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Published on July 31, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

[image:185:l] Like many who are familiar with the Kevin Smith ouvre that started with Clerks, a primary appeal of his Jersey mileu is in inhabiting a world with characters we are familiar with. Smith’s people are like many of us who grew up pop culture junkies with a committed lack of connection to the normal expectations of society. We have rambling conversations about pop culture. We magnify minutiae until it becomes significant. We delight in both the arcane, in ourselves, and in each other. But we relate to the intelligence of Smith’s characters that conveys a hint of dissatisfaction with not only the world they don’t quite fit into, but with their own lives. They know enough to not be satisfied or blissfully ignorant. Like the lighthearted side of Pahlunik’s Fight Club, they represent a generation born to ennui that would rather crack wise than skulls. And they do so with all the painful awareness of just how obsolete they may be in the process of becoming.

Clerks II already has a built in appeal to those eager to visit old friends and celebrate that perhaps malformed sense of nostalgia that goes with reliving something from an earlier, and consequently younger and more hopeful time in our lives. Fortunately Smith gives us more than just a plodding retread of story. He advances the story while still keeping it grounded in the qualities that made it appealing 10 years ago. For me that 10 year gap adds another level of identification since it’s just about that amount of time since I moved to the area I live in now and have been working in the field I work in now. In fact one of the first movies I discovered after moving up here was Clerks. It’s one of the movies I most identify with two of my best friends in that time span who happen to be the other two hosts of this site. Smith’s entire career has spanned my existence in this new place that parallels both the bonds of friendships that sometimes are more important than sexual relationships or work that we see in Smith’s films, as well as mirroring the boredom and cynicism.

With all that in mind, and if you read my past reviews or know me at all, you realize I need more than dick and fart jokes to give my thumbs up to a movie, including the sequel to Clerks. And though there’s plenty of gutter language and borderline taste displayed in the movie it really offered me something to connect me further to the characters and subsequently connect them to myself. That connection to the lives of Dante and Randall in the previous film actually grew exponentially after seeing this one. Their situations mirror my own in just too many ways. That sense Randall has of the world moving on without him, passing him by, is one I have been grappling with. My own obsolescence along with the pop cultural icons that helped define me and that helped me define myself are slipping into nostalgic reminiscences on VH1 as they begin the inevitable descent into complete oblivion when 90′s and aughts nostalgia will feed a younger generations need to recapture youth and hope and my era will be as dead as Fonzies 50′s and your mom’s free loving 60′s.

Though Clerks II has some very funny moments, it is the emotional pull that connects these characters to a time and place, even an outlook, lifestyle, and future, that work to make this more than a silly comedy. Sure it’s fun to hear Randall riff on Transformers and echo my own largely ignored criticisms of The Lord Of The Rings. Jay’s interpretive dance homage to The Silence Of The Lambs is a thing of frightening beauty, the new light cast on porch monkeys is revelatory, and the concept of creatures called pillow trolls both hilarious and slightly upsetting.

But where a connection of lasting importance is formed is in moments like Rosario Dawson talking about why she doesn’t want to get married. There was a private satisfaction in her coolness and riffs on relationships that are the stuff of my vicarious girlfriend dreams.

The connections are formed for me when Randall lets the facade drop and says the things many of us would like to say to our friends. I felt it as The Smashing Pumplin’s “1979″ scores a montage of on the cusp life-altering changes and decisions facing our heros.

And the beauty of those decisions and where they lead in the films conclusion is that it does not pander nor go the route of the traditional expectation for Hollywood fare. I am not “normal,” and neither are the characters in Smith’s films. Sure they must at some point leave certain things behind, grow up a bit, and move on. But the way this is accomplished felt much more true to me and the characters than those out in the “real world,” would usually dictate. The standard desires for our lives have changed as the lie behind the old ones have been exposed over the last few decades. The more recent generation of young people are misfits who find their joys in different places. We wont grow old in quite the same ways with quite the same priorities and needs. Can you imagine your parents playing video games or reading comics? Your grandparents? Would their lives be altered significantly without Instant Messeging and Buddy Lists, or movie trilogies? Did they enter their 40′s still passionate about sitcom reruns from their youths or listening to music as far from the mainstream as Heavy Metal, Punk, or Rap?

Doesn’t seem so to me.

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I’ve often wondered when the moment will come when I start thinking like so called “adults.” When will I become as matter of fact, as disinterested in pop culture, as nuclear familied, or as distanced from the desire for friends and just hanging out, as my parents and the adults I grew up around were?

Well maybe the answer to that is never. I’ve tried to imagine a generation of people like me growing up without getting married, still playing silly games, still immersed in the worlds of fiction available through so many artforms and mediums, and just generally not fitting the normal idea of that word “adult.” It’s been hard at times but maybe that’s due to a failure of imagination on my part. Kevin Smith shares much in common with all the above expectations and characteristics, but when he revisits two icons of that world in Randal and Dante, Smith is able to imagine a future that pays all due costs to the necessities of maturing and change while offering a vision of how to do that without losing those things that matter to us, or becoming what we to some extent fear.

Whether this is all ultimately good for American civilization is an entirely other and very much debatable point. Maybe there is some denial and childishness in someone like me that is decidedly less than a robust and growing country needs to continue that growth. There are dictates of reality and biology we can’t control. Nature favors the fittest and strongest and I don’t know if the above traits lend themselves to those qualities. i don’t know that they don’t. Even within the culture I and Smith allude to there are many different types of many different levels of creativity and strength. What Clerks II offers is a glimpse of how some of those of a particular bent may find a happy medium in maturing and staying true to who they are and what makes them happy. And it makes it just a little bit more ok to to do so even if it denies certain truisms the movie itself brings up.

In particular I refer to Rosario Dawson’s views on relationships, that as I alluded to above are very much aligned with my own, and I think many others who get human nature and the legacy of our selfish genes. And yet she still makes decisions that do enter into the world of expected norms even as it takes place within that safer coccoon of her culture. I like to think it is the knowledge of what we are and have been that will help those like her and myself combat the pitfalls most have fallen into and allow us a different kind of maturity as we enter into relationships and professional choices. Armed with that knowledge maybe a more lasting happiness can be found and easier compromises made. Smith gave me a little reminder that it may be possible, as well as the inspiration to try and strike out in my own unique direction with no apoligies for it being less than what past generations expect. Misfits we may be; hell we may even be the ruin of Western civilization, but at least we’re not alone.

And the movies funny too.

Published on July 1, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 1 Comment

[image:151:l]The mightiest illegal immigrant is back to save us all. Especially Lois.

Well my desire to live life through the man who saves the world for free and doesn’t waste his time in the jungle being dumb as an ape and doing nothing like that lousy Tarzan, finally came to pass with the release of Superman Returns. I admit it, Superman has a special place in my heart. I related more to Spiderman and Batman growing up, but that idealist in me had a special fondness for the ultimate indestructabe, and incorruptable good guy. Sure the Clark Kent guise is corny and the magical hypnotic power of the glasses to overwhelm mens minds, a bit ridiculous. And credulity is strained even more when he and Supes both return from 5 year sabbaticals the same day, and no one at the Daily Planet including intrepid reporter Lois Lane catch on. But hey that’s part of the conceit you have to accept and just go with the flow.

A bigger question might be how Lois Lane went 5 years during the self-imposed exile Superman returns from at the beginning of this movie, without getting herself killed. Supe’s is back in Metropolis a day and the first thing he has to do is bail this chick’s needy ass out yet again. This for a woman who has been culminating the S man’s exile writing a piece called “Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman.” Talk about ungrateful.

But that title and all it implies makes a sort of nice figurative statement for our own culture’s lack of Superman in cinema (there is Smallville on tv), and in spirit over the past 3 decades, which includes the perhaps not so coincidental same 5 year period since 9-11. Surely I’m not the only one to herald the anticiapation for this movie saying to themselves we need Superman. Or maybe I am. But thankfully Earthlings of the cinematic world are alot more receptive to his return than Lois or the Pulitzer committee who are moved enough by her self-serving piece to award Lane that prestigious award for her efforts.

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And while this selfishness is typical of modern media it comes as especially narcissistic from a woman the hero in question turned the Earth backwards for and who continuously puts herself in harms way by doing stupid stuff like riding a fuel filled airborne plane sitting under the first ever space shuttle scheduled to take off from such a position (yeah nothing could go wrong there), and sneaking onto Lex Luthor’s yacht with her kid in tow to snoop around. So you happened to make it 5 years without falling off a building or being kidnapped? But there’s a whole world of people out there Lois who have suffered in the interrugnum. Forget what’s going on inside your skirt for a moment and be a journalist with a broader mind and outlook.

::::Mild Spoiler Alert:::::

Of course Lois changes her mind by movies end and begins a “Why The World Needs Superman,” column when Supe’s bails her out again. This kind of reinforces her selfish motivations that completely ignore an entire planet not so lucky to make it through a half decade without major trauma. But then again Lois has always been a bit self-centered. It’s part of her charm and character. I can live with that. It just seems Superdude should have better taste and not get his britches tangled over an egomaniacal reporter. Hell nobody even reads newspapers anymore. Can’t Supe’s land a cable news anchor? That Soladad babe on CNN is hot and seems very superficial. Perhaps even evil. Why not fly her around and get a look up her skirt?

But again, I’m bringing some of my own media and relationship issues into this.

And you do have to honor the story that brought you here. It’s always been partially about the Lois-Clark-and His Superbness triange of duality. Plus the movie did need something to evoke that absence of heroes and hope I think many feel today. Lois’s article along with the 5 year post 9-11 period, the subliminal split second of past news footage, and shots of the towerless NYC skyline doubling as Metropolis, do make that emotional transition to invoking our own sense of loss and fantasy for a true blue savior of unquestionable integrity. It certainly does that for me. If you’re similarly inclined emotionally and philosophically you’ll probably get something out of the movie. you may even get that tingly and even weepy sentimentality over moments when the quietly authentic goodness and the ability to transfer our physical restrictions and frustrations into a mastery of physics, moved me, momentarily letting me rise above the physical and mental limits that bog me down.

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After all that’s what Superman did for America when Schliegal and Schuster first unleashed him upon a country entering war, dealing with economic realities belying the lies they were sold, and facing the threat of encroaching fascism. Supe’s isn’t alone out there anymore, he’s got more competition than just Jesus now for the indestructable made up savior role. But he’s still an icon that carries some weight in the national, and perhaps the global consciousness.

I don’t think for most of us this is because we want to be Superman. He is after all an alien with gifts and strengths alien to us. But in a world of selfish motivations, gratuitous killing to satiate short term needs of a few, ideologies masking timeless greed, mounting natural global catastrophes, a promise of more, and one in which religion has less and less solace in the face of science, the desire for a savior of irreproachable goodness and without a cult or 800 number, i think many have a deep connection to the idea of a truly super man that can bail us out and like the gods of old, make us feel like his chosen people through his grace.

And though Supe’s does get into his Jesus Christ pose a few times in the movie, and he certainly suffers, ::::Spoiler Alert::::

and even dies for us, this is a Superman not completely without some ego. We see moments where he is doing some basking in it all and self-admiring, a not altogether ungodly trait considering the jealous ones of our wonderful and rich heritage that have brought us such wonders as genocide in those gods names. Supe’s, like Jesus, even has the white bearded discorporeal father figure in the form of Jor-El/Marlon Brando dispensing advice from a long dead past.

And all this human preening fits in with a humanity that lets Brandon Routh get his old One Life To Live chops out as he makes alot of hurt faces and longing gazes over Lois, her boyfriend, and her son of questionable parentage. He even does a wee bit of stalking and illegal domestic eavesdropping that would make Donald Rumsfield proud. Or Luke and Laura. [image:150:l]

This stuff got a little tedious at times for me but Routh managed to carry it off without it becoming mawkish. I thought he was great in general and very evocative of Christopher Reeve, but I’m not sure I like Superman being as heartsick and pathetic over a woman as I would be. This is not to say that he’s all touchy-feely Metrosexual guy here. It’s not that over the top at all. It’s just that I want more detachment from my gods and I want them to have detachment from human desires like sex and emotions like jealousy. Some complained that Superman doesn’t say much during the movie. I like that. Superman should have a little of that kind of mystique about him. I’m ok with him being aloof and unapproachable. He’s the friggin man of steel for Christ’s sake!

I’m also ok with him having a little humanity though the film could have wallowed in it a tad less. 2 and a half hours could have been cut down more efficiently with a little less of the S man hanging around houses using the old x ray vision to peep in on Lois’s domestic normalcy. I know part of him wants that and can never have it. That’s his burden. one of his crosses to bear, but there’s still something creepy about it. Can’t he just do a flyby and shake his head rather than hang like Travis Bickle watching Cybil Shepherd at work? There’s something about long, knowing, subtext filled looks coming from Superman which nature abhors.

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I find it less abhorrent than Lois’s affections for him though which are clearly based on looks and super powers. Really now what could she see in him? They never really talk much. They can’t have alot in common, or mutual backgrounds from which to draw. They’re not even from the same universe much less planet. He’s allergic to Kryptonite, she can’t spell. She’s selfish and self-centered and he’s saving the world on his own time every day. The idea of someone realistically and actually mating with Supes sort of insults me in the way a Christian might be insulted by anyone stating they want to do Jesus. Sure in her world he’s more real than the J man in ours, but he’s still an icon and rep of truth justice and the American way (thankfully he acts globally in the movie which dispenses with such patriotic allegiances and identifications). But then again I suspect many women do lust for Jesus, thus giving us the buff depictions of him in the Western world.

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But relationship issues aside, Superman Returns provides some satisfaction and reward for those of us of that iconic bent who need a hero. There’s some nice effects that convey a sense of Superman’s powers while still giving a sense of realism, physics, and gravity that make it all the more compelling. Kevin Spacey is fine as Luthor but there’s only so much awe insiring you’re going to get from a middle aged guy with no physical skills. Which is ok for a movie where you can play on his whole need to prove brains over braun, but I’d like to see future movies find a more terrorfying villain.

It would also have been nice if they could have gone a bit further with Luther’s notion of Superman as a withholding god and he himself as Promotheus attempting selflessly to steal boons from such gods and gave them to the people. In reality we all have rationalizations for our horrid deeds and Luther is on to something there, but it’s quickly discarded with a joke about his cut of the profits and an obviously selfish and inhuman dismissal of all the millions whom his plan would kill. I’d have loved to see Luther have even more of an argument since we deal more in shades of grey than black and white. Though Superman’s appeal is partly out of his own clear heroism, I think the character could stand up to some moral ambiguity in contrast to a misguided but not alltogether wrongheaded villain. If they’re going to have him be a peeping tom and getting all vainglorious about himself, I think we can take that next step and do more with Lex’s line about gods flying around in a red cape and not sharing their superior technology with us.

But all in all SR is a decent new entry into the superhero movie annals and a worthy homage to the first 2 Christopher Reeve starred films. Reeve and his recently deceased wife Dana receive the movies dedication in the credits, which is only appropriate as the man I grew up identifying Superman with. Even after reading the comics before and after, Reeve was always Superman, no less so after his accident which he used to heroically try to make a statement and improve lives.

As far a superhero movies, unlike most people I’ve read, I’d have to rank this a bit behind Batman Begins while being about on par with Spidey 2, which I really need to watch again to get a full on impression. I don’t know how much rewatch value SR will have just yet as its hard to seperate the myth and legend and what it conjures in my heart and mind from the movie, but if you’re inclined towards heroes in tights and aren’t alarmed at men in capes, you’ll probably get enough out of this puppy to make it worthwhile even if you don’t come out quite as exhilerated as you wish you could be again.

:::::::Major Spoiler Alert::::::::

How can Lois have a kid with Superman and not remember his identity? In Superman 2 he erased her memory of their affair and his revelation when he resumed his life as Superman. Did she not know he was the father until the piano? Did she then piece things together? Wouldn’t that be upsetting? Make her feel violated? There doesn’t seem to be any surprise, but her sexual escapades with him coincided with his revealing his identity. How can she be aware of one and not the other? I guess they could have had sex again later but really makes him seem flighty and really inconsiderate after making the decision he made.

Just a small nitpick. [thumb:155:l]

Published on June 15, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

[image:139:l] In terms of revenue and reviews this is being called Pixar’s first failure. Judging it from the trailers dating back to last year I wasn’t enthhused myself. But after seeing it i’m here to report that I enjoyed it and was even moved emotionally by getting a long forgotten taste of kicks on Route 66.

It’s still doing ok financially and the reviews haven’t been bad, but people have come to expect more from Pixar, so the buzz has been less than enthusiastic. The movie isn’t exactly hilarious. I chuckled at a few things. But if you’re looking for alot of laugh out loud moments you’ll be disappointed.

But I have to say i liked this alot better than Finding Nemo , and didn’t think it any less funny than Toy Story. Monsters Inc remains my favorite Pixar effort for combining ideas, animation, and humour. Cars arrested me as much in some areas as any of those films, and gave me a better story fix than the last Pixar effort. As you would expect the movie looks amazing. There are times I think I’m looking at 3 dimensional video rather than animation and cgi. But at those times the lines blurr I still feel enveloped in the hermetic seals of a fantasy world offering escape and wonder. Maybe people have gotten innoculated to such wonders from Pixar and modern animation in general, but I still felt that alone made the movie worthwhile.

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Of course I’d be disappointed if it were all visuals. Sure I wanted more laughs, but I did get story that resonated with me. I don’t want to recap the storyline here since most probably have an idea, but it’s a nostalgia laced coming of age story that teaches lessons about the need to slow down and appreciate what’s around you as opposed to racing through life at a frantic pace trying to impress other people. Or cars.

Lightning McQueen as voiced by Owen Wilson is a rookie race car that’s a self-obsessed hotshot who gets lost in a nowhere town in mid America off the famed Route 66 of song and film. But it’s been bypassed literally and figuratively, by the world, in the form of the interstate highway that’s left the small town of Radiator Springs, a broken down relic dimly recalling the the kind of quintessential mid century small town Americana invoked in Lucas’ American Graffiti.

McQueen’s changing outlook towards the town and what it represents, as well as the town towards him may be a standard formula, but for me it works because of the hyper-real world of animation which allowed me to wriggle loose of the cynical standards of pure realism I’d bring to a live action film. Even as I reveled in the big city racing scenes that bookend the film I cared about the town and after wanting McQueen to leave it just as much as he did, I settled in and was kind of reluctant to go. I even got a little misty about some of the memory chords the movie invoked for a simpler time in our country. This is despite the fact that I wasn’t alive for it and I know enough to realize it really wasn’t that simple of idealic.

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I can’t say I cared all that much about the relationship with McQueen and the sexy blue Porche that left the city for small town living, but this was mainly because I felt Bonnie Hunt’s comic talents were kind of wasted on the character. I cared more about his relationship with the tow truck who befriends him and takes him out to tip tractors late at night. The Porsche’s role is still vital though as she shows him a view of her world no other character could have showed him. This is also true of the Paul Newman voiced Hudson, the small town judge who comes with a big town secret and a little turtle and hare wisdom.

I liked the way a symbolic lesson as taught to McQueen through racing not only invokes so many counterintuitive lessons of our lives, but how when it comes into play in a moment of culmination, the movie just lets it happen quietly without knocking the audience over the head with a “this is a big payoff and harkens back to what we learned earlier,” fanfare.

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When i said the movie isn’t all that funny, that shouldn’t be taken to mean it’s not full of cool and humorous ideas. George Carlin voicing a 60′s Volkswagon van for instance. Or flies that if you look closely are tiny VW bugs. Little moments like the way Newman’s Hudson presides over his court on a mechanics car lift, and the choice of music some neon lighted highway troublemakers use, really pleased me. These kinds of things combined nicely with the movies slow pace and humility in creating a nice moviegoing experience.

Some have lamented that pace in reviews, and I do see their point. Maybe you just have to see it in the right frame of mind. But I think since one of the movies main points is that taking a measured and more considered pace to life is necessary, the movie is purposefully paced this way to drive that point home even if on a subconscious level. Perhaps those that don’t get it are the ones most in need of its lessons.

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Published on June 7, 2006 in ..The Dude, Music, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 6 Comments

[image:134:l] After getting a chance to absorb the new album I'm definitely in approval mode. You can buy it here Amazon.

Like most great things it's getting better after a first spin or two that left me a bit lukewarm.

P.J. has been getting alot of buzz with this new one. That's kind of an oxymoron for a band that seemingly dedicated itself to the committed and passionate avoidance of all publicity. Maybe that's why they made this a self titled album, a designation usually reserved for debuts. But now they're out there doing the interviews, posing for the magazines, and even making their first video since the brilliant "Do The Evolution," from the underrated Yield album. This one will be for the first single that actually was #1 for a bit a few weeks ago, "World Wide Suicide". The song, like the album, has a clear political point of view. WWS is a catchy number with pointed lyrics underlying the quiet part of the war through the loss felt at home:

Medals on a wooden mantle/ Next to a handsome face/ That the president took for granted/ Writing checks that others pay/ And in all the madness/ Thought becomes numb and naive/ So much to talk about/ Nothing for to say.

The album still isn't selling bucket loads but it may do so over time when the boys release more singles and people hear that there is more to this puppy than just WWS. "Marker In The Sand," is likely to be a single and I'll be curious to see what kind of reception it gets if it is so. It's a song that reveals its pleasures slowly, which when all is said and done works better. Pearl Jam may not blow you away with easy hooks and choruses but unlike those tunes that do I can still enjoy a PJ song years later. Not that sweet poppish tunes can't be enjoyed. The Beatles stuff still holds up for the most part, though I'd have to say the earlier and simpler "I Want To Hold Your Hand," stuff hasn't had quite the staying power as "A Day In The Life," or "Revolution." PJ write songs more like Happiness Is A Warm Gun though usually mixed with a Who-ish classic rock sensibility and various alternative and punkish influences like Fugazi and The Stooges.

Although, there is actually a very uncharacteristic Beatlesque number called "Parachutes," on the new album that took some time to penetrate but has managed to get under my skin. Despite not having a real overt chorus to give us a sense of place it kind of meanders pleasantly in a way that feels to me like a sweet mix of "Across The Universe" and "Norwegian Wood" sans the sitar. It appears to be a troubled relationship song that's managed to get me humming snatches here and there goading me with its harmonic lyric-guitar relationship that perhaps servs as the musical equivalent of the symbiosis necessary in the human kind.

One of my favorite tunes in "Unemployable", a short and to the point song without the clear ending or outcome you'd find just as lacking if you were one of the unfortunate many who find themselves in the position of the title character. The song creates immediately recognizable imagery and recognition as Eddie starts out singing:

He's got a big gold ring that says "Jesus Saves"/ And it's dented from the punch he threw at work that day/ When he smashed the metal locker where he kept his things/ After the big boss said, "You best be on your way."

Immediately we get a sense of that cultural divide that has inexplicably divided many Americans from natural comrades. The song also has a great chorus that sort of reminds me of a cross between The Beach Boys and The Ramones with its "Who-oh-oh," hook.

As you may have guessed there's a political flavor to the album that finds outlets here and there even when not being overt about itself. I could be wrong but there seems to be a religious statement being made as well, no doubt again influenced by that cultural divide Unemployable invokes.

For one we get the aforementioned "Marker In The Sand". I heard it on the radio for the first time the other day and I'm curious to see what if any reaction it gets compared to WWS. My take on the tune is that Vedder is lamenting the direction that religion has taken as its true messeges have been buried deep in the sand. THis made me think of the Bush Sr line about a line in the sand echoed in The Big Lebowski, and how religion is too often coopted as a tool for justifying such acts of aggression that such lines puts me in the mind of. But as Eddie sings:

Now you got both sides claiming killing in god's name/ But god is nowhere to be found, conveniently.

The song builds to its ultimate payoff in the final version of the chorus as Eddie plaintively asks and demands, "God what do you say." The song calls god out to answer for things while possibly doing the same of us. Maybe this is because we invented him or because we're not living up to god's divine standard. But the final version of this refrain in the song adds a sweet touch to its earlier more stolid and angry reading of the line and its last word, much as Vitalogy's "Betterman," did with that final "man," in "Can't find a better man."

Religious and political connotations appear here and there, or at least my imagination makes such interpretations when in one of the more punk inspired songs, "A Life Wasted", I hear Vedder sing:

Your always saying that there's something wrong/ I'm starting to believe its your plan all along…/ Nothing back there for you to find/ Or was it you, you left behind.

I'm not sure he's suggesting the connection to the Left Behind series, but I like to think he is. I guess that's one of the beauties of leaving your songs vague enough for everyone to find some personal truth in. THis is the current video, which I must admit I absolutely hate. Haven't gotten to see theWWS video, but if Life Wasted's is any indicator of their direction in that art form, they should have stopped at "Do The Evolution".

Other songs like "Gone", "Come Back", and "Inside Job" have a spiritual sense more in the tradition of such PJ songs such as "Off He Goes" (especially in "Gone"), "Release', "Indifference", and many more. "Gone" has a Springsteen-like air of moving on meloncholy tinged with blue collar urban truth. The 7 minute album closer, Inside Job has some nice high-low dynamics as Eddie laments how hard it is to keep faith as he vows to continue to do so no matter how hard the world makes it.

But the album doesn't appear to be all polemics and spirit as we get the punk tinged "Comatose" and "Severed Hand", which like "Parachutes", seems to invoke failed relationships. BUt on further consideration perhaps the latter tune does invoke that spiritual element, which is there in one of the catchier choruses of the album which goes,

If I don't lose control/ Explore and not explode/ A preternatural other plane /With the power to maintain/ Like a tear in all we know/ Once dissolved we are free to grow/ What is human? What is more?/ I'll answer this/ When I get home.

The brutality and longing conveyed by Ed's voice just in that one last word, "home," is in and of itself a story that makes the song worthwhile.

Quite a few songs on Pearl Jam, or as some have come to call it Avocado, or the Blue Album (though the last was kind of taken by Weezer), have managed to get under my skin at different times which is a rare pleasure in an album. It seems everyday there is a different tune trying to burst out of my head. And as painful as this sounds, in the realms of Rock & Roll fandom, it's a very good thing.
And it does this while invoking alot of different feels like the "Spin The Black Circle"-esque punker "Comatose", and the aforementioned "A Life Wasted," and "Gone," which not only invokes The Boss, but one of my favorite PJ songs, "Off He Goes."

This is not to suggest that these songs repeat work the band has done. Every band has particular grooves you either like or dislike and PJ's are certainly not for everyone. But for those who do dig what they do and what they've done, they'll hear and appreciate the echoes of past favorites while at the same time getting a completely new album unlike anything the band has done. Which is quite an accomplishment for any band 16 years after its debut.

But then again this is a band that put out a double CD of B sides and rarities 2 years ago that was among the best albums of that time span in my opinion.

It's too early for me to rank this with past studio works as many fans are doing, though I can say it's better than the last 2 studio albums (which have their share of good stuff). Most people are putting it 3rd to Vs and Vitalogy, with some ranking Ten ahead as well. I'm a big fan of Yield which is a greatly underappreciated album the likes of which I didn't think I'd hear again from the boys. But they've managed to make an album that just might rank with or ahead of it in time, though the other two will be hard to ever surpass. Considering how great they were Pearl Jam still ranks as probably the best 8th album or output from a 16 year old band I'll likely ever hear.[image:135:r]

Published on March 23, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 3 Comments

[image:115:l] It’s such a rare thing to go to the movies and see something that challenges you to think or act. Few movies are about ideas as much as they are about actors, images, and technology. Still fewer are those movies that can combine good acting startling images, fx, and ideas. When that happens it tends to make for a movie that gets under my skin and becomes a favorite of mine. I’m happy to report that it’s happened again with V For Vandetta.

I’m not familiar with the 80′s comic by Alan Moore that this is based on, nor do I know Moore’s reasons for taking his name off the movies credits and disassociating himself from it. Obviously the original was not an allegory for the Bush administration while this certainly has Patriot Act era undertones. Taking place in the 2020′s we even see old news footage of anti-Bush demonstrations that are protesting events including Iraq that are alluded to as being part of the chain of events leading to the authoritarian Britain of the film’s present. Exposing and avenging a long running government conspiracy is at the root of the actions of the masked lead nicknamed V and played by a Hugo Weaving. We never see Weaving who is not so much a hero but the welcome villain the governemnt has created and that they and the people deserve. It’s a bit annoying to try and listen to a man speak who’s mouth I can’t see move, but on some level it works as a symbol of V’s status as the voice of the oppressed speaking from a collective muffled silence so that all may speak freely again. Fortunately for this theory it is backed up by later imagery of the film in which V’s role as everyman and his plan for the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot of 4 centuries ago, come together. I found the visuals of the movies culminating actions epic and exillarating for both the cinematic scope of them and their kinship to the themes that they gave visual representation for.

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There’s alot of dialogue to sift through and wax philosophic about in V and I’m not sure I agree with all of it; but it’s certainly all interesting and worthy of debate. V believes for instance that the people should not be afraid of their government but rather governments should be afraid of the people. While being an inspiring line that appeals to the anarchist in me I’m not sure I want to live in a world where average citizens run amok causing chaos when they’re not happy. Of course if the choice is one or the other I might waiver and I certainly want politicians fearing for their jobs. Preferably they’d lose them through voting rather than beheading though. Otherwise were in Robespeirre country and watching revolutions eat their young.

But much of what V stands for, says, and does is operating on that higher level of genius that is beyond simple black and white colorations. While he kills alot of innocent people he is admittedly a product of system, a sort of Frankenstein’s monster turning on it’s creator with all that creatures ill-fashioned clumsiness and lack of subtlety. And yet he is still charming, brilliant, heroic, and human. Natalie Portman becomes his connection to humanity and the relationship between the two is genuinely interesting and meaningful. At his core V may just be a vulnerable and rejected man just looking for a little acceptance and connection. Just feeling as if he’s understood by someone he respects and gets him makes a world of difference in the end.

The whole segment that leads to Portman shaving her hair is interesting in and of itself. I can’t mention much about it here due to its spoiler potential, but I will say that it connected with something I’d been thinking about alot lately regarding froth coming through hardship, and becoming free by losing one’s self and ego. [image:116:l]

I really liked the movie and don’t discount my bias towards its political message as being part of the reason. It’s probably not a non-partisan movie or one that conservatives would find as truly disturbing and incendiary as I did. At least not in a good way. The mask V hides behind is intended to look like the Gunpowder Plot mastermind Guy Fawkes and after the movie I wanted to don me a John Hinckley mask and take to the streets in the name of the ever decreasing abstractions freedom, justice, and liberty. This is probably one of the reasons many will dislike this film and I certainly don’t advocate a bloodspree. But in a country where the media is owned by corporations that own the politicians, a country where 1% control 90% of the wealth, and one in which the President makes laws and breaks them at will with no ramifications we might soon be at the point where we have nothing to lose but our chains.

Published on March 14, 2006 in ..The Dude, Literature, Politics, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

[image:104:l] This is probably one of the more balanced and “non-partisan” tomes written about the post 9-11 fall out and invasion of Iraq. That’s a bit of a mixed compliment because if someone is right and has the facts on their side who really cares if their partisan. That’s one of the right’s favorite tactics. To discredit an argument simply because its coming from a “liberal,” and move people away from the fact that the person is armed with an unguarded Iraqi munitions dump full of facts. But I do mean it as a compliment in author George Packer’s case for bringing not only an introspective American eye to Iraq but one that examines the conflict from the street level eyeview of ordinary Iraqi’s and U.S. soldiers who run the gamut of emotions and points of view regarding an occupation that whatever its nefarious motivations, had a chance to be successful, but got bogged down in the usual incompetence, ideological rigidity, and arrogance of an administration becoming all too known for those characteristics.

Packer starts the book with one of my favorite chapters that deals with the ideological underpinnings of the neo-cons including their historic roots in liberal intellectual history dating back to the far leftist movements of the 30′s. More recently, then Secretary of Defense under Bush Sr, Dich Cheney, commisioned a paper called the Defense Planning Guidance which Paul Wolfowitz oversaw. Parts of it were leaked to the N.Y. Times and drew criticism so Bush, not too happy with it anyway due to his more “realistic” foreign policy philosophies, ordered it changed. But it’s heart remained intact. It said things like, “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival,” and talked about stuff like American preeminence and discouraging competition by increasing defense spending. Once it was toned down the clueless media of 92 gave Cheney credit for bringing a cooler head to things and reigning in the rambunctious Wolfowitz. Then in 02 came Bush Jr’s National Security Strategy which basically said all the same stuff as the 92 paper outlining the Bush Doctrine, which Cheney, as everyone now knows, used as a vessel for his belief system.

These were clearly guys who didn’t believe as Bush Sr and other realists like Kissinger did, in balance of power and acting in vital national interests. The real tipping point in the balance of power was when Reagan got power. In him people like Jeane Kirkpatrick, who criticized Carter for his committment to silly things like human rights because it undermined our friends like Nicaragua, South Africa, and at that time Iran, had their ideological love child. Sure those authoritarian despots weren’t perfect. They tortured, had death squads, openly practiced segregation etc etc, but hey at least they weren’t Communists. And if we didn’t protect them they might become red some day. Reagan wet his pants when he heard that and hired Kirkpatrick as UN ambassador right after he was elected. Reagan then had one more cohort that would stand by and allow his crimes against the country including his illegal dealing with the Contras and attempting to help El Salvador whitewash mass murders, including the El Mezote incident. Bonzo’s favorite president had people around him who would wink and “get it,” when Ronnie would pretend to not know any of this was going on or that he didn’t remember any of what he did know.

Packer gets into alot of the connections between right-wing players, their influences, and concerted efforts to silence those who weren’t on board with their worldview. It’s all interesting stuff, as is most of the book I can’t begin to get into here, but one of those key groups of interest that provided an ideological excuse to the invasion was of course former Iraqis who hadn’t been anywhere near the country in decades.

The Iraqi exiles such as Kanan Makiya and Ahmad Chalabi were at the forefront of the push to invade. Packer gets deeper into their influence, or at least their beliefs which gave the administration another sector they could claim showed how easy this invasion would be. The ultimate goal was to plug many of these guys into key roles once in Iraq. Chalabi especially was set up as the heir apparent head of the new government. Of course the administration never bothered to look at things like Chalabi’s absence from Iraq for the better part of half a century, his chance to gain personally by feeding the U.S. reports of flowers and candy waiting to be thrown at us, and the fact that he’s a wanted criminal embezzler. Or maybe they did.

But they were one of many policy friendly chickenhawks who had all the pull in the decision making and who wouldn’t challenge the idea that American interests and values always go together. This is an idea Bush has hinted at before and which comes from a head of the think tank the Project for the New American Century, Robert Kagan, who had formed many of his beliefs in the crucible of the Reagan years where he wrote speeches for administration officials and helped developed S. American policy. He is one of those key roots in the corrupted and dessicated tree of neo-conservatism Packer traces for readers. He, along with guys like Paul Wolfowitz affirmed a more proactive American foreign policy that would no longer condone those that Kirkpatrick had once called for coddling. We should shape the world and bring democracy everywhere . No more putting up with bad guys anywhere.

Packer is critical of left and right in the book, often chastising liberals for their naivete and pointless griping, which I actually enjoyed. Some of it was warranted and some I thought, not so much. But mostly I grew agitated with his selective criticisms of the right. When he writes about the above policy he does so with a certain reverence, or at least respect, but calls no attention to the fact that the only places we ever want to bring democracy too are places where we stand to gain economically. I’m sure he would answer such criticism with more brushing off like flies the liberal tendency to believe we live in a perfect world where there is no acceptance that some bad things have to happen to get some good results. While I don’t disagree with this sentiment entirely it is a bit too glib and pat, and for all its realism, it still comes up short in the ethics and morality department where people in Darfur are dying and dying, wishing a few of those troops getting killed in Iraq for ideological reasons were there to keep them from just plain dying. And I bet they wouldn’t throw IDE’s at them.

Packer gives the case for the more learned side of the right-wing argument for invasion while himself questioning the administrations motives and sincerity. But for those he paints as true idealists like Wolfowitz I still have to wonder how it jibes with some of the right’s anti-intellectualism. There’s alot of nice intellectual rationalizations for this whole thing that are out there, many served up nicely and succinctly in this book, but it still sounds like people with pro war motivations who stand to gain looking too deep for a reason to cover their pure pragmatism and greed. Even with Packer’s balanced look there is still a strong sense of evidence being overlooked purposefully while user friendly evidence was cherry-picked based on the predisposition the lookers with a long standing interest in invasion brought to the search. Some of the searchers may have even been consciously unaware of their manipulations of reality as they gravitated naturally to outrageous sources like Chalabi and other ivory tower detached personages with an interest to be gained like the exiles and the Pentagon warhorses invested in themselves and companies profiting from the war.

Packer acknowledges much of this but sometimes I felt a bit too cavalierly, perhaps he himself vested too deeply in the world of detached intellectuals he offers a critical look inside of.

A large section of the book takes place in Iraq where a picture is painted of a liberation that had a chance to succeed but became a hated occupation because of bad planning and that very tendency to ignore those who didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear and listen only to those friends who did. Guys like the State Department’s Drew Erdmann in Iraq working for the Coalition Provisional Authority were ignored when they dared do some research and provide expert analysis as to why the U.S. couldn’t succeed without international support and more troops. Pre-invasion we had seen many goverment employees fired for not getting in lock-step with the administration. Men like Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki were fired for testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee that we need far more troops that Rumsfeld was telling people. The admin economic advisor met a similar fate for tellling them how much more the war would cost than what they wanted people to believe, or maybe even believed themselves in their neverending incompetence and committment to delusion.

But in Iraq the troops, the CPA, and Iraqi people were seeing firsthand in frustrating after frustrating example how incompetent and detached the administration really is. The book is full of departments and agencies with vague purposes, unclear intent, and misapplied personnel. There’s one exchange as CPA officials are literally entering Iraq and looking at each other in a sort of comedy routine as each is asking what the plan is and hoping the other guy had the plan. It’s more interesting than it sounds because Packer tells the stories from the ground interspersed with the trials and evolution over the first couple of years of the invasion of different American and Iraqi people and families. Seeing the way these people live, and the kind of commonplace torture that was life under Hussein does give one pause who wishes we weren’t there. Alot of hate and ignorance pervades Iraq, but there are also alot of bright and hopeful people with an amazing amount of perspective for people so isolated and oppressed for so long.

But those sectarian differences we see erupting into a potential civil war now, one which Packer foresees as a possiblilty, offer a real testimony to how far even the more enlightened Iraqis have to go. The lack of imagination of many of both the educated and non-eduacted is really striking. Everything is so ethnically and sexually identified to them that even having been aware of this before the invasion, it’s first hand accounts made me feel a new sense of hopelessness.

We’re talking about a nation where whole agencies and departments of forensics in women’s virginity exist due to a females status in that area playing such a role in murder investigations and disputes of various natures. All forms of creativity and passion seem to be funnelled through these objectifications along with the ethnic-religious differences seperating Kurd from Arab from Shia from Sunni and from Turkman. This seemed to me to create displays of passion equivalent to stick figure drawings-fine lines-nevertheless without subtlety or complexity that signal the arrested development of cultures stuck in adolescence.

Packer does a good job of getting close to real people on both sides of this, even on the same side perhaps when all the political and ethnic garbage is taken away. He offers an insightful and erudite look at the most important story out there the past few years and does so with balance. It’s hard to come away from reading this with a good idea at what Packer’s political affiliation is, which is probably a positive testimony. It’s one that’s deserved for a book I enjoyed alot and highly recommend to anyone looking for a meaty political piece of modern history that may go down as one of the better and more important chronicles of these times were in and this war a relative handful of white guys who have never fought in a war made happen. Packer had hope it could be for the better no matter what the motivations but seems, by books end, to feel that it will probably be for the worse. Certainly it has been to this point, but he offers some legitimate hope, mostly through the auspices of the Iraqis he interacts with, that there’s a still a chance to pull this one out of the fire.

I get the impression he’d agree that it won’t happen because of any of the people who got us there though.

Published on March 5, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

[image:101:l] One of the five Best Picture nominees for Sunday’s Oscars along with Good Night, And Good Luck, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, and Munich, Crash has probably ignited the most debate. While Brokeback may be seen as more controversial it really has managed to cross those gaps, perhaps through its two leads very Christian friendly choices to stay hetero family men and repress their truest selves as much as they could. But Crash ignited more social commentary and ran a gamut of opinion that’s made it one of the more interesting movies of the year. It’s also quite possibly the movie I am most ambivalent and indecisive about.

Many have denounced the film for offering racial caricatures and depicting life in L.A. as a cesspool of hateful ignorant people. Others have seen this as more of a parable that shouldn’t be taken so literally. I personally teeter on the fence with this one. I agree with the critics who felt the movie was unrealistic. The characters seem to exist on another planet where no other topics of discourse or attention exist beyond racial differences. There is also a surplus of implausible coincidences that take some faith to get through. But as one of the films chief supporters Roger Ebert wrote, one of my favorite authors, Charles Dickens was all about the emotionally manipulative art of coincidence.

If you can accept this the film does work on the level of a parable. It paints with broad strokes to create a mosaic of interconnectedness that shows a kind of reverse form of paying it forward. Crash tells a multitude of stories of the Robert Altman or Grand Canyon variety. It’s a day or so in the life of urban Los Angelinos of all different races who share more than coincidental run ins over that period of time. Haggis’s characters also share a common thread of hate and prejudice. Well except for the locksmith maybe. From the white cop played by Matt Dillon who’s expressing his impotence at his father’s declining health by hating on blacks, to a very humorous black car thieving duo hating on whites, to an Iranian hating on Arabs and Mexicans, to a white Lawyer’s wife doing the same, to a black cop played by Don Cheadle having an affair with a Latino cop despite some clear prejudices towards her and the whole Latin American population he can’t differentiate from each other, racism is everywhere and knows no boundries of race, color, or creed.

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I think Haggis tries to show how hate and the differences that keep us apart are also ironically part of what link us together. It’s all connected in a chain that gets extended link by link as everyone crosses each others paths and have these small moments of contact that nevertheless leave people demoralized and shattered as if crashing into each other on some level. Instead of love or other humanistic traits being paid forward it is prejudice and ignorance that get passed along forming a mosaic in which the absence of knowledge or what we don’t know, informs our choices, attitudes, and comments towards others who then take that seemingly innocuous moment and make it too large a part of themselves.

Being minimilized according to your race or nationality can do that. Though I did at times feel a bit manipulated and pulled into the realm of soap opera uni-dimensionality of character and far fetched coincidence, I was also moved and forced to think about those little comments I make here or there. For me it might be more of the anti-redneck small town kind of stereotyping that I don’t really believe is as across the board as I make it sound, but it’s part of the same mentality.

The vulgarity of reducing people to a color or nationality often can leave them feeling worthless and wounded. And like wounded animals we lash out viciously against those around us. Hate feeds on itself and we’ve all got a reason for our worldview. Crash presents some of these reasons as well a link between each casual act of hate or reduction that is passed on and knows no racial boundries. Perhaps its all too human for us to concoct reasons why we are better than that tribe on the other side of the hill. I always recall an early scene from 2001 when one group of monkey-men come up over a hill and start trash talking another group of monkey-men on the other side. I can almost translate what they’re saying because the language and the impulse is all too famaliar and easily understood. It goes something like this, “Hey you guys fom over on that side of the hill. You’re not as good as us guys on this side of the hill. Our sides better and your shit stinks more because ours stinks pretty bad and we’ve got egos developing and we need to feel better about our shit stinking ways so we’re going to kick your asses.”

In Crash though sometimes these lessons feel not only contrived but like a primer on looking past stereotypes and seeing people for themselves. These are lessons most of us already absorbed and assimilated in after school specials back in the 70′s when the Jeffersons were moving on up and the Jackson’s were teaching us our A, B, C’s.

But I did feel emotion at times, as well as a mounting sense of tension. And I think there is more to the characters than the one dimensionality some have pointed to. Dillon’s cop is the perfect example of this. Though there will times in this film you will despise him, there are others when you’ll get those shades of grey that most people and things come in.

One of my initial complaints, and one I’ve heard others voice since seeing this film and becoming curious about the debate surrounding it when it was released earlier in 2005, was about the carjacking pair. They are the funniest part of the movie but it didn’t seem that their dialogue, as provoking and enjoyable as it was, was realistic. It just didn’t seem likely that carjackers would be so erudite. But there are two things to consider. [image:102:l]

One is the obvious possiblilty that I’m doing the same type of stereotyping the film is focusing on. Alot of rappers come from probably somewhat similar street backgrounds and yet show a tremendous wit and facility with the language. So who’s to say these, particularly the one driving force of the two, doesn’t have some of that element in him. And we really don’t know what these people were doing a day before the movie. Maybe they stole cars temporarily to put themselves through school.

The other thing to remember is the movie is a parable of sorts. Of course L.A. can’t be that filled with people who only think in racial terms and of course the level of coincidence that brings some of them together numerous times is pretty preposterous. Nor does it seem likely Cheadle’s cop wouldn’t know where the woman he’s sleeping with is from, or that the Ryan Phillipe cop character would see the other side of himself Matt Dillon warned him about, so quickly. But on the level of parable, the level that accepts a magic bullet which the film offers as some sort of redemption and hope, the two black thieves are speaking for the film and not litereally for themselves.

For me I’m not quite sure the film made that distinction between the world of heightened parable and the one of gritty slice of life drama clear enough. Haggis definitely makes some questionable decisions. But he has crafted a film worthy of debate and deserves credit for it. At times I like it and at others I feel like I shouldn’t.

One of the things that originally had me feeeling ambivalent was the lack of an ending worthy of the title. With a name like Crash you expect more and at first I was feeling a bit let down. I mentioned that mounting tension before, but ultimately I didn’t feel a pay off. But at the same time there was some relief in that. And that’s a testimony to the films ability to make me part of its subjective experience, or vica versa. I was expecting some bad stuff to go down that didn’t. Don’t get me wrong here. Some bad stuff happens. A main character dies. Others flirt with more tragic outcomes. That I felt relieved that some of them didn’t have the more final run-ins they could have had, must mean I cared about the characters, and something about the tension that was created felt real, palpable, and a bit like our lives when we just want it to be okay without the ultra-drama.

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But I also think there’s a point about how the outcomes and run-ins that seem to be innocuous still pay it forward it a bad way and damage us as much as a serious accident with our cars or getting shot does. To paraphrase Cheadle’s character, there are so many of us going through our lives with little contact, so isolated and alone it’s almost like we seize conflict headlong so as to feel something. This is part of Fight Club’s allure to me. It’s like we need these bigger crashes to somehow shake us out of the negativity and stagnancy of those smaller ones that leave us scarred and looking for someone to hate to elevate us beyond those that hate us.

As for the Oscars, I’ve reviewed 4of the 5 films on this site and if my reviews don’t tell you which i like the best, it’s Brokeback Mountain. I’m a huge Phillip Seymour Hoffman fan I’m even rooting against him to see Heath Ledger pull the upset.

I’m not sure I’d even include Capote or Crash in my top 5 of 05. I don’t think either is far off the mark. But their shortcoming may be enough to push them off in a decent year for movies. Good Night, And Good Luck is one I probably would include at this point but may push off after seeing some of the ones that got away in 05 when they’re released on DVD soon.

So my heart is with the gay cowboys and I don’t care who knows it.

Published on February 10, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 1 Comment

[image:84:l] Ok, I’ve made my “I wish I knew how to quit you,” jokes on this here very site over the past couple of weeks, and though an open minded friend of the gay community found myself reluctant to go see a movie about gay cowboys. Part of the blame for this is South Park’s gay cowboys eating yogurt indie smash at the South Park film festival a few years ago. You know the one where Mr Hanky washes away all the pretentious movie types with a flood of excrement. I’m sorry but that left an impression, and a movie about gay cowboys became, at that moment, the apotheosis and symbol of indie film pretention and emptiness. But hey at least Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall don’t eat yogurt in this Ang Lee directed film. I suspected there might be more though and was finally drawn in. My suspicions were realized in Brokeback Mountain which is alot more than a gay cowboy movie, and worthy of being considered more than, and not being stuck with the label of, a gay cowboy movie. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Brokeback could be about alot of relationships between people that share some kind of forbidden love. Call it a modern day Romeo And Juliet. I’m not even sure these guys are gay. There are various interpretations of just who or what Ennis and Jack are. Bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual, all may fail to define them. They are convincing both in their hetero and homosexuality. Though they both have marriages that are not ideal or fulfilling to them, and that is surely at least partly due to their past together and their quiet longings that they take with them throughout the twenty years this film covers, I’m not sure that is all because they are gay.

Most marriages are filled with these tensions, past lives that impose themselves with unfulfilled regrets and other choices and destinies that might have been. Far too many “normal” marriages fail and exist in a strained, wordless limbo between two people not at home with each other. I think part of what this movie does is to try and shatter definitions and labels. Cultures create labels to box us in and easily identify who we are and what purpose we can serve. Though these two guys are homophobic, repressd, and dedicated to all that their world, and millenia of evolution, dictate constitutes manliness, they are both sort of living outside the box. I don’t think they are necessarily gay, bi, or straight. Or at least it’s not that important. They are Jack and Ennis. And Brokeback Mountain is where Jack and Ennis go to no longer be boxed in. It is the Paris of Bergman and Bogart in Casablanca, that they will always have despite all the problems and regrets the world outside that time piles on. But here it’s a place I think modern people can relate to more whether gay or straight, as we try to forge identity in a world of focus groups, mass marketing, and demographics, all labeling and defining us into our sociological niches. Maybe its why this movie is transcending the gay film genre and doing so well even in many of those red states you might now expect a film being publicized this way to be successful.

Brokeback Mountain itself, the place where they go to be together periodically over the years, is both timeless and outside of time. It’s stark and open beauty never changes from the pre sexual revolution early 60′s when the film starts to the androgynous early 80′s when it ends. It’s far from the world’s expectations and viccissitudes, a place to be closer to man’s original and natural state of hunter gatherer, great outdoors existence. It’s a manly rugged outback for real men, (and the sheep they love), and a place outside of societies stigmas and classifications; it’s the one place they can be together and be the kind of real rugged men they are and want to be, while still released from its other obligations. They are the Marlboro Men complete with phallic chain smoking before and after they meet on the mountain herding, fighting, and doing whatever real men do with sheep alone in the mountains. It doesn’t necesserily seem that when they fight that this foray into the subconscious of red state rage, is a manifestation of sexual desire quite yet. At least it seems no less so than quite heterosexual jocks whipping each others asses with wet towels in locker rooms.

But of course it becomes sexual and on Brokeback Mountain they can do it without becoming the kind of guys they themselves would still probably call queers and deviants. They are different. In Brokeback Mountain they are existing outside the box and beyond the limits of the borders of their own minds. This is especially true of Ennis as played by Heath Ledger. His excellent performance reveals to us a man at war with himself, deeply repressed, gruff, and fearful, and who can not get past his own conditioned thinking patterns no matter how much it hurts him to not do so.

Though there is a sense in this movie of two men sharing a bond of passion at once uniquely their’s, one that transcends sexual orientation, Jack is certainly a bit more open in his gayness, while Ennis is a prototypical and softspoken cowboy who you can imagine under certain circumstances doing himself a little gay bashing. Though Jack gets married and has a child too, he is at one point willing to try and take the relationship beyond Brokeback Mountain. He seems less afraid of what it means and how the world would react. By movies end we get a glimpse into just how much he had to overcome to get there and how much he cared for Ennis. Jack is the one of the two to sleep with other men, though it is possible that this was because he was looking for an Ennis surrogate. He is less practical and careful than Ennis and this comes with its plusses and minuses for both of them. For Ennis he does have a moment when he realizes all the implications of the way he has lived and thought, and what Jack meant to him, but it is still quite possible that his prudence was still the far safer bet.

Their particular love is of course doomed, and it is at least partially due to societal norms. As Ennis tells Jack, “If this thing takes hold of us in the wrong place, we’re dead.” But whether Ennis’s self-denial and repression is at least partly self-imposed is another debatable point. As a boy his father took him to see the mangled corpse of a local man known to be carrying on a gay relationship to show him what becomes of such men. His father may have even been involved in the killing. This becomes Jack’s standard and the unspoken fear haunting his relationship and driving his marriage and attempt at normalcy. It’s also probably an early root of his grumpiness and simple living, characteristics that become larger definitions of who he is as he gets older. The film offers an explanation as to why this happens, as well as an interpretaive ending about how far this will define him in his surrender or growth, depending on your interpretation. But is it Ennis’s own, and not all societies repressed concepts of masculinity, that doom him and Jack? For Ennis especially, Brokeback Mountain offers freedom from those personal boundries that box him in and keep him at an emotional distance from not only Jack, but his wife and daughters.

Some people have wondered why the two men just didn’t up and move to a more tolerant place like N.Y. or S.F. The obvious answer is that when the movie starts in 63 it is still pre Stonewall riots and hippie movement even in those big cities, and by the time they do occur Jack and Ennis are locked into a life of committed obligation to family and work. It’s not real practical at that point to pick up and open an S&M shop specializing in saddles, spurs, and lassos in the middle of Manhattan. (Humpback Mountain would have made a great name for it though). But that would be repulsive to them anyway. The repressed and silent Ennis certainly could not have done it. not to himself and not to his legacy in his daughters minds. His is the culture of the Marlboro Man. They are simple guys living in a simple area apart from what goes on in big cities. They are cowboys with a notion of maleness that is very much part of the norm. Certainly in later years, they could have gotten together permenently by perhaps escaping from the midwest to N.Y or another more open city, but how informed they are about social changes in the world is another matter. One would guess they have a clue about what’s out there beyond the borders of their home states in Wyoming and Texas. But the borders of their own minds are possibly the bigger obstacle.

There are questions as to these guys fates I wont mention so as not to spoil it, but maybe if anyone sees this and is interested we can discuss on the forum. The repressed fears planted in Ennis by society and particularly when his father took him to see that body is probably the decisive event in events that happened many years later. It’s a sort of unspoken white elephant in the room between them. There is some great imagery dealing with a literal in the closet juxtoposition between different realities and consequences of choices at the end of the film. Despite Ennis’s distance, semi redeemed at the end, we get a clue to how much he sacrificed for whatever relationship they did have over the years. He tells Jack he’s responsible for who and what he is, and indeed his whole destiny is altered, ironically by trying not to have it altered by entering into a full relationship with Jack.

I’m a big believer in art, especially t.v., music, and cinema, having a transformative effect on the culture. There is an idea of something called a cultural meme out there I don’t want to get into, but I think movies like this carry that meme forward and help evolve the species of homosapien. It’s great to see a cultural image that has come to represent so many negative qualities like that of the Marlboro Man redefined in the image of the culture which has paved the way for this movie with the likes of Queer As Folk, Will And Grace, and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. They too had their progenitors, all working to open minds of most people and humanize those that are different from them. It’s an example of how pop culture evolves and leads from one step to another. Unfortunately for Jack and Ennis they lived in a world that ironically gave them a place to escape all this but not one that put them in touch with a changing culture that could have offered them Stonewall riots, hippies as hope for alternative lifestyles, or Elton John moving them to sing. And we all know that every cowboy sings a sad, sad song, now don’t we? But culture evolves slowly and not everywhere at once. That might have been enough to make a difference for a few in its early stages in places like N.Y. and S.F. but not in America’s heartland, in the red states before they had a color.

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If Jack and Ennis have the happy ending even those who have not seen this movie are surely aware by now they don’t, would it really be that happy? Maybe the sweetest love is always the one that got away, or that we didn’t take every chance on. Once two people settle in to domesticity the bad stuff starts to rise up and distance them. Stuff that comes from millions of years of evolution in which monogomy has not been naturally selected for, takes on many forms as people get naturally bored with each other and wistful about what could have been or what might still be out there. But for most of us, there is a sweetness about the stuff that didn’t have to stand up to the rigors of the world and biology, a sweetness that for Jack and Ennis, and metaphorically for us from this point on, that can be called Brokeback Mountain.

Published on February 2, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

[image:73:l] Based on the 4 year period Truman Capote spent researching and writing the book In Cold Blood, Capote, as its title indicates, is more about the man writing the story than the story itself. That fact also offers a peek into the films subject matter and the character of the man it studies. Capote was a self absorbed dandy more consumed with getting the appropriate ending for his book than the books real life subjects who he has a strange and ambiguous relationship with. It makes for a great performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman if not a great movie, since Hoffman captures the attitude, mannerisms, and complexities of a man, who though interesting and watchable, is not himself a drama as big as the one that made for the fodder of his final work and an experience that hastened and contibuted to his literary and physical demise.

The book In Cold Blood eventually became its own movie that didn’t focus on Capote’s part in the lives and various stays of execution the two killers under scrutiny go through over a period of 4-5 years. Both book and movie, as well as this film are of course all based on the real events of the murder of a family in rural Kansas in 1959 and Capote’s research into the case. Originally he wanted to write a story about the consequences of the town before the killers were found. The killers started off as inconsequential to the story he goes to Kansas to write for an article in the New Yorker. When Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are captured Capote’s focus changes.

He then sets out to write and pioneer the territory of the non-fiction novel, which has since become commonplace. He proceeds to attempt to get into the head of Perry Smith in particular who Capote, a homosexual, seems to be enamored of. Capote is full of efete qualities and affectations of speech and mannerisms, and it seems as if these qualities carry over to his psyche as he tries to see himself as so much like Perry because a few characteristics of their unhappy upbringings are in common. But these bits of information are not that unusual for alot of people, and it appeared to me as if the author was trying to aggrandize his own pain at the expense of his subject. In his humanized portrayal and sympathy for two horrific killers he was perhaps foreshadowing our more modern sensibilities, so natural for us now, to look behind the face of apparent evil and see the social, cultural, and psychological roots of so many hard to explain or forgive actions. But to me it also offered a look into a similar foreshadowing of our modern victimized culture where people make up abuse stories for sympathy, and so many carry on as if the world owes them something because they didn’t grow up in the Brady household.

In this sense it is a look into the ego of an artist we get in this movie. As events unfold Capote has some kind of real connection however superficial to this man, an affection that seems more based on his physical presence than anything else. But he also grows more and more impressed with the ramifications he and his publisher know the article turned novel will have on the literary world. Already the center of attention at Manhattan parties and gatherings where Hoffman does a great job showing Capote holding court, holding everyone in thrall to his every word, telegraphing his puchlines and practically starting the laugh he knows they owe his greatness for them. But of course one needs to always build on reputation and he and his publisher knew this would be a best seller, and that, as his publisher played by the ubiquitous Bob Balaban indicates, will change writing forever. Problem is he needed an ending and couldn’t have one until the confessed killers who had originally gotten bad legal representation that Capote ameliorated by finding them a better lawyer, were put to death.

Clearly Capote tries to distance himself from their case and further assistance as he lies to Perry about it, and lets himself slide off into a very morally ambiguous place. He and his book have become more important than anything. That includes one of his best friends Haper Lee. Lee accompanied him to Kansas in the early stages of the investigation to act as a buffer between Capote and the towns people who he realized may not respond to someone who talks and dresses like he does. Lee was at that time writing To Kill A Mockinbird. As the film passes the 5 or so year period it encompasses Lee of course has the book published, wins a Pulitzer prize, and has a huge movie made of it. Capote seems to notice none of this so consumed with his own greatness and literary status. Near the end of the movie Capote attends the movie premiere of Mockingbird and is interested only in himself, perhaps repressing having to acknowledge greatness besides himself in his midst. He is no longer the only focusof the Manhattan literary elites. But he knows his book can change that if only the two killers he has used to write such an original story would finally die.

The non fiction novel idea he lays the groundwork for sort of serves as a kind of allegory for Capote’s own blurred lines between reality and fiction. He becomes more consumed with his book, its reception, and his ending, than in the real lives of those affected. Nor does he care to help the killers who’s demise he had forestalled when he needed material, but who he cares less to keep alive when all he needs is that ending.

It is implied that this moral disintegration and the revelations of such a case as the one he wrote about may have played a part in the subsequent decline of Capote’s writing career. Though In Cold Blood was received as well as expected and went on to all its subsequent success-including a theatrical adaptation where Robert Blake played the murderer Perry in one of the great non stretches in movie history ranking right up there with O.J. Simpson playing a bungling idiot in the Police Gun movies-Capote never wrote another novel and left only shrter unfinished works behind before drinking himself to death in 84. His mostly posthumously revealed drinking problems were not really covered in the film, and maybe were best left suggested since its more than enough to watch a man so drunk on himself that alcohol could seem no more than another affectation for him to display as a society room standard of the tortured artist.

On an off note: Hoffman and the movie have been nominated for best actor and film Oscars. It’s an ok movie but not one I would probably have given that distnincion to. Hoffman on the other hand is one of my favortie actors and is great as usual, though I’d have rather seen him win one for various other things he’s done. He’s not undeserving here, but I actually thought, as far as playing real life figures goes, he was at least as good, if not better in Almost Famous as Lester Bangs. That was a supporting role of course, as most of Hoffman’s gigs seem to be, so it is good to see him get a starring role and some acknowledgment since I’ve long felt he is debatedly the best actor in the country.

Published on January 24, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

[image:44:l] In another episode of accidental cinema, I saw Glory Road the other day, not entirely of my own volition. I had low expectations. I’ve seen many sports movies with the normal pattern of underdog rising beyond themselves. Heard all the inspiring speeches. Felt the adrenaline of all the big plays. And Basketball is my least favorite of the big 4 sports. It is partially due to this last reason that some drama was present in this true account of the Western Texas Miners 1966 season. I’m not as up on my hoops history as Baseball and Football. So i didn’t know how it all turned it out. What’s of greater importance is that I cared. And I cared because like the game at the end of the movie that everyone knows is more than a game due to its circumstances, the movie becomes more than a heroic underdog sports movie for the same reasons.

What sets the Miners story apart is their social and cultural place and the implications of what they did and how they did it. The Miners were the first southern Division I team to incorporate black players into their team. This decision is made to the consternation of the school’s boosters, alumni, and to some extent administration. Coach Haskin was hired after coaching girls high school Basketball to just mind the shop, work cheaply, and keep the acceptably bad white team disciplined. But the man who is now in the Hall of Fame for his coaching accomplishments was there to win. The school was a complete unknown. Nowhere on the map as far as sports goes. No decent player had any interest in signing there out of high school so Haskin had to go hard after unknowns that slipped through the cracks of the normal establishment. This meant scouring the country to find unappreciated black kids whose talent he recognized and whose color he was blind to.

This obviously didn’t go over all that well at the school, in its community, or amongst some of the fans and teams they traveled to play. Much of the expected racial nastiness was hurled at these guys, though it seemed, at least from the films depiction, that their school itself was at least grudgingly accepting. Their Center was beaten up in a bathroom by some white guys, they had a hotel room on the road vandalized broken into and their possessions torn apart and walls covered with red racial epithets, and black and white players had various objects hurled at them from fans as they entered and exited the court. But perhaps the biggest and most important mark of derision was the national assumption that it wasn’t possible to win anything substantial with a team made up of mainly black players.

Hints are dropped in casual fashion about how black’s are just not smart enough, or possessed of enough of any of the character attributes it takes to accomplish anything or come through under pressure. As ridiculous as all this sounds now it was of course still widespread thinking in 1966. And 1966 is not that long ago. But the world was slowly changing thanks to many individual forces making up a much greater wave that carried the deserving along as it drowned those that stood in place. Martin Luther King and the shifting perspectives of the 60′s were a backdrop to a team that rode that wave to a place of greater attention as they won game after game, rising in the national rankings until what should have been the story of proverbial improbable out of nowhere Cinderella story, got all mixed up with the shifting consciousness and the inequality and prejudice that was defining what they were doing more than the overlooked fact of their greater talent and skill.

As they ride their amazing turnaround to the national championship game against the heavily favored all white Kentucky Wildcats coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp, and featuring later Laker, Knicks, and Miami coach Pat Riley, coach Haskins realizes that what they are about to play in has become more than a game. In this cultural atmosphere Haskins makes the decision to play only his black players. The national championship had become another crucible in race relations and the civil rights movement. It was a cusp moment as intertwined with the opening of American minds as so many others that had passed, were ongoing, and were still to come.

The white players on the team gracefully bowed out having long ago not only assimilated their new teammates, but having also assimilated themselves into their culture and become protective and defensive of them. Of course Haskins may have realized his best chance of winning was with his black players, but he was aware of the common thinking that without white players on the court to guide them they’d be lost. Rupp’s views are a little vague in the movie. He brushes Haskin off when the latter tries to introduce himself, and he makes a flippant comment at a press conference about the Miners best player Jo Jo Hill. In a society where we see so many people brushing off Haskin’s and the team both in attitude and with words, it’s hard not to get the idea that Rupp may have been of a like mind. There is a scene where his wife mitigates this impression as she comes to Haskin’s wife’s rescue at a pre game party where her husband is looked down upon for daring to field a team of black players. “Some people just weren’t raised right,” she tells her.

But in the latter stages of the game as we see reality dawning on Rupp, he does tell his players that they are playing a special team and need to rise to the occasion. Jon Voight plays Rupp and does a great job of showing the mans quiet revelation and sinking spirits as he watches the future unfold before him.

The movie had some truly stirring moments that had me pretty welled up. But they had little to do with any of the games the movie covers. Watching a group of people come together to accomplish something truly great and unpredictable as they battle entrenched societal forces and ignorance is inspiring stuff unless its manhandled by overzealous Directors. James Gartner doesn’t make that mistake. A movie like this is inherently filled with cliches but Glory Road does it with all the sincerity due its context. It doesn’t get bogged down in the Coach with the thankless and loyal wife, the bigotted acrimony, the resistant boosters who come around as the team wins, the stirring speeches, big injuries, or player who risks his life to win. These elements are all in there, but they go by fast enough without dwelling to make them forgivable, and are pointed enough to leave the impression due them for having been part of a real story.

It is the context of this movie and that reality which made it work for me. A nice touch was having the real players speaking during the credits, along with Pat Riley who called the game he lost the emancipation proclamation of 1966. Even in defeat he realized how important this was and came off as proud to have been a part of the game and the moment. That takes something for a professional athlete who was on the wrong end of any substantial upset. Something great had taken place beyond Riley or Hill, Cager, or Haskins. Bigger than any one player or coach.

I wasn’t in dire need of another formulaic underdog sports movie, but the saving grace of the formula is that it’s based on some real occasions of greatness. This was one of those moments. I could do without any more Rocky’s or Big League’s being made, but Glory Road is a movie that should have been made since its not only based on what is widely regarded as one of greates upsets in sports history, but almost unarguably the most important.

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