GODS!!!!" performance that made me feel inadiquate "oooing" and "ahhing" like a rube. And in some ways, it's these most impressive moments that stick with me, least. I was most drawn in at the very beginning, when the house lights were up, and these stange creatures began slowly trickling out from the bamboo forest, upstage, and simply populated our conciousness. They didn't do much... they just moved the way strange creatures move. ...They were all rich colors, and odd shapes, and often vaguely animal, exactly the way children's theatre isn't. This was like magic. Dark forest magic. It was hallucinagenic.

I was taken into a world the way filmmakers wish they could transport an audience. ...This was showmanship at it's finest.

The show ends, we file out like amazed sheep, and head back to my home. Have a backyard picnic. When my parents visit my house, I feel like they can be certain I've failed. Like they've been holding out the jury for a few years, see how I subsist "without" them (who here doesn't still call their parents and ask for money? Can anyone honestly say they are ever truly independant?). Anyway, I love them and am always very happy to see them, but when I invite them over, it's always some shit:
"Oh, we can't we're busy working."
"Oh, no sorry, we're afraid of the freeway."
"Whoops, our mistake, this is a bad weekend. We're busy... letting rubber ducks go in a river." That's no joke, they say these things--it's fucked. Anyway, it was a miracle getting them up here, to Seattle, to see my place. And they felt obligatorily uncomfortbale upon seeing my home. Keep in mind, there had been a party on the premises, and much a trash about nothing. Nothing sober, that is, and now that it was 24 hours later (six months of filming for that bastard Kiefer Sutherland!), things still looked bad. The house looked like something out of Daifur (too soon?), so the 'rents weren't too thrilled to have to pretend to be glad to be there. Still, they gave me their off-beat presents, pretending the Cirque wasn't enough. I opened each present, trhilled at each discovery (have I mentioned my parents are awesome?), and it was then, that we took a stroll down memory lane.

Some time ago, my sister reminded me of the two surviving beta tapes from our childhood, and that I had agreed (many years ago) to convert them to VHS. Well, of course, I didn't, and for years, the whole Boschert/Zielsdorf clan had forgotten, that through a hundred moves and conjuncted yard sales, that these two tapes still existed, and so like a just-discovered Beatles song, I fished the suckers out of a crate, and got them converted to DVD. These DVD's had arrived a day ro two before I was 24, so my mom and dad and girlfriend and I sat down to watch these non-memories.

Tanjobi ohmeritoh, nyuka.

2006-06-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I had a fucking fantastic birthday this year--no offense to previous years, no not at all, but this may have been the best birthday yet. Or at least since I was in 5th grade and no one I invited came except my best (and apparently only) friend Jake Severn. That was the most fun birthday I can recall... but this one was petty close. I had specifically established that I didn't want to do anything (anyone who knows anything will hear this as a que for a surprise party--but thankfully, I don't know shit!), and the whole birthday at the bar (or "barthday" if you're sucky) seemed mad played out. I, quite literally, just wanted to spend the evening playing Dungeons & Dragons with Erin, Toby, and Morgan, cause I'm a god damned nerd. So, Friday night, I have an impropmtu drinking fest with some friends down in the U-District. I get drunk enough that I smoke a cigarette (which I regret with each puff), then I don't remember much. Apparently Alice rationed out my beer, while I attacked Jon, insisting that we were God Brothers, and cajoled my newest God Brother into going to the baja. I do come back to forming memories when I'm standing in my empty dark kitchen, ferociously eating nachos, soft with cheese and chili, which I learned I purchased from 7-11 only the next morning, when I woke up ("How did I get in bed...?"), stumbled into the kitchen ("Why am I covered in unlit ciagrettes and Sharpie pens?"), and saw an opened but undrank Beck's, and a tray of cold nacho mush. "7 Eleven" was displayed prominently on said dish.

That morning was my opportunity to practice some hang over theories I'd been working on, namely not drinking more thna a gulp of water every half-hour or so, no matter how dry my throat is. Someone told me the liver releases all the toxins it's holding onto when one drinks a lot of water, and I've noticed many times that I feel pretty good when I first wake up, and the hang-overs always seem to creeeeep up on me... so I avoided nausea by sipping water--not chugging it--and recxovered sooner than I expected. So, I come home, for the aformentioned D&D session (+1d4), and see Erin's car, and Erika's car. "Oh, they're probably chillin in the livingroom" I say, thinking very little of the fact that it's June 3rd, and I turn 24 in a few hours... I step into a dark livingroom, and am punched in the face by a chorus of "SURPRISE!!", followed, I was later told, by a several volleys of Nerf darts.

The human mind is a funny thing, and it is used to only picking out a few details of a constantly crowded reality. That is why I was unable to recognize any particular face in the crowd that filled the livingroom before me. I was aware, as I panned across the forum, that I knew each face, but, somehow the only detail that I could focus on, was the inflatable dinosaur across the room. So, the first thing anyone heard me say after the energetic welcome, was "Who invited that douche-bag dinosaur?!" or something equally innapropriate. I was filled to capacity (and more) with a deep sense of love, and appreciation, and excitement. All of my most favorite people (with a few necessary expections) were simultaniously saying they loved me, and if I didn't keep making jokes about how floored I was, I would have wept until the house was empty. No joke--every one of my friends would have tiptoed quietly out while I sobbed like a shithead. I wriggled along this razors edge by yelling thank you over and over, and hugging everyone I could. There was laughter and music and a dinosaur theme, and we all mingled outside, and no matter how quickly I moved from person to person, I felt like I needed to spend more time with someone I hadn't talked with yet, or someone who's conversation I had to cut short because it's my birthday party, and even if I didn't know about it, I'm the host! And in that idea lies the trace counter-emotion that marked the first few minutes of the surprise: I had been completely duped. The rug was pulled out form under me and a trick was played, and my D&D game was cancelled and I was now the center of fucking attention, and it made me mad, and dissapointed, and freaked out, the way an abused monkey feels when he goes on the Tonight show. This was just an ingredient, and I need to stress how much a drop in the ocean it was, but it was there, the way it always is when someone you know is more knowledgable than you, and it made for a tincture that only very slowly subsided. Call it a 4-dimensional razors edge. I wanted, I realize now, to yell "How dare you assholes! You fuckers really fucked things up! God damnit I love you all so fucking much!". Instead, I fear, I got a little "host-ey", and I hope not too distant in my schmoozy-ness. But I was drowning in deep, deep appreciation. So to everyone who was there, showed up later, wanted to come but couldn't, or was just, in effect, there in spirit, I thank you. And I will be thanking you for as long as I live. You mean everything to me, you people. ...You are my life.

Except that motherfucker, David Cornwell.

Now, as I said, I'd been nursing a hang-over all day, and really did believe myself, this time, when I kept thinking that me and alchohol were done. Over. At least until my body had a few weeks to excise the toxins. But what does every motherfucker give me for my birthday? Booze! And not just "here let me buy you a drink" (which was part of what I wanted to avoid this year). No, I got some of the nicest beers I have ever tasted (chugged, whatever), and some of the biggest portions of fine hard alchohol my freezer has ever known! And I loved it! I mean, how could you not laugh if you walk into a room thinking "I don't want any beer!" and, from the darkness comes a bunch of hands holding giant beers?! I drank, actually, very little, that night. But this week has been pretty warm and cushioney, thanks to the generosity of my boisterous enabler-friends. And this group was such a fine-tuned colection of people. All my favorites from work (again, some couldn't come--ain't no thang, you were there in spirit), and all my favorites from non-work. It was like the pleasant converse to George's announcement that "worlds are colliding, Jerry!". And there were a few that, I have to be honest, I wouldn't have invited. Not because I don't like them--not at all. Because they just aren't the people I am aware that I am close to. The people that are in my life everyday, but I have never taken the time to realize how much they are a part of me. It was the people who would be in the cast list of a movie God made about me. It was like I was dying, and this was my chance to say thank you. Like I said, it was overwhelming. That's why I hugged everyone so much.

Except that god damn David Cornwell!

Now stay tuned for Part II!

Howl's Moving Castle: Walt Disney on acid

2006-06-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

I absolutely adore Princess Mononoke (the film, not the Princess) and Spirited Away, and therefor am a huge fan of Hayao Miayazaki. He has this [I'm an asshole]post-modern[/I'm an asshole] sense of folklore... his imagination is so vivid! A crazy/japanese balance between aggresive creativity and classy restraint. This guy has an ancient spirit.

But, as amazing artists often do, he's gotten lazy. Maybe it's cause he's a certifiable oji-san, but his recent animation wonder, Howl's Moving Castle, felt a lot like a Miyazaki film, ya know? Like how a source can become self-referential if it doesn't constantly re-invent the wheel. I'd even say the reason the academy nominated Howl's Moving Castle this year is to encapsulate the work of this man, not this film in particular. Like when Return of the King got a jillion awards, and the other Lord of the RIngs got nuffin'. And like how the Academy Awards are fart on a poop. No, fart on my poop.

Yeah, his most recent crazy was definitelly crazy, but felt more crazy in it's story, than the world and it's characters. I mean, don't get me wrong, an old-timey multiple-location wormhole-door is definitelly awesome, and Howl's apprentice's beard/cloak/disguise made me feel all topsy like the wacky, mos' def. But bird figures with human faces? Black goo monsters? A silent, bouncing sidekick? [Generalizing racism]When the Japanese are on, they are a-maz-ing. But when they aren't, well, it's pretty annoying.

Nah, I'm just being a bitch. The visuals were all flawless and (possibly more importantly) right for the story. And, as usual, it felt like you were right there with the characters, in every dank grotto, inferno-ing townscape, and sweet, cool range of foothills. Making your audienc feel present is very difficult, I think, and it's often done really half-assedly. Miyazaki can certainly craft a *real* fake world. But when you're consatnly out-doing what plain you've conviced everyone to meet you on, you start to numb people. You're so obsessed with moving up, that you don't notice that moving up, itself, is a static place to be. Same reason Family Guy sucks.

X-Men 3: Snikt snikt, sure--but why no bamf?!

2006-05-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

Fuck! I gotta review the movies I've seen! It's tough as shit to capture, "OVERALL", how I feel about a film. I mean, while I'm watcing it, I think and feel many things, some of which could be considered opinions, and every time I think about it, after I've seen it, I think new things. New things I once knew.

So reviews are fragile.

In any case, X-Men 3 was a fucking exciting as hell and sweet-rad movie! ...But it wasn't very well written. And the first two X-mens were simply laced with depthy dialogue! Acting did well, and some of the moments were perfect (floating rocks are sweet, and so is everything that Ian McKellen does), but this movie makes random plot decisions and I become angry! Cyclops shooting the lake, for example... why did Phoenix do the things she did... or say any of the things she said... bah...

Here be spoilers, yo, so back off if you haven't gone yet. But, seriously, the way in which Phoenix killed people? Didn't the lady vampire in Blade 2 die in the same way? And didn't we all learn a good lesson when we saw that spectacle... THAT IT LOOKS SHITTY!!? She needs to be much more powerful, after all that buildup--have her envelope Alcatraz in energy and destroy it or something. Go watch Neon Genesis Evangelion, or Akira or something. And I love Wolverine walking slowly up to Phoenix *healing as quickly as she can hurt him.* Why didn't the (second) most powerful mutant in the world get his ass exploded, when Phoenix can't "bring herself" to make confetti of Logan? And don't tell me it's cause she's in love with him, Brett Ratner, cause you directed Rush Hour, so you don't get to argue about anything. The first two films (your canon, Brett Ratner) establish pretty clearly that Jean Grey is attracted to Logan, but very commited to Scott. And, granted, Scott doesn't like women, but Jean's a classy ho, and she wed the confused bastard. Jumping on Logan I can see--her unlocked powers were clearly like Ecstacy to her, but to kill her husband and then onlu let Logan get close to her? Out of character.

Yep, that's the major problem with this one: it's riddled with Out of Character. If I were distributing the DVD, I'd make sure to put a warning sticker on the front, to that effect: "Out of Character: While a sweet conclusion to a fantastic trilogy, this installment has crazy leaps away from the inernal logic of the franchise." And if people say "what do you mean? When?" I'd skip to the chapter when Professor X acts arbitrarily antagonistic to Logan. He'd always been so gentle and confident, and suddenly, this film has him off-handedly knocking Logan down, belittling him, and then to really establish how 2-dimensional he's become, he obviously doesn't know how to deal with his most important pupil when she freaks out and regresses to a little girl, or whatever. And she shouldn't have turned green. I believe Dark Phoenix turned black, as if she were absorbing all the energy that touched her. Brett Ratner isn't smart enough or cool enough to realize stuff like that, so I should kick him in the gut.

Naw, I'm just joshin', but the was on sacred ground, and he didn't walk on eggshells. Maybe he did as we would all do, inheriting an awesome franchise--the best we could. Maybe it's Bryan Sunger I should be screaming at from his lawn at 3 am. If he hadn't got a big boner over Superman, he wouldn't have cheated on his partner before they had fully consumated. He wa slike "Ooo! Look at that sexy screenplay! I'ma fuckit! Hey Ratner, you wanna finish my beautiful wife off? I'm bore with her." ...Did I just ruin movies for you? Good.

Analyze This: Why was I watching this movie?

2006-04-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

Fun is a relative term... some people have fun playing frisbee in the park... others like dressing up babies. There are very light, and very dark apsects of the adjective. The idea, though, that this movie is a lot of fun for a lot of audiences is like Judge Alito: I know it exists, but I forget, and when I am reminded, I get real sad...

I don't know what I was expecting... something with wit and charm. Two classy actors in well written verbal duals, tightly packed in a psychologist's office set. Maybe I wanted Sydney Lumet... maybe I just wanted something higher brow. What I got was about as high brow as a penis. An eyebrow above a penis. A penis brow. (Sorry.) Very, very little of the movie takes place in therapy sessions, and there's no verbal sparring. It's all DeNiro saying "do this or I'll kill you" and Billy Crystal saying "I am scared of you and will comply thusly". Or whatever it is excitable Jews actually say. In fact, they should have had Paul Reiser do the part. It's a 90-minute sitcom anyway--Lisa Kudrow's in it for God's sake.

And that's my problem. 90-minute sitcoms are NOT FILMS! They do not make good films! They are not theatre fodder! It's the same reaosn I'm not rushing out to rent The Whole Nine Yards. In fact, why didn't the people around me warn me this movie was junk? After all: Friends don't let friends see movies with Friends stars in them. That's fucking elementary.

Alright, alright, I'll stop bashing the harmless little movie. It is what it is, right? It's the masses of Americans who get off on 2-dimensional storytelling I should be angry at. Or, at the society that encourages and provides these cheap-laugh whores. Raise your hand if you saw "Are We There Yet". Now use the hand that isn't raised to close your internet browser and stop reading about movies. Not that I'm an elitist (if you actually ARE reading this, I'd rather you stay, really), but I doubt if you'd appreciate P.T. Anderson, Wes Anderosn, or the Coen brothers. Directors whose movies get me off. It's a different layer of movies. If you're down for simply entertainment, then there are a LOT of movies out there for you, and they will keep being made and all is well. And if you only want film to be art, well, I can stand a few of those here and there, but oh my god stop wanking on the lense and MAKE A MOVIE!!! But if you, like me, want a film to be a meeting point between art and entertainment, then there's a lot of amazing stuff going on out there, and it's amazing because it so easily uses both those layers.

And DeNiro and Crystal are known, in my mind, for being in that category, so when they show up and do a retard's version of The Sopranos, it makes me think they're making fun of poeple who haven't seen Deconstructing Harry, Monster's Inc, or (yes, even) Throw Mama From the Train. Or many of the amazing films DeNiro is famous for. As I think back on some of those, though, I also recall Rocky and Bullwinkle... and i remmeber that ctors are out to have a good time, too, and as long as we know not to look for quality in a movie, we can lean back and enjoy My Giant, The Paulbearer, and French Kiss...ing a Fool...s Rush In. I mean, I love Van Wilder! Oh, wait, that movie was hilarious, and Analyze This Piece of Shit is NOT. No risks were taken, no new humor was forwarded to the medium, and I can't quote it at a party.

I guess I better just blame myself for wasting an afternoon with this nonsense.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: the unsung Kaufman film

2006-04-11T22:19:00.000-07:00

Why isn't this movie in everyone's collection, and one everyone's list of ten best films? It's both clever and heartfelt. It's about a hundred things, but never not about the main character, and his relationship with his friends, lovers, fans, self, world. ...Congratulations, Max, on writing like a highschool student. Fuck you, Max I ain't writin' this for anyone but me! ANd I'm tired! And I won't have time to watch this movie with the commentary tonight which means I'm gonna have to keep it an extra day! How the fuck am I supposed to wtcht he 370 some movies on my netflix que, when I can't watch more than a couple movies a week?! And these extras aren't making it any easier!

ANYWAY, I love Sam Rockwell (was dubious after Matchstick Men), and love all the trickery of this film. Plot trickery (most obviously), character trickery, cinematic trickery, story telling trickery (not the same as plot trickery mind you), blocking trickery (there's a lot in this film that leads very naturally into Clooney's most recent film, Good Night and Good Luck), energetic trickery. And it's never gimmickry! Clooney directs the way he acts--or, perhaps, the way he really is. With a concentrating eye and a knowing grin. He loves slipping us something, and watching us slowly get it. Funtastic.

The Great Escape: Where's Colonel Klink?!

2006-04-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to get tot his classic for a long atime, and when I finally did, I was really happy. It's so strong a film. The near-3-hour running time is so worth it and so well used. I never felt bored, because each scene is used. Sure, it's with the pace of a film from 1962, but that's what makes it so rich. A 3 hour film today is just way too much content. Not so here.

Having just watched the FLint films, I was rooting for James Coburn the entire time (SPOLER ALERT!!)--I'm glad he made it out. And the scene when the French waiters save his life was so cool! We can all come together in our hatred of the Germans.

I was surprised to see the relatively nice living conditions for the POW's. I figure this is due to the happy-go-lucky nature of the film (and the time's attitude toward films), but when the German running the camp is having an elevated conversation with the British prisoner... I don't know, it seemed kind of cool. As if he knows he has a shit job in the German army, so he wants it to be a little exciting, so he kind of hopes the prisoners will escape! Still, as he notes, it's comfortable compared to real battle, so he wants it to last a long time.

The whole blind thing was a little excessive, but I guess it added a neat dimension when we cut between each group getting away. The boat/plane/train/bike sequence reminded me of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

Finally, I'm not so sure about this Steve McQueen fellow... was he really considered a hottie? Looks kinda goofy to me. But then I guess no one can be James Coburn...

Good Night and Good Luck: What the fuck is a "Hay be us Corp us"?!

2006-04-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

Really interesting film. I found myself looking for overdone 50's recreation stuff, and there was a bit, but it as the film went on, enough was happening that it became unnoticable.

David Strathbairn is amazing, not just as Murrow, but when I consider he was also the blind guy in Sneakers, it blows me away. He commands respect and in this film, and we never doubt for a second that he's strong, wise and right.

I guess that's my one problem: we ALL know McCarthy was crazy, so the film is a little two-dimensional. Or, perhaps, that was all well and good to Clooney (who directed), and so we witness a small story, content with tleling how all this happened. NOt so much a debatable insight, as a good telling of a hidden tale. Hidden behind the walls of the CBS studios. I certianly expected more dramatic scoring to scenes of New York city. Like a Tom Clancy film. This was much more sensible than that.

And after The Squid and the Whale, I'm just as impressed with Jeff Daniels.

The Squid and the Whale: Life Aquatic 2?

2006-04-01T23:37:00.000-08:00

This film was much darker than I expected. I guess I was thinking with Noah Baumbach would come Royal Tennenbaums style humor, but he's less off-beat than that. Or, maybe just less overtly off-beat. His scenes definitelly have an almost sporadic rise and fall and ya know what? It reminded me of real life. Sorry to speak with such weight, but it's one of those "for a reason" cliches: film should feel like real life ("RL" as internet nerds write), even if it means sacrificing some of our favorite conventions.

Not that the film didn't have some cinema conceits, but that's sort of what's happening in cinema these days: the best of cinematic technique is being used amidst much less uniformed energies, and wielded with pride. Broken Flowers and Lost in Translation. Deeply honest and surprising, exposed moments, with very "filmish" veneers.

The kids in the movie acted out in a wider variety of ways. Ways that I felt explained to me what it must be like to have your parents divorce. And I liked that these acts weren't explained. You can guess what some of it was about, but it wasn't focused on.

Lots of characters acting out angrily, destructively, and not knowing why. Only two points in the film when a character laughs. Maybe four. Immature people missing thousands of opportunities to deal with what's actually happening to them, around them. Perferring, instead, to stay in "control" by fussing over trivialities. If you can't deal with the bigger picture, you reduce your frame of perspective to something you can deal with. And watching all this made me sad and uncomfortable, but, like I said, it was uber-realistic. So that's what I mean by the whole previous paragraph: realism over naturalism. It's weird seeing the medium move into a new chapter, the way we're able to look across a huge history of paintings.

Temporada de Patos: Schmuck squeezin'

2006-04-01T23:02:00.000-08:00

I saw this film because the newspaper said "just hanging out has never been so much fun", so I expected sort a Clerks-ish thing, though, ya know, less pretentous and intellectually half-assed, the way Kevin "I'm a big jack-ass" Smith tends to be. And in some ways, that's indeed what it was, but there were a lot of suprises, too. I was struck by how aloof all the characters were to one another. I guess it's how young most of them were (14, 16), that their M.O. was to always appear cool. Also, I think maybe it's a Mexico City thing. I'm probably off-base here, but I get the sense that city kids in a lot of other countries try to grow up as quickly as possible, so they are constantly struggling to be in control, and as a result are often frustrated with the results. Anyway, it made for a film of characters musing to the room, and not really being recieved by anyone in the room. At least at first. When they began to trust one another more, and really coalesce, it wasn't so much of a relief, as it was an exciting point to reach.

The intercuts were very exciting, when characters would tell stories and we'd see what images those stories evoked in their own minds. That's exactly why film is a wonderful medium. Also, these sequences were exciting because of the tension it created. You aren't sure where the story is going, and there's this undercurrent of kinetic energy, so you're almost waiting for the sudden, violent cut that shocks you. An "oh shit" moment, but one never came, which I was really glad about both because I wanted the movie to be lighter than that, and alos because it's obvious, and therefor over-used, and it's manipulative in an empty way. Instead, the sequences had heart to them. The pizzaman's story, especially, was almost tear inducing because of it's beauty and it's openess. When a filmmaker lets a sequence breathe so easily, you can be sure the filmmaker is a very strong one.

I totally called the weed brownies. And the Beatles reference. If Stella had been in the theatre with me, she would have caught it even sooner.

Leon: or, to those who hate the French but like this movie, The Professional.

2006-03-29T22:08:00.000-08:00

Speaking of a young Natalie Portman, I also saw Leon, or Leon the Professional or whatever the fuck that movie's called. And it was great. I was a little put of from time to time by what I would call cliches. I mean, sure, the film was made in 1994, but I felt like I'd seen certain scenes before. Or, no, the film's plot is too sharp to be predictable (did Leon really have to... confront Gary Oldman... in the way that he did?). I'd seen, at least, certain moments before. And some of that is "little girl makes strange buddies with wierd old guy, and they mentor one another" equation being a cliche for a reason.

The facts: When tried and true tales are told, there is much potential for it to be done well.

But if you suck, your crap is gonna suck.

Beeyotch.

Everyone remember that.

Anyway, the film is really wild, while cautious, and like Ebert says, the director found Paris in Manhattan. And Jean Reno, too, is somehow graceful beneath his clumsyness. I guess that's the whole deal--ninja is awkward near love.

And I'm thinking Leon could take Flint out anyday.

Everyone Says I Love You: the closest we'll get to John Irving in film

2006-03-29T21:46:00.000-08:00

I must say I really enjoyed this film. And it was a bit of a debate. Whne dead people start singing and dancing, I decided no one talks about this movie because it was too zany for them. Like they weren't sure they even saw it.

Me: Have you ever seen that Woody Allen film "Everyone Says I Love You"?
Other person: Did I... No, I doubt it. I've seen some pretty weird dreams I've had, though...

But in the end I felt it struck very charmingly. I mean, sure I like Woody Allen, but there's a well choreographed tale he tells here, and it's even a little more honest than some of the things he writes. Each character goes through something that, up close, is crazy, but from afar we see it's kind of true. I think that's what I enjoy in his films: they're their realist when the zaniest things are happening! His dialogue overlaps and jumps back and forth and it keeps every character active and highlighted, like a circus. Or a ballet. Whatever the bear driving around in the little car is called.

...SO it's almost unnecessary when the songs happen. Or maybe it's just right because it's a dialogical musical anyway. The attitude the film takes toward people breaking into song (and everyone knowing the words) is like a super power some people have that everyone is used to seeing, but it's still really cool. Like the flying in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In any case, it's a little embarrasing but mostly very charming. That Tim Roth is dreamy.

In Like Flint: The Flint get Flintier

2006-03-27T16:32:00.000-08:00

James Coburn=best ever. This sequal isn't quite a tight and slick as the first film, but it's pretty damn good. I'm surprised they didn't keep going to a number three.

Pretty much every scene is an action scene, in that small-scale, agile, 60's fight-scene sort of way (Star Trek was in full swing at the same time). I think the word they use is "romp". Not quite as spoofy as the first one, because the writer seemed to know to trust the franchize's own legs, and so less ahead of it's time, to be sure, but in general, Flint appeals much more to me as an icon of the over-the-top spy thing than any Bond, so it works.

Now if they had done a Kirk/Flint buddy comedy...

Our Man Flynt: holy crap this movie is brilliant!

2006-03-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

The 60's had a way of making spoofs with a much lighter touch than we know today. You look at Scary Movie 4 or whatever, and it's appaling how subtle we aren't today. Watching Our Man Flynt, it took me a good long time to figure out it was a spoof. The off-handed mentioning of Agent Triple Oh Eight caught my attention, but it could almost be played as half-assed writing. The whole thing seemed exactly like what I WANT from a go-go spy movie, to such a degree, that I didn't really care that it was a spoof. Because it wasn't self-aware. It never REALLY broke the 4th wall the way Airplane and everything since it has done. Not that I don't like those movies (Mel Brooks is amazing, for example), but it's just that there doesn't have to be a twist on the premise of the film to make it new. Flynt isn't James Bond--he's an original character--but he occupies the same mindspace or whatever, and so is able to do things that are new and exciting, yet remind us of what we've seen before. It's balanced in how it is and isn't safe.

Watching it, it was clear that Austin Powers had directly quoted Our Man Flynt, but Austin Powers is still a good movie on it's own. Crappy Date Movie and whatever the fuck we have today is just the elbow in your side of a thousand universal in-jokes, and who the fuck cares. Anyway, James Colburn is the man.

The eagle that hates Americans is clearly the hero of the film, and Jerry Goldsmith provided the excellent score. So, overall, a wonderful experience.

Hoosiers: Pass me the plot, I'm open!

2006-03-21T23:54:00.000-08:00

So, I haven't seen Rudy, and it's been awhile since Chariots of Fire, so perhaps I just don't have the 80's sports film vocabulary, but I think this film isn't good. I say this regretfully, since there is a great deal of it that is very interesting... or verging on very interesting... I guess it just struck me as having a very weird rhythm. We are to assume huge amounts during the montages, and yet not mind the crawling pace of the "plot establishing" scenes. That could be because the team members are actual basketball players, so the acting just feels glacial. But, beyond that, there are several times that really signifigant things happen, and no one seems to know why. Like the writer. And the director. There isn't any insight into any of the characters beside a brief once-over of Dennis Hopper's son, and yet we are to assume each character feels a great many things, and acts on them, and Indiana is a better place for it.

Like I said, I don't know the language of this type of film, but when Gene Hackman (who I love) was standing out on the make-shift practice court, telling the town's best player (who refuses to play) he doesn't owe anyone his talent, I was expecting a great struggle to earn that player's participation. Yet ALL OF THE SUDDEN, he walks in front of the town, a few scenes later, and announces that he'll re-join the team if Hackman stays. Why?! Why wouldn't he play in the first place?! I understand the reason given right off, but I'm gonna admit right now: I don't buy it! None of this shit was sold to me!

And yet, there are some beautiful moments in this film. THe understated ones that supported the rest of the film. Quite a bit of the non-basketball blocking plays out very gracefully, the way the games should BUT DON'T. I often saw fleeting shots that forced me to feel what Basketball is like... but the unfolding of each game itself was ignored. It was as if Ang Lee were directing a piece of Americana--the film just didn't get it.

Now, Jerry Goldsmith's score is an entirely different story...

Election: Truth in melodrama

2006-03-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

This film has a motif of messyness. Of how real life ALWAYS has little shitty bits. Nothing is perfect, even in (or possibly especially in) people and situations that are so clean cut (although that's a little too obvious to be necessarily true). Or maybe how we expect certain ruitines and paths, and they get messy and weird. How the big things are affected by the TINY things (like when Matthews Broderick flicks his wrist in a tiny way and the two ballots drop in the trash, and what that becomes). The relationship between the finest and greatest points in history. And, finally, how inevitable trouble is. History wil repeat itself. The universe will present a trouble until you can learn to deal with it. And as soon as you've won, there's another trouble waiting in the wings.

But, considering all this messyness, I was surpised at how dark the film didn't get. ...The impressive attitude of Broderick's character kept him on top of where he needed to be. Certianly there was a period in the middle where he lost his cool, and made some mistakes... but, as Reese Witherspoon's Tracy Flick prepared us from the outset, fate moves people and events along nicely, and Broderick got back on top.

So perhaps the film is more an expose or something. We visited alot of examples of very faceted people dealing with somewhat broad issues. Broad because we can all relate, but also because of how huge and over-arcing they are: How clear they are from afar, and how murky they are once you're dealing with them up close. Broderick's Mr. M told us he didn't remember how all the trouble started. That's how it is.

I kept noticing how fair the presentation of the story was. I could understand very well where everyone was coming from. Sure, there was one main protagonist, but each character spun events along toward what they thought were their goals. And with the recollections of history, it's incredibly important to take each side as a key player. As a hero, in their own mind.

The whole thing remind me of Google Earth.

Forum or Againstum

2006-02-01T22:25:00.000-08:00

I feel out of place. Perhaps it was a mistake to think I could fit in, if I tried. I guess I feel like I can pick out the "vibe" of a place well, and give people what they want--ya know, put the room at ease. But then, I guess those things can turn on a dime. Like the split second when your eye must make a decision on what to interpret a mass of color as. If it's dark, a withered old tree might be seen as a withered old man. Or the idea that you can see someone as one charicature of themselves, or another, as if two of the great masters painted them without conferring: Both paintings are true, right? But both are a horrible thing to confuse the actual person for. Anyway, the energy a person reads off you is very personal. Where they are at the time (year, second, etc.). And so it shouldn't be surprising when a community of people don't take kindly to strangers. Sometimes I'M not sure if I'm well-meaning. I know I'm smart, but self-awareness fucks it up, so I'm doomed if I even TRY to fit in.

Further, it never even BRIEFLY occured to me that the topic of emulating games was taboo, or even considered pirating! I should say I didn't see it coming, but upstanding communities don't talk about piracy, or theft--unless they're safely spekaing objectively. Like wikipedia. And then I didn't see it coming that downloading the file for a commercial game--at no charge--would be illegal. So, I'm not nearly as smart as I fucking think I am. It's crazy to me that the brain can have all this seperate information, and never have a connection between them, since they're related. Some internal organization creature needs to be wandering around in there (the human memory) dusting information off and filing it better. The fact that none of that is there is actually extremely comforting. I prefer thinking of my brain as the tiny dirty roots that get pulled out of the earth along with a plant.

But MAN nerds sure are quick fucking witted! In a matter of seconds, I had 19 people jumping down my throat, until the message board's moderator (rather politely) told me to read the rules. To be honest, most of them were pretty nice, or I suppose, smug and smirking, but not angry. Even for nerds, it's gotten cool to be lazy and smarter than others, rather than pissy. Makes you easier to deal with, unless you have an inferiority complex and condescention makes you mad. Really, it just surprised me that so many people had such... well put... things to say on the matter of emulator resource extraction. That I was in the wrong for bringing it up in the first place. Witty and barbed ways of telling me this. I guess I'll make soundtracks to Super Nintendo games the old fashioned way.

If anyone gets the soundtrack to Super Metroid from me for Christmas, and it has a few random bloops and explosions, I apologize now. You can make those sounds with a straw, full of soda, by the way.

Congratulations on being the millionth movie title to start with the word "American"!

2006-01-23T10:42:00.000-08:00

American Splendor, huh? Yeah, it was alright. There were neat parts. The thing is, there a lot of films that tell a very personal story, that are based on a real life, and I feel like people know the steps Hollywood takes to get from those real stories, to the screen story with which we are presented. We've all been around long enough to be able to spot the fakery. The convenient-for-plot cliches. Characters going to an extreme to move another character along. Condensed dialogue that sounds more like a summary of the person's feelings--would the actual man have actually said those words? It can seem very forced.

Now, American Splendor went out of it's way to make the film more of a scrapbook of Harvey Pekar's life, with several kinds of media coming and going, and Paul Giamatti's portrayal of the man almost a highlight, rather than the focus. It attempted to get closer to the truth of these events, aware (and I'd say content) that any story the writers tell would be just another face on the man, the way lots of artists portrayed him in various slants.

So why did it still seem forced? I watched several actors do an alright job summing up events that could have felt real. Gritty. The way the comics we saw in the film felt. It felt like an HBO movie. Whether it was the directors' tenuous grasp on the actors, or the actors themselves being self-concious about playing real, still-living people (a lot of Giamatti's lines sounded like he was quoting himself--that ain't natural), or the writers (aka the directors) trying to be cute with their portrayal of an unglamorous life. Whatever the ingredients, I felt like I was watching a movie about a real story. Not a real story. So, I guess, it was par, for the early nineties.

Coffee and Cigarettes: Stars and White Stripes forever

2005-12-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

Something I noticed in this film, was that the actors all seemed very... soft... in their performances, the way you feel something with the back of your hand, rather than your palm, to disturb it less. Skin, or sand. It was the way real people reach out to each other across a gap, when they are sensitive. Or when they care a great deal about the other. On one hand it seemed almost unprofessional in it's little-rehearsed rhythm. But at the same time I found it off-putting because I didn't feel like I was watching a performance. I mean, these people are sitting across from each other at a little table, drinking and smoking the titular vices (hot). It looks very staged. Yet it doesn't play out staged at all.

The table was the literal point where two opposites connect. The point where two things that are inverse, are one. Each chapter had people who were identical on some dimensions; and the conflict (and thus the scene) was the dimension on which they were unable to see eye to eye. The interplay between, not just the two people, but the agreeing and disagreeing sides of these pairs, is a very fragile thing. Feeling it put me in a trance.

Also, the photography was beautiful. This film felt really good.

Capote Connotes...

2005-12-06T17:39:00.000-08:00

The character that Phillip Seymour Hoffman creates in this film is amazing. Granted it's an actual person, but whatever research was done, the actor still made choices, and they are wonderful ones. He plays out this interesting legend in all the various worlds he inhabited, from the schmooze-ball at classy parties, to the silent, curious observer while doing "field research", to the "tell you what you want to hear" interviewer, who gets everything he wants, and gives less away than the interviewee thinks. Really fascinating stuff.

But he never bounces off anything else. When a great actor is doing something really interesting, the most exciting moments in that performance are the direct interactions with another great actor. He played against Chris Cooper, and Catherine Keener, and Bob Balaban, but nothing revelaing came from those scenes. Perhaps that's who Truman Capote was, a man who did what he wanted, and was very uncompromising in his obscure opinions... maybe Capote didn't bounce off anything else, rather than slowly orbit very great ideas. Maybe that's why he was a genius. But then what do we watch for? Probably the best films (in the artsy, prideful sense of the word) have a very large, subtle arc to them, wherein you realize what the film was about at the very end (or whle driving home afterword). And this was probably one of those. Still, I think the most interesting films have that and a treasure trove of moments, as well, and this film didn't. Or if they were moments, they were all Hoffman as Capote, impressing fans of the acotr, and not Capote and his world, dancing and revealing.

Ay Up, Gromit, shall we see whats at the flickers?

2005-11-07T19:36:00.000-08:00

A while back I saw the Wallace & Gromit movie, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and I loved it. This opinion was put into place back in 7th grade when I watched the second of the Wallace & Gromit shorts "The Wrong Trousers", and was knocked over, and was further assured when the short, before the movie, began: the Madagascar "gaiden" that centered around the highly humorous penguins of that (shitty) film. Indeed, it seems Aardman Films (and the associated Nick Park) is one of the few production companies who still has any intention of giving us good animated films. Everything Dreamworks puts out is empty beats we've all seen a thousand times before, and Disney is following suit quit expectedly. Only Pixar was above all the rest, but then they released the preview for Cars and oh well. There were only TWO celebrity voices in Were-Rabbit, and (gasp!) both of them were ACTUALLY DOING VOICES. None of this "And now the cow who's obviously Rosanne!" or (shudder) Brad Pitt as Sinbad. Jesus that was ass.

The Wallace and Gromit movie was everything a movie based on the series should be: it felt like the episodes, but it was bigger. We find the heroes are further along in their lives than when we last were with them. That's exciting formt he get-go, and what they were up to was all new, but still very in line with who we've come to know over the years. Then, once the plot really starts to get into high gear, there's a greater danger than our heroes have ever faced before, and it strikes much closer to home than it ever has before. That's super key. Most series' films just re-enact the series as best as possible, by trying to give the drooling fans exaclty what they wanted. Or, more recently, the problem has been that a series can't wait to be made into a film, so they blow their load way too quickly in some season finale (Deep Space 9, I'm staring intensly at YOU).

Each portion of the film was Wallace and Gromit-core, too. The timing sensibilites were very much Nick Park, in both story and humour (sorry, "humor"), and as the whole thing escalated, the madness at the end was extremely satisfying. I wish the seperate action segments has colided more, rather than resolving seperately before grouping, but that's just me.

Eight or nine comically oversized thumbs up your ass. For this movie. Huh.

Steve Martin controls the universe

2005-11-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

Shopgirl exists on the heels of Lost in Translation, though a little more happens in this one. In fact, I'd like to see a wacky crossover (possibly a vs. film) with Bill Murray from Lost in Translation and Steve Martin from Shopgirl, lamenting about the one that got away. This film was emotionally resonant, and I wanted the characters to suceed. Mirabelle, played by the hard-to-find-as-of-late Claire Danes, seems verging on the edge of the way too cute to be a real human being character that we've seen in every romantic comedy, but she never falls into that. In fact, the whole film has these cute, off-beat, "real people" moments that I never fully bought, but at the same time enjoyed watching. Perhaps thats because Jason Schwartzman is fucking awesome. I can't get enough of this guy. He lives a life of off-beat, while still making one moment flow into the next so well that I did buy it. And the film does an excellent job of making you unsure who will be "right" for Mirabelle. Why do we keep cutting back to Jeremy (Schwartzman)? How "out of the picutre" is he? Now, obviously, since films don't include unecessary information, we know that he will come back, but I kept thinking it was going to be the cause of the film's conflict. But he has his own story going on, and it does the job well, of proving to us that two people in a relationship are the main characters in their own movie, rather than one bing a secondary character in the other's.

That being said, there are moments of awkwardness that don't seem to stem from the characters' awkwardness. Actors should feel comfortable being unfcomfortable, and that they didn't always seem that way made me wonder if perhaps the director Anand Tucker is not so much an actor's director. He did an interesting job of transitioning very gracefully in many scenes. Took liberties the way a movie (especially in our age of near-flawless CG) reprisents reality. And that was an undercurrent, also, in how the characters lived their lives (alone, or in pairs). There was a certain grace that resulted in a lack of dialogue, when action would suffice. Or "action" as an internal-conflict story has it.

So, yeah, I certainly dug it. I love Steve Martin and I enjoyed his book, back when it came out. And I like quirky romance, and quirky people, in general. This film reprisented both well. Mad props.

Bad design'll ruin everything

2005-10-19T01:58:00.000-07:00

I was driving home just now, rather late, I should say, and I once again passed the signs that've been popping up everywhere around Seattle lately. The "Vote [something] on [some number]!". As you can see, they're very effective. Really, the only reason they stick in my mind so much that I might write a whole post about them, is because the last digit in the referendum number (maybe initiative?) is a zero, except it has this black streak coming up through it, at a not-quite-balanced angle, and so maybe the zero is a nine? Oh man it looks crappy. Maybe it's supposed to be a magnifying glass? I don't know what the intent is, but it looks like a mistake. Maybe the sign was stapled wrong... by a big black staple... in the same place on every sign (and there are about five gillion)? If I could remember what the number on the sign was... or whether I was supposed to vote for or against it... or even what the cause behind the propaganda was, I might care one way or another. No, this election, I ain't so well informed. It's the distressing design of the thing that gets me. Guts me.

With a huge populace to reach, you want to be sure you're look is gonna connect with as many people as possible. You gotta stay safe, in the way of looking well organized, but remain on the edge, so that it gets one's attention. There effectively an infinite number of variables when you're dealing with... well, pretty much anything, really. But what I was thinking was when you're dealing with the human psyche, and the senses, and how sensory input gets interpreted by the brain. There's a lot of strange things that happen. Ya gotta be careful. Or you have to surprise people, while still pleasing them. That's what all creativity should strive for.

I drove further on home, and rolled my window down a bit, and realized the rain smelled like the watrerfront. Salt, and fish. And even the tar and the wood of the piers. That's about twenty miles for the smell to carry, and I was surprised, and deeply pleased.

A modest proposal

2005-10-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

So William Bennett is under attack for some rather touchy comments he made late last month. And the world has reacted basically the way they always do, by taking the most interesting few seconds of his speech (called a "soundbyte"), and spreading just that bit, sans context, around the airwaves.

Meanwhile, Jack Thompson is pissing off the nerdy videogame-playing pseudo-intellectuals, by challenging a gaming company (any gaming company, he includes) to the creation of an intentionally violent game.

Both of these people are in hot water, because they risked something very valuable, their "cred", for a particularly vibrant comment in the media. They both intended to get everyone's attention--make people stop and say "oh my god, he's right..."--in that classic Jonathan Swift way. They said something satirical. And we didn't get it.

The folks at Penny Arcade (a comic that I love dearly) are in a sort of print-based quarrel with Thomspon over the lack of the others' class. Or morals. Or basic sanity. Jack Thompson wrote his proposal to shock us, by taking everything that violent videogames are these days, and pushing it one step further. In this way, he wanted to point out that the line between fact and joke are blurring. That something as aweful as he mock-suggests could, indeed come to light, and that we are all to blame for it. Or something.

Now, by no means do I think videogames are too violent. I'm all for shocking art, and I'm all for hyper-realistic entnertainment. I think people are smart enough to distinguish between why the game is cool, and why recreating events within the game are NOT cool. And, obviously there are people who don't distinguish, and that's what you hear about on the news, and that's why Hilary Clinton is so grumpy these days. But surely, this doesn't mean we should stop making games liek this! Oops, Charles Manson killed a bunch of people in the name of a Paul McCartney song, better put a stop to rock and roll... or maybe just to Manson... hmmm...

As Tycho (from Penny Arcade) points out, it's the parents' job to police what kids play, not the government's, or the lawyers'. So, what right does Thompson have to say anything? Well, at this stage, he's just making his social commentary. He doen't want anyone to ACTUALLY make his horrific game treatment. And he isn't putting any force against the powers that keep making games like this. He's appealing to the common sense in all of us, by taking it one step too far, and waiting for us to feel guilty. Just like Jonothan Swift did.

AND YET the nerds are making that annoying, high-pitched wine that means they're mad about something. Or they need some Taco Bell. They're bitching that Thomspon won't honor any intent to make his suggested game. Well fucking DUH!!! If everyone had started eating babies, would Swift have leaned back in his recliner, satisfied with the power of his pen? Get a fucking clue, idiots.

Meanwhile, Bennett even said "aborting all the black babies is obviously a horrible thing to do" (that was a paraphrase) right after his grotesque comment, and yet people are STILL waving their arms wildly, running around outside his house, shrieking about his racism. People just love to get pissed off.

Both of these poor idiots made the mistake of not being careful enough. They both said very tasteless things, with vague motives. Anyone who has witnessed this kind of thing happening before should know to qualify EVERYTHING THEY SAY. But isn't it time, in this post-modern era of knowing the difference between a madman and a Family Guy bit, to stop, and consider the intent of what someone says, objectively? I both disagree with Thompson's underlying motives, AND feel sorry for his poorly executed shock-proposal. I am both mistrustful of Bennett's lumping together of crime and blacks, AND impressed with his ability to seperate the effects of freedom of abortion, from the plight of low-income families. And my point is that it's fucking time for everyone to be able to do that. It's become KEY to be able to analyze the components within the whole. And if you can't, step away from the adults table Donny, you're out of your element.

I like the word "interlocking"...

2005-10-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

My roommate, in a red faced tizzy, announces he's sick of people holding things above him, and it's time he goes and sees the film The Aristocrats. I kinda shrugged and said "stick it to 'em, baby." which got a weird look, but his tizzy was more powerful than his "rebuke center", and off he went. The whole thing reminded me that I never reviewed that movie. Here are a few thoughts.

The entire film was great. Very funny. And very interesting. Good points about how offensive humor has changed over the years, and what people find offensive. This could be a good jumping off point to discuss "post-modern racism", but I don't want to inadvertently offend EVERYONE so I'll stay put. I will say, though, that it's all just new frontiers of humor, and the more people who get into an area of it, the less "borderline" it is, so soon, I think epithets will have no power to anyone, and any actual racism will be really subtle. Maybe it'll be a good thing, maybe not. In any case, I see it as the next step in cultural evolution. At least on that spectrum.

Some of the comedians, I realized, are like gods, in that they say just a few things, and you feel like the sage has spoken. Even if they aren't saying anything sage-like, you feel like George Carlin and Robin Williams just kind of know.

Sarah Silverman is fucking HOT.

There were those who felt that the underlying issues were never addressed. Or, perhaps that the underlying mechanics of comedy were barely explored. And I can see this argument, but I wonder if comedians even care to do that. They know comedy, but can they dissect it so easily? Perhaps some can, but the team interviewing them just wasn't interested in probing to why it's funny, or, in the documentarian way, leaping off into related ideas. No, the film was definitelly about one thing only. But god damn was it entertianing.

Andy Richter is brilliant, and his brief show was fantastic, and I miss him dearly.

2005-10-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

I'm dressed as a Ghostbuster right now, and though I have glasses, something doesn't feel very Egon about me. After reflecting on my own lacadaisical spirit, and desire to "crack wise about yo mamas", I'm gonna go with Peter. Complete with Murray's forlorn face. The costume also includes a proton pack that I had to inflate, nearly costing my most of my brain cells. Believe me, a man in a tan jumpsuit, with a bright red face is not fun to look at.

I'm also taken back to the early days of my Ghostbusters obsession, when I owned ALL of the merchendise. I wish I had that trap now, that thing actually opened when you stepped on the foot pedal! My mom made me a blue jumpsuit, complete with a Ghostbusters insignia on my arm. It... was... sweet. If I can find the picture of 8 year old Max with the jumpsuit on, I'll put it up. As I recall, my desire to also wear "ghost-detecting equipment" resulted in there being a collander on my head. Kids are awesome. How is it that they can be so shy when it comes to interacting with other people, and yet so completely certain when it comes to the weird things they do and say. It's only when they are comfortable, which apparently isn't around people they actually have to interact with. But, having no context for any public behavior, they don't know that it's... awkward, let's say, to announce in their loudest voice that "THAT LADY IS REALLY FAT!". Or, to ignore any people nearby them all together, and, say, wear collanders on their heads.

They were once, and they may again

2005-09-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

I was reading a review of the new Roman Polanski film, Oliver Twist, in the paper today. And I noticed that in deciding what he (or she) thought of the film, the reviewer kept making reference to previous incarnations of the Oliver Twist story. And that makes sense on an immediate level, but as I've said before, a remake is it's own thing, that exists, almost as drinkin' chums beside other remakes. A movie can be in the shadow of the book on which it's based, sure, that's probably unavoidable (as I haven't said before), but each remake is from the book, not any of the other movies! That's like saying "I took my last name from my older brother, not my parents!". Sure, you can have awareness of a previous incarnation, reflect on what's been done before, to make sure you're doing your own thing. But when people's first response to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was "Gene Wilder did it better" I turn toward them and hornets of sweat fly from my fingertips straight at them! Tim Burton had no thirst for the older one (done by Mel Stuart and David Seltzer). He had his eye set on Roald Dahl's original story! All I'm saying is, it's a different god damn movie, and to so closely consider all it's peers is like those creepy kids at school who idolized their older sister.

Why, I might continue on to say, as if further proving my point, would you spend the time and energy to make a second (or third, or tenth in most of that Shakepear's case) version of a story? Why, to I see a story as a question on a really esoteric game show, and as each generation of filmmakers (who each reprisent the society as a whole) unfolds, they have a chance to step up to the podiums, and buzz in on how to answer that question. I could see assuming that two contemporary filmmakers "answering the question" at the same time was a competition, but for that very reason, that never happens. Artists support one another (in a sort of off-handed way you hear in interviews sometimes). The weird game show thing I just mentioned is more interested in seeing how each new period of film is going to buzz in. I am genuinely hopong that in a hundred years or so a live-action remake of the Star Wars series is attempted.

It's kinda like how you can tell the era in which a film is made, even when it's a period piece of the same period.

Or like how a cover of a song from long ago can be done, and embraced. Because the kinds sound we make, and the kind of music we make has changed a crazily in the past 30 years. Obviously, it's all relative, but recent memory isn't so forgiving, and it takes about a generation to clear all bets.

I'ma gonna go watch The Flintstones movie now.

I'm an uncle!!!

2005-09-21T22:40:00.000-07:00

Break out the pink cigars, I am now the uncle of a baby girl, born 9:30 (ish) pm in Longmont Colorado! Her names Sophie Edelblute (I never heard if a middle name was decided), and she's healthy and happy and hungry.

...I gotta tell ya, this news knocked me on my ass. My sister's a mother! The idea that she even went through labor, that she's not totally exhausted, it's astounding to me! I've grown up with Clea, and I've seen her succeed and fail. I've known each stage of her life (obviously these last ones not so much), and I've loved her and hated her. So, this news to me is truly amazing. I mean, anyone can get pregnant and talk the talk of being a mother and knowing what they want to do, and just generally being an all-out adult. I can see my sister being able to take care of herself well thorugh nine months of pregnancy, and I can see it being sort of... about he rproving something to herself, and those around her. Because that's kind of how she is, sometimes. I love her a whole lot, but I have seen her take action, or live certain ways, considering what other people thought way too much. Not as if she would ever let someone keep her down, no, quite the opposite. Clea is all about making a statement to the world, and having that somehow move inward to her, and then define her. And why shouldn't pregnancy be the same way? Day at a time, it can't be so tough (I know I know, I don't have any clue what I'm talking about). But Clea went through labor! She pushed for two and a half hours! She fed her baby afterword, and she's up and talking to my parents, and walking to the bathroom! Not that I ever doubted her, I really didn't, and haven't. I know she's very storng and confident and awesome. But hearing that it happened--this baby that has been on our minds for three quarters of a year now--was born. And is real. And all that far off stuff I've only vaguely imagined, happened to my sister. The only other Boschert-Zielsdorf in the world (until the recent marriage, that is). It's fucking monumentous! I mean, that's a lot of real life hitting you (her) at once. That's mother nature's pain, and that's messy, moment of transition energy flyin' all over the place. I would have loved to be there. (But then again, I don't want to see the gross. You know what I mean.)

I can't celebrate fo' real until this weekend, but I am so uplifted right now. So in awe of... the perpetuatin' human drama, I guess. And so ready to love this kid. To watch her grow up. To be closer to this (semi) extended family than my aunts and uncles were to us when we were little. To be a fucking awesome uncle who sends bizzare articles from random parts of the world (a que I have taken from my uncle Gordie, who is awesome), and shows up to spread the zaniness.

I am so excited!! So join me in a toast or something, for little Sophie Edelblute. May their lives be amazing together, and their adventures be real, and fulfilling. Godspeed!

Investigative Journalisms

2005-09-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

It has recently been brought to my attention that there are... readers... of this blog, and that they... give a rats ass about what goes "up ons". I was under the pretense that this forum was a wasteland, much like the farthest back, "sloppiest" parts of the human mind, and that anything I might elect to toss up to the walls--whether it stuck or no--would, in fact, be more personal experiment than published work. Now, I know, the point of teh web-ter-tron is that unfinished work, and the area of "mid-completery" can be shared and enjoyed, as if he whole WORLD were a forum! But I'm never in the business of finishing anything, really, and what gets written here (scrawled. With wretched hooks.) is more an experiement than anything else. Like, remember when Kill Bill came out, and it seemed like an overzealous student art project? Like that. Maybe artists should produce to a sounding board, then stop and think about what they've done a little. And I'm not even an artists, so it probably goes double for me.

None of this should be taken as a reason to stop visiting this trailer park of the mind--to the three people besides me who have ever read my nonsense, I'm always really excited to see whacha think! But please keep in mind, that this is a sketchbook, not a... journal. A "web journal". Aw crap, that's exactly what it is.

Having said all this, let me further clarify that certain posts that may have been posted by me were not an attempt to advertise anything. I have no junk posted up on Craig's List, as I have no sw33t war3z, and if I did, would I really list the links to these items in a post, with no comment or description? Can it really be considered "advertising" when a sheet of paper with the words "Max has TV?" is found on the roadside?

If the stray reader were to come across my short-hand notes (or "internotes"), rest assured that I was using my own blog as a sketchbook, for my own needs. Like the back of the envelope. Those of you who may or may not have given me shit about these stray links (to OTHER people's "for sale" items--I was trying to buy a TV) have to realize I forgot there was an invisible fourth wall on this blog thing, and you have simply caught me with my beard down. As the old saying probably goes.

Now I forget how the title to this post relates to it in any way! I'm so worked up my glasses got fogged over. Ooo!

The review you've "all" been "waiting" for...

2005-09-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

I'm way behind on this one, but considering my whole "remake" rantings, I wanted to weigh in, the way that guy who shares your office with you insists on spreading his opinion on things that do not concern him, like wildfire. Yes, faster than your sister spreads what she's got. Sorry, I don't know where that came from. I'm barely awake right now. Anyway, here's my take on Batman Begins.

Certianly the film was awesome. The literal darkness to it. The smokey blue (camera) pans in the mountains, the obscured, labrinthine night of Gotham City. And the (re)introduction to our hero was believable (as believable as any superhero's story has ever been), as the honest-to-God arc from zero to hero played out. The clunky, imperfect, early Batman was honest, and connected to the audience in an almost tactile way. The bulky Batmobile was a great symbol for this prototypical, "broad strokes" Batman. And it was truly good filmmaking when we witnessed young Bruce Wayne's fear of bats and darkness coming back to freak him out.

But it was so immediate, and so... not touched-up, that it was't a comic book movie. The semi-presence of Gordon and the lack of any real climax (other than the return of Liam Neeson--purely a character moment) left wondering which draft the director was going with at any given time. If you're going to spend half a movie in Tibet and half in Gotham City, you better have people care that you're in Gotham City. Now, there was that neat section where everyone is hallucinating, but it never went anywhere! Scarecrow became death, and Batman had red eyes. When I hallucinate, it's a whole sahitload more intense than that. What Nolan needed was Hayao Miyazaki to take chage of the storyboards for the crazy scenes! We would have watched bridges turn into huge spiders, and crawl around the city while people with smiley-faces for hands tried to beat up the opera singing lion. Think about that.

All in all, I miss the brilliance of Micheal Keaton's confused millionare, and the art-directed look of Tim Burton's 40's-or-maybe-80's Gotham City.

I'm figuring this review out as I type it.

2005-08-20T12:11:00.000-07:00

Bill Murray has stated that he won't be making any movies for awhile, and it's no wonder. All of the characters he gets these days are pained, lonely, soulfull and while he makes it look easy and perfect, it can't be real fun all the time. But thank god he has done this latest chapter in the actor's prolific career. I don't want to imagine a world without Rushmore, The Royal Tennebaums, The Life Aquatic, or Lost in Translation. And now, Broken Flowers. Possibly the best of them all.

Now, it's difficult for me to say that, "best of them all", when Rushmore is my favorite movie of all time, and Life Aquatic is such a beautiful film. But, they are Wes Anderson, and let's be honest, that guys all about the wacky. His films have so much going on in them, and while none of it is ever clutter, it can be a bit like a circus act, off-handedly waiting for the next trick. Which is amazing that Bill Murray can still do his hyper-understated, deadpan, mournful... thing, in both Wes Anderson's universe, and the serene translucent lake of Lost in Translation, or Broken Flowers. Not to say that Bob Harris is the same guy as Steve Zissou, not at all, but that essence of neo-Murray is the heart of both characters, and I'm amazed that it's in everything he does, and it's always golden!

So in Broken Flowers there's a grat deal of space. SPace Murray can comfortably relax in, and it's his space that tells us who he is. He prefers, it seems, to lay on the couch, even his girlfriend leaves him, and the mysterious letter that sets off the film arrives. It's only his neighbor's interest that pushes him anywhere, but soon he is out on the road, visting the woman who may have mothered him a son 19 years before. And it's never really concluded (as you know if you make sure to see the films I review before you read my review) who had the son, and while it's hinted that there never was one, the film makes sure to leave even that in the air. Like good internal conflict the events that set our character's growth in motion are truly a mcguffin, and it's where Don Johnston stands at the end that's important.

Or is the journey? There are several dream sequences in the film, and they evoke a sense of "what does it all mean?". After each woman Don visits, he sort of reviews the encounter in his subconcious, and it leaves us wondering what he's accomplished, and how this affects his life? Does it amount to anything? I felt that the posing of this question was all Jarmusch was interested in, and while that may be too existential for some, it's the very idea that Don might have more from his younger days than he believes. There might be more in him, defining who he is today, than his deadpan couch-sittin' suggests. Indeed, Murray's face seems to be taking everything in, and really not judging any of it. He knows he doesn't have very much figured out, so he must listen. Serene translucent lake, I'm tellin' ya.

The entire film felt this way to me. The long drives, and the silences when he does confront these women. Like a road trip to a funeral. And when we meet the animal psychic, we really believe this woman is translating for the cat that doesn't trust Don. It's all a long dream, that Don must trudge through to wake up. And then there's a bit of a chase scene, and he does wake up. And what's fantastic is that what he does, having awoken, is left open to the viewer, watching the credits. I think it was Grapes of Wrath I watched when I realized that scret of storytelling; all good stories end with the suggestion of a larger story about to unfold. The film, especially, acts as a sort of short story to suggest the novel. And this is important because time never ends, and the story can't stop happening. But a film captures one chapter of the infinite story, and is satisfied only telling us that.

So anyway, go see it if you haven't already.

Exploding Dog

2005-08-15T23:51:00.000-07:00

Ever check this place out? It's a brilliant gallery of art (and desktop pictures!) based on the suggestions from the artist's audience. I find that each piece is either a heart-fuck or a mind-fuck. This stems from the simple little people in his universe, who imply a huge amount of motion in their child's-scribble faces. We project all the hurt the pictured character must be feeling, onto them, and the whole situation. And when one character is happily oblivious to the others' apparent pain, it's even more painful. But beyond all that, the perfect world they live in (perfect because of it's lack of detail, and vibrant colors) strike me as especially poignant. The simplicity resonates outward into the ONLY thing. So, of COURSE it's a heart-fuck.

Also, with the format that the artist apparently needs to keep him inspired (understandable, considering the volume of works on the site!), there is always an opportunity to surprise us. All we see is the caption, so we begin categorizing our expectation (still vague to be sure), and when the image actually loads, it's (often) hilarious the direction he chose to go. And perhaps that's where the mind-fuck element comes from, too, since the distance between what the caption implies, and where he took the image causes our brains to trip, as if we think have tken the last step in a flight of stairs, and we are jolted to find another (and another and another, all at once).

Anyway, I came across this one, and found it especially hilarious, because, of course, the person who suggested the phrase was (probably) thinking about a woman, and whne it's changed into a substance abuse thing, come on! That's hilarious! Sometimes when I'm at a concert and like four songs in a row are love songs, I imagine that each song is being sung to a bottle of Jack Daniels, and suddenly it's fun again!

The Nightmare that is "Software Compatability"

2005-08-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

After a torturous week of what I call "troubleshooting", I have determined that Final Cut Pro 3.x is incompatible with Mac OS X.4. It would have been super dandy if Apple had SAID something about this on their support website, but they would rather forget about any previous versions of anything they sold. I mean, who's using version 3? They're up to version 5 now!

Anyway, I don't have an extra $500 dollars everytime they overhaul their software, so I stick with what works. Or doesn't, as soon as I upgrade my system software. Could someone tell me what is so wildly different about Tiger (OS X.4), from Panther (X.3) that SLIGHTLY outdated video editing software would become the whimpering little infant it became? Too freaked out to recognize my camera, while frantically quitting on me; it was clear the old software was in a terrified awe of the newest OS. And who wouldn't be? It has a revamped search engine! And widgets! I don't know how the hell that would affect the Firewire interaface but who knows? I mean they're called widgets!

Man I hate bullshit.

Old News: Sin City

2005-08-12T20:33:00.000-07:00

The three stories all happenning in the same little world was super cool, since it made the movie about the city (as the title suggests), and not just these characters. Especially when we see a glimpse of a character in a different character's story, it adds a huge amount of presence to what would have been some guy sitting in the background. This reminds me of when a character is built up to be complex and interesting, generally someone we care about, and they are introduced to someone else we care a great deal about. There's a huge bundle of stuff going on on both sides of that first conversation. An example would be when Picard meets Kirk in Star Trek: Generations. Or the dinky little crossovers like Helen Hunt form Mad About You eating lunch in Central Perk, the Friends restaurant. We have care invested in both sides of the interaction, so when they unexpectedly meet up, it's a really rich experience.

The dialogue was corny, but Bruce Willis can make corny dialogue sound excellent. He has a way of using tone to remove cliche. Still, I had to laugh a few times ("He made me WAAAAATCH!!!!").

What's with Elijah Wood always having screwy eyes? Eternal Sunshine was all about that, this, I heard the white glasses effect is on him for a new film, and even in Lord of the Rings, he had that augmented blueness goin' on.

When Clive Owen was sinking in the tar pit, and it went to inverse-silhouette, his coat shouldn't have stayed near his sides, it would have gone straight up, in the thick tar (picking nits, I know, I know...).

Overall, I really enjoyed it. The intense violence didn't bother me, since Pulp Ficiton and Kill Bill has set the stage for something like this. The stories were exciting, the world was involving, the images were memorable. But, it was so close to the comic, that I couldn't help but wonder, why not just read the comic? I feel like there's something to be said for imagining the voices exactly how you want, or implying the camera moves within the panels. Both a comic and a film are visual mediums, so where's the adaptation? Not that I don't like comic-movies, but this one was toted as the most true to the source, that I was left with the feeling that one was almost a supplimental piece, of the other.

Bet you wish you were me

2005-08-07T02:38:00.000-07:00

I am interested in the place art has in people's minds, or more specifically, why one person calls something art, and another says it's pretentous bullshit. Now, the idea that labels shape our universe is not surprising, since we each have a rather arbitrarilly detailed and not detailed model of the universe in our heads. We interact with our ideas of how the world around us will work, not so much the world itself. A few nights ago I went to sit down in my chair, and continue in my quest to proverbially try on the finest fines of the house's newly aquired "webtertron". I didn't however get this far, because the bottom of the chair, ya know, the part where I park my ass, fell through the frame and I spent a few seconds of total confusion, sitting on the floor, my legs up on the chair frame. It took me a relatively long time to understand what had happened. And it's because we trust the chair to operate as a chair does. It took all those few seconds (an eternity when there's exposed screws jabbing you in the legs) to change my mental model of the object with which I was interacting from a chair, to a framework of boards and padding. Or, less forgivingly, intro a pile of crap.

And this is what I'm talking about. Through whatever associations one has, they can look at the "object" of a painting, or a song, or a dance, or The Onion, and see it as bad. As crap. As a road of exploration they have zero interest in going down. While someone more curious, or open-minded, or well-adjusted, or simply with a different set of associations, can look at it with interest. Accept that it's what they define as art.

Because to me, art is anything that someone decides is art. And, of course, with that definition comes some responsibility to not overuse the term, because it cheapens the term, or perhaps dulls our senses in regard to any future art. So we shouldn't go nuts with the term "art" just because we can, but we should feel open to call something art if it may not seem that way, at first glance. Or if everyone else in the room vehemently disagrees.

Not that this is a problem. "Art" is as overused as "genius", and indeed, those words have lost meaning. If someone says something I do is genius I just assume they mean "cool". They liked what I did. It doesn't mean it's genius, it just means it surprised them. They couldn't have thought of it. So "art" and "genius" have really just come to mean something exciting and interesting, that took a human mind some work to create. Shrug, that isn't so bad. It's like people saying "peace" as "goodbye", or even the ever-popular exposed belly button that the kids love so much these days.

All of this in no way leads me to my next point, other than the basic thematic element of art, and a piece of art's varying effects in different contexts. And that is this. With the upcoming film, The Chronicles of Narnia, this page is both topical and just really intelligent.

Agape.

You GOTS ta go!

2005-08-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

Sunday, August 7th
ACOUSTIC EVENING
The Paragon
on Queen Anne
www.paragonseattle.com
21+ 9:00PM
FREE

This is the "U Dub Band" I mentioned being great. It's the latest favorite, Handful of Luvin'. Poor name, amazing band. You should make it "your thing" to be there, and bring your most excited face! Perhaps we'll all learn the true meaning of Christmas? Or better yet, not?

Movin' on up

2005-07-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

It seems I've moved to a new house. Same number of bedrooms, a more reliable roommate (I'm looking at you, Alex and Ryan...), though definitelly closer to society. I'm once again getting used to falling asleep with the sounds of the city around me (well, the northern city, I'm not down town or anything), and getting used to living in a house that was built in the 50's.

New House:

Wired: Bigger bedrooms! I can fit a big bed, dresser, huge desk, several shelves, and still have lots of floor space and a closet!
My own front door. Mini-party in Max's room! Yeah! And the distance form the other two bedrooms means it can be a LOUD party! YEAH!!
Covered back patio. Now we can drink ourselves silly while it's raining! Not that that stopped us before, but now it'll kinda be classy!
Garage. Definitelly using this for stuff, not parking. Right now, it has half our furniture. It's gonna be a long week.
Location, location, etc. We are walking distance from my work, a grocery store, and a pizza place, and we're CRAWLING distance from a pub! No more boring sobriety.

Tired: Definitelly has a "built in the 50's" feel to it. Lots of yellow walls.
The windows are single pane, with no screen. I got used to keeping bugs out in the summer, and heat in during the winter. No longer.
These two things qualities together mean about a hundred spiders who think they are paying rent. I fling them outside!
The neighbors are all around us. I think this means we will make them hate us, even though we are super friendly. I'm just waiting for the house warming to include some cops--woo!

In the end, even if we moved south, we're movin' on up! I love the city feel. As Jacob put it, when you walk down the street there's actually other people! The suburb thing is pleasant to be sure, and I can appreciate it, but I don't enjoy it as much as feeling like I'm connected. And the thing it, it's still totally a suburb! Just not the bordering-on-rural one we left.

Also, we're starting this time with a great deal of organization. A fourth account just for bills/rent, that we all drop our monthly payments into, then pay out from. And I do like the idea of the bi-weekly Cosco trip. Hella money saved. It's funny, I feel almost like I'm getting better at using society. Must be some sort of 23 year old thing.

Late reviews

2005-07-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, these issues need to be addressed (and the address is 1234 Fake Street--BAM!): What up with two of the early summer blam-fests? Therefor...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Okay, so when I heard there would be a film of this, I finally got off my illiterate ass and joined an intensive ESL class (seemed faster than those damn "Run Lola Run" books, or whatever they're called). Having learned to read, I picked up (more appropriately "hoisted") my roomate's copy of the Hitchhiker series, and plowed through it. Much of it was vaguely familiar, having seen the oh-so-amazing BBC miniseries long ago ("it's like someting from a dream..."), but much more was not, and I came to the conclusion that the series is hilarious, brilliant, overwhelming, and deep, and, in the end, pointless, and poorly planned. The books set themselves up to be all of those positive adjectives and more; one feels each book leading up to something huge, and when you get to the last page, eyes wide, breath held, hand covering up the next line to stop yourself from skipping down (anyone else do this?)... it just ends. Every book feels like it needs a conclusion. Or perhaps, every element in the series ought to mean more, as it seems to believe it does. Things are picked up and dropped off-handedly, and if they show up again it's unrelated. I enjoyed the books immensly, but, fianlly, they were just passing entertainment, and not the knock-you-on-your-ass that the hype surrounding them (and that I detected in the books themselves) insinuates.

Having said that, I still found myself, in the theatre, going "What? That's not how it goes! I'm not so sure about this..." The movie, like the book, was so fast and confusing and had so much going on, that my idea of holding onto "what the book did" and being able to quickly compare and contrast it with "what the movie did" was... what's the phrase? Ah yes: clusterfucked. This film has once again smacked my crappy face with the obvious and necessary notion that a film and a book are different, and if I try to make them the same, my brain will break. Or possibly shatter. In any case, a small, funny noise will accompany this, and half of my body will go limp. That is to say that the book is perfectly safe and unchanged by anything made in it's name, after the fact. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest demonstrates that brilliantly, with both a fantastic book and an amazing film, and which differ from one another greatly. The book has no Jack Nicholson, but the film has no crazy Chief's POV dream sequences (Tim Burton, I'm looking at you...). This notion is also helpful with the slew of remakes these days: Batman Begins can stand on it's own, and doesn't say anything about the first (and best) Batman movie (with Michael Keaton, not the Adam West one). Oh, am I jumping ahead? Let's get back to The Hitchhiker's Guide.

I ended up seeing the film a second time, once the memory of the book had faded (I used a lot of beer to accomplish this quickly), and I really really liked it! The beats work very well, the jokes all have an excellent weight to them, never being a huge deal, but also each having their own place. The effects are fantastic. Every time they'd try to wow us with the scale of something (which is what these stories are really about: the universe being big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. And so on.) they wowed us. They sort of used what we've all seen in sci-fi CG movies to their advantage, and just when we're thinking "Oh I've seen this already" they'll twist it or expand upon it and suddenly we're wowed again. And the rhythm was fast, which is exactly what the books warrant from a film-version. When the film would go off on some side adventure that wasn't in any previous Hitchhiker's Guide incarnation (there have been like six), it didn't interrupt the flow, or seem unnatural. It fit right in with the weirdness! And speaking of weirdness, the Vogons looked great. They were everything a British-born space monster ought to be. Big, ugly, outraogusly life-like. It's so cool that the director decided against using CG for these creatures--the Jim Henson crew did a fuck of a good job. Only when the Vogon "soldiers" lined up to kill our heroes did the original "Vogonity" start to waver: I felt the tension of these moments was little to none, since the whole point is that Vogons suck at taking any action. We know they're incompetent, and horrible marksmen, so why are our heroes scared? Perhaps they needed an elite species for the face-offs, that could provide a bigger threat. Vogon Navy Seals or something.

The romance seemed a bit unfounded (I see why Arthur wants Trillian, but why does Trillian feel the same?), but it remained sweet, so it wasn't off-putting. Mos Def is a really good actor, I don't care what anybody says, I want to see more of this charming rapper/actor (or "raptor" as I prefer). And Marvin was perfect. The bulky 50's sci-fi look he had in the miniseries was too obvious. In this film, they went for a more streamlined, though still goofy look (for Marivn and the starship Heart of Gold), like Apple Computers is designing everything. Alan Rickman is clearly a popular guy to cast nowadays, but for good reason. And The Guide! Holy crap how beautiful was this thing? Stephen Fry + Flash animation is the best thing since sliced bread (and if you can toast it while you slice it, even better!). It showed up exactly when it needed to, to clarify and expand upon something, and the accompanied visual gags (all original) were perfect. Somebodies gonna have to make an actual Hitchhiker's Guide just so we can se more of this thing.

In the end, this film is worth seeing many a time. A good solid story (even if nothing really happens) that never loses it's way (even though it makes a point of losing it's way), with acting and visuals to support, while going way beyond, the material. And what about that cameo?!

Still to come: Sin City and Batman Begins. (At least I already got the remake discussion out of the way!)

Godspeed James Doohan

2005-07-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

...Sigh... The legendary James Doohan passed away yesterday. He had made peace with his type-casting as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, he had made peace with William Shatner being a jackass. He had found, after three tries, a woman with whom he could spend the rest of his life. I guess that settles it... But even so, and even though I had never met the man, I will miss him. There was a special love about him. A sweetness that I imagine was not just the Scotty character, and not just the polished front of his autobiography. Like all of the actors in that campy reprisentation of that perfect world, I love him, because he, and all the other parts, were and are uplifting, and rich. Deep in how paper-thin it all was. Like listening to a favorite album on vinyl, there's a hue, and a blood to original Star Trek that transcends beneath the nerddom and the fanaticism. It's the hope of Gene Roddenberry, and the earnestness of the cast and crew. A lack of the current attempts to be cool, or tongue-in-cheek. It's certainly hip to watch the show iromically, laughing at the unintended jokes, but I cringe at the underhandedness of derisive laughter. And I smile at the blaring horns of any dramatic cue, the superimposed model of the Enterprise flying impossibly through space, past blindingly vibrant planets (whether bright green or bright red). The film quality, the sound quality. How straight-forward the stories were. No narrative tricks (other than the transporter stranding the crew in a dangerous situation over and over and over again). It was a gentle attempt to wow us, and to makes us laugh, and somehow, for me, it still works.

The show feels like love. And though the loss of one of it's actors doesn't do anything to the episodes and films that have long already been made, I still mourn his death. Just as the death of DeForrest Kelly knocked me on my ass. And more recently, Jerry Goldsmith. Three of the sweetest old men I'd never met (much to my dissapointment), that are now probably on the most amazing adventure yet, whatever it is, out there, beyond our imaginations. How fitting.

Touchdown rulez/sobriety drulez

2005-07-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

I've had so many people emailing me after that last post and asking "What's Touchdown? Where do I get it? What if you tire before it's done?" etc. And I'm all "Relax! It's just a drinking game!" and then there's that collective "Ohhhhh..." from the audience -- you know the one. So let me explain these rules, and then you will KNOW the best drinking game out there.

Touchdown
by Nick "Jersey-kid" Lastname

This game was created by a friend of my best friend, in an effort to force he and his friends to finish four forties of Steel Reserve. Yep. Fucking nast. However, if you are too flappy a vagina to down such nasty, awesome malt liquor, a nicer forty will suffice. We did it with Pabst. In any case it's gotta be a double-deuce, or a forty. Big bottle.

Four people sit around a table, each with a forty. One quarter is needed. A kicker is elected/assigned, and their turn, as well as the first round, begins. The kicker announces "Kick off!" to warn everyone, then places the quarter on their thumb, ready to flip. They then announce what side is up, in the appropriately football-themed "laces out" (heads up) or "laces in" (tails up), and they flip. Catch, put it on your arm, and hold it, covered. Each of the other three players must now decide if they think it's landed heads, or tails. This is key: until everyone has announced their decision, the quarter must stay covered. No one has to agree, because once the flip is revealed, those who got it wrong have to drink! Those who guessed the flip correctly are spared.

Here's where it gets interesting (more so). If all three other players agree on what they think the flip will be, and they are all correct, the kicker must drink for each other player. That's thrice! When this success is revealed, all the non-kicker players yell "Touchdown!" and high-five. This is key. It's up to players to decide to go down that road. Don't be a sheep, stick to your beliefs, but consider the sweet victory of forcing the kicker to drink a lot.

That turn is over, it's the person to the kicker's left who now becomes the new kicker. Play continues. When the fourth person's turn ends, the round ends, and kicker #1 goes again.

So, you are player A, the kicker, and around the table is player B then C then D. You flip, hold the quarter, covered on your arm, and player B and C say "heads!" and D says "tails!", and you reveal it to be... tails! B and C must drink! D is chillin'. A new kicker, player B, gets the quarter, flips, and you, and C and D all agree (possibly after some coercing) that it's heads! Player B reveales it to be... heads! You and B and C yell "Touchdown!" and high five, while player B (still the kicker) drinks for each of you! Glug glug glug.

Play until someone wins, by finishing their fourty. Then get more! Other ways to win are the first person who can't lift their bottle, or the first person to vomit off the edge of their deck.

Now there are a few more points to make this game truly great. Let it be known that any penalties are rewarded(?) with a drink. The following are penalties:

Dropping/failing to catch the quarter (this slippery slope has people with poor motorskills only getting worse).
Drinking when the game hasn't assigned you to do so ("I'm gonna drink... woops that's a penalty--now I have to drink.").
Losing the quarter altogether. This is such a big deal that in some circles, the penalty here is to finish your entire forty. Right now. Be on the deck, ready to "win". Find a new quarter and continue playing.

Finally, there are two lightning rounds, during which all drinks are doubled, be they standard play, or penalties. So if you get a touchdown, the kicker must drink twise as many as three. Six times. If you fumble the quarter, you drink twice. Lightning rounds last for one round, so until the player who was kicker at the time it started, becomes kicker again (lightning round may continue through that flip as well, if you so choose). The first lightning round is the last player to get their beer level to the top of the label on the bottle. As soon as this happens, ENTER THE LIGHTNING ROUND!! The second lightning round is the first player to get their beer level to the bottom of the label on the bottle. When this happens, ENTER THE LIGHTNING ROUND!! It has happened that two lightning rounds have coincided. Johnny Chugalug over here gets his beer to the bottom of his label and a second later Pussy McNoDrink finally gets his beer tothe top of his label. This is known as the Sunfire Round, during which all drinks are quadrupled! A penalty is four drinks! The touchdowned kicker must drink four times three players: 12 motherfucking times. Any special round only lasts one round, so don't go crazy.

Enjoy! This is seriously the coolest game ever, and you and your friends will wonder how they ever lived out in the cold windy world without it. Tell what you think of it, I love hearin' the stories! There are legends told of a God and Satan round, something about four consecutive heads or four consecutive tails... but that's only legend.

The previous game should not have been played by minors. Seriously. Unless they're drinking milk. Also, don't drink and drive. If your hungry, order pizza. But don't hit on the lady delivering the pizza. Why don't ladies ever deliver pizza? Always guys. Don't hit on them either. Be safe and responsible. Drink lots of water before you pass out. You'll thank me tomorrow morning, when you wake up with me in your bed, puking all over myself. Seriously, don't drink alcohol if you know you shouldn't be.

Happy Birthday!

2005-07-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

Well this one guy I know, Scott, he turned 39. But then this other girl, Alice, she turned 21! Now when she said "let's go to a brewery!" I thought "Pshaw, you're just makin' things UP!" and so she elaborated and KAZAM! We set out to Woodenville, for a feisty game of Find the Obscure Location! After maybe a half hour of discovering new windy roads, which missed us the tour, and thu still know nothing of the brewing process, micro or otherwise, we began the drinking. You see there's six things that you can become parched without, and each "parchment" is different. The key is to be able to tell the diference between these, and they are this:

1. Food
2. Water
3. Air
4. Empty blatter/bowels
5. Love (possibly most important)
6. Alcohol (I am hung over right now)

These are the six. We need heat and shelter, but a lack of that doesn't really produce a parched feeling. No, it's only these six. No arguing. So, if you are thirsty, you probably need water, and often if you're feeling hungry, you actually just need water (lose weight now! Ask me how!). But there are times, and this really is key, when you think you need water, but you actually need alcohol! Is this making sense? See, people somtimes try to say "Well, that's just your drug of choice. I'd rather drink coffee or smoke cigarettes or snort a line of coke." but they fail because I'm simultaniously yelling "Shut up talking mouth! I hate your words and I hate this island!" Then I urinate in public. The point IS, that I am not an alcoholic. Hurrumph.

Finally, before returning to the event in question, I should say that someitmes it's easy to think you are parched for love, because that is a romantic notion. But I have found that though years with no romantic love will affect you, it can affect you for the best. And sometimes that loneliness is a need for a different kind of love. Maybe you love adventure and need to travel. Maybe you love people and you need to throw a party. Maybe, just maybe, you love comic books, and you need to rob the local shop and sell the shitty comics on ebay and put the rest INSIDE YOUR MIND. Or maybe you just need to get laid but in any case, there are often a hundred solutions to one problem.

So Alice has to go eat with her mom so we agree to meet up later and in the meantime we play Touchdown. A good drinking game. Alice shows up and we all agree on a walk up the street to the North City Tavern. It's a joke, but it's only funny if we actually go, so a half hour later we're ordering drinks and everyone around us is a grizzled hick! So, of course, we gotta reprisent by singing A Day in the Life, with me as John and Jacob as Paul. But who has time for karaoke and stumbling when fights are breaking out next to our table?! The bartender kicks several of the grizzled hicks out, more fights, more kicking people out, and just when we decide it's maybe time to leave, Ben shows up randomly, I guess looking for us...? So we hop in his car and on to the next bar! The Getaway, in Mountlake Terrace is also pretty classless, but at least the bartender got our orders right, and the jukebox has more than varying shades of country, so we stay and stay, and it's only last call that tells us to get some sleep. The next day I find my pants in a pile on the livingroom floor, so perhaps I was up longer than I recall? Ben must have driven me home... some vague images of Jesse trying to steal some mugs from the bar, and the bartender being more amused than angry when she caught him. She was so nice to us that I decided to make the ultimate sleaze move and leave my phone number on the credit receipt. I'm an ass. Still, my karma reserve must have been high because I was cool enough to leave a completely random number ("616 doesn't seem right... maybe if I just finish it off with four numbers that sound good..."). See, it's wacky not gross! Heh heh... Oh man...

In the end it's still better than my attempt to tip a bartender with my unfinished drink. Sketch-city.

So happy birthday Alice and here's to a 21-run none of us can remember!

Did you know...?

2005-06-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

Dolphins are the only other species besides humans, who can grow a mustache.

If you lick a beachball that's been sitting in the sun, you will instantly get cancer.

French is the only language that doesn't have a word for "I put my shoes on the wrong feet."

...

A strange balance

2005-06-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

Every time I pass the field near my house, I notice little patches of fog, floating about in the darkness. I thought little of it, just that the field must hold a lot of moisture. But it's not the kid of weather, these days, that would appropriate fog. It's wet, but it's not of variable temperature, really. This has cemented by suspicion that there are buffs, or wisps, or something of that nature that live in the area. Probably have been for thousands of years, and when the city tore down the forest and built a park they just sort of kept hanging out. I've certainly felt the possibility of something... aware of me, when I run around the track. Probably in my head, but possibly not just in my head. Several summers ago, at the city's 50th anniversary celebration, there was a festival there, and a group of southwestern Native Americans played the best music around. Somehow, it fit. Like ancient people's keep track of the important spots, even when "progress" has paved it over.

I've often felt the desire to live in a world like the ones we read about in fantasy novels: why can't there be dragons and spells? Why must real life be so... realistic? Why must "realistic" mean "predictable"? Something I've noticed when I drift in and out of fictional worlds (be they novel, film, or video game), is the recurring theme of a warlike time, perhaps for thousands of years, followed by a peaceful, prosperous time, for thousands of years. Games, especially, require a conflict, and they usually come in the form of the end of a peaceful age. And I've occasionally wondered which would be better? Would I prefer the time of happiness? Or the time of excitement? You know, the old Frodo wants adventure, right up until he gets it, then he sees it's the pits, and he longs for the simple life again. So I'm saying I have caught myself longing for adevnture and excitement, in the very traditional, Final Fantasy sense.

So what if, those fantastic elves and faeries we read about in actual, factual celtic times wnt away because our society became more sensible. What if the Earth seeks this balance, where if the dominant lifeform strives toward logic and proofs and causality, the supernatural fades. The less warlike we become (cause wars are not what they were, back in, say, the 1200's), the more sane the fabric of our universe becomes. "What? You wish to explain the mechanics of everything you see? Okay, no magic, cause that's just not explainable."

Well, in many ways, this country is moving back toward chaos. The White House is no longer interested in exploring science (not the way Clinton was), or throwing money at the bottom of society, in order to boost everyone. Nowawadays, it's kill or be killed. Yell loudest, create your brand name, smile most convincingly, and you'll gain all the power. You'll police the world. And to what end? Just making money--not to help the people. Just to live forever--you and your old white cronies. So perhaps mother nature has responded, in the totally unfounded way I just came up with, by slowly increasing the "magic" factor. Maybe I see wisps because there's room for them again. And mayb soon, we'll see elves! Maybe Tom Daschle will reveal that he's a fire mage from the Zolbrothran Tombs. Maybe us dorks will get what we've always longed for, in an especially weird way.

Maybe I'm a fucking loon.

Melinda & Melinda: two nuthin's is nuthin'!

2005-05-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

I kid, I kid! This film was great! Woody Allen has been playing with storytelling for years, and this is simply his latest experiment. Poepl are all bent out of shape cause hes not as good as the Annie Hall days, but if oyu go back and watch that film, it's got the same meldramatic dialogue, the same self-effacing schtick, the same alternately wacky and stunning moments. He's the same writer and director! There's gonna be a certain shared soul between the work! It's just that we can't discover him for the first time with each new film, so his very particular style can't ever be surprise. When going into his films, people need to realize they are viewing a sort of sketchbook of his, in film. Not to say the projects are incomplete, just that Woody Allen makes a film a year, so if it's not the quintissential embodiment of that time and his art, what does he stress? I think he sees each new film as an opportunity to stretch in a new direction. I go into each film with that in mind: let's see what Woody's cooked up this time 'round... So the characters all live rich, but unfulfilled lives in classy New York. So no one ever really communicates with one another, even if they all talk like Woody. So blubbering little toads end up getting all the women. What do ya want? It's Woody Allen!

To me, it's a joy to sit down and see those stark white opening credits over old-timey jazz. It's a joy to hear the Allen character (Will Farrel, in this case) sputter and trip his way through emotional entanglements. It's all par for the course, but in a new setting (intellectually, not literally) of an old landscape. And maybe I'm just a product of my generation (well who isn't...), but Will Farrel was hilarious! He puts a spin on the aformentioned blubbering little toad that compliments the material and the actor. Farrel's wide-eyed lightning-quick reactions that lead nowhere need heady thought-processes (as opposed to Kickng and Screaming... oy...) to make his huge gestures sensical!

What struck me about the premise (two writers take us into their own interpretations of a story, as seen from a tragic, or comic perspective) was that because one was a comedy, I really felt the saddest ends of the emotions, and during the tragedy, I laughed at what may not have been intended humor. That is to say, because the intended tone was loud and clear, I was reacting to the "non-tonal" moments, most of all. It's as if I was given this wall to lean upon ("this is a funny scene--you can trust that."), so I was looking toward the other end of the story-telling spectrum, and seeing the opposite's elements. Make sense? And that was what Allen was saying, I think. The comedy version of the story was told by the tragedy writer, because he saw the world as tragic, and people therefor need to laugh--so a real life event must be a comedy, becase it's so tragic--see? And the the other story, the darker of the two, was told by a playwrite who apparently writes comedies, and mentioned that his plays are not as popular, because when people step in to fantasy, they want to see a tragedy, since the universe is ultimately comedic. Read that over again, I think you'll understand.

What I'm getting at, is that Allen used this film's strange format to ultimately say that in tragedy is comedy, and in comedy is tragedy. Just look at the movie poster. The tragic side has peopl smiling, while the comic side has them looking serious. It's all a series of crossovers because our minds naturally blend one into another. As the Bare Naked Ladies say "I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral".

Max Boschert-Zielsdorf lives in Seattle, and is a writer for this one blog, and for various pieces of immature graffiti in bus terminals. He doesn't often use the Bare Naked Ladies as intellectual reference pieces, but then occaisionaly he does.

It's about time I STAND UP!

2005-05-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

Dave Matthews Band. Okay I said it, you can stop reading.

The newest album is freaking weird! And I really like it.

I think Dave has gotten weary of working really hard on a crap-load of lyrics. On odd-ball song structures. I think, at this point in his life, he's more excited by the energy of playing music with his family (the band). Of grooving, jamming. The result, is music that's easy to make. And, from a first consideration, that seems bad. Under the Table and Dreaming had many strange and wonderful lines in it. Almost like John Lennon playing with words--making graceful nonsense. There was a careful structure and progression to the album. From start to finish, the art was beautiful. Before These Crowded Streets was a film in sound. And the songs had so many lyrics to them! The Stone had like eight verses! Dreaming Tree only had two verses but they were long! These were works of intense self-searching. Of thoughts that had been stewed over many years. Not so with Stand Up (said newest album). This is pop, as applied to DMB. Loops, few lyrics, often one verse. In interviews Dave said they would create a song a day, or better. This album was about having a blast. But I think that is the soul of good pop.

And still there is some good flow in the middle of the album. Everybody Wake Up leads into Out of My Hands (which does indeed have an unusual structure, and is possibly my favorite in the album), and then follows with Hello Again which leads right into Louisiana Bayou (another contender for my favorite). That four song progression is fantastic! And it's the closest to their old feel, which makes me feel good. Even with all they have gone through--all the changes we've witnessed (after Everyday and Busted Stuff, all bets were off), there is a through-line. The band does have a nut of DMB-ness in it's core. I guess I wasn't so sure! I was ready to accept this album for what it was, but I was expecting something very foreign to me.

So, with this cautious view, I was glad to learn I was falling for the album. I can't go a few days without hearing even the "radio friendly" songs like Dreamgirl and Old Dirt Hill. That song is hip-hop. Summer time. I really love it. And my parents like it! And my DMB-hating friends (who call me a dirty hippy. With friends like these...) like it! Truly now, all bets are off.

The one downside to this, is that with the virtues of good pop, so go the vices. Basically, the songs are going to self-destruct, and I won't be able to pick the album up again for about two years. Like that Smashmouth song All Star. I loved that song! And then I heard it a few thousand times and now I am done forever. And One Week by Bare Naked Ladies. That was on the radio the other day, and I found I still new all the words, and even liked the sound, after all this time. But I'm good again until 2010. That's how pop works.

So, as good as the album is, and as fine a form as the band displays, I'm already reaching for my next CD purchase (Jeff Buckley's Grace--thought I'd give that one a listen, I don't know much about him.), which had been put off when Stand Up arrived in the mail. Stand Up will stay in rotation for a good long while I think. But I miss the days of Crash staying in my CD player for months. Reading along with the lyrics, and noting the flute trills, the hi-hat fills, the base line distills. (I needed the rhyme, what do you want from me?) The work you can return to ad infinitum, and keep pulling out new bits of genius (or distilling those bits--see?). That's the shit. That's the man. We look to the horizon for that. Joltin' Joe has left and gone away.

Oh! And the B-sides are amazing! I adore Trouble With You! It's so beautiful!