I don't know how serious the rumors were that there was serious consideration of Hugh Grant joining Doctor Who as Christopher (don't call me Ian) Eccleston's replacement, but it's an interesting idea. He did once play the Doctor for about a minute in “The Curse of the Fatal Death”, and he has the wit and sincerity to perhaps create his own style of the alien charm that is the character. This might have been a good idea for him too, since he's faced for a long time the problem of being typecast into the same type of character in an endless stream of romantic comedies, after helming the flagship of the genre, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and he did just do a movie with the queen of the RomCom section at the video store (if not the box office), Drew Barrymore. He himself has commented on the difficulty of finding a fresh take on the guy from 4W+1F when he's asked to play him for the seventeenth time. I could be forgetting something, but the last time I remember seeing him do something else besides feckless charm in a RomCom was a small part in The Remains of the Day, and that was going on 15 years ago. I suppose his character from About a Boy was enough of a selfish bastard to avoid that trap, and in Love, Actually he was essentially playing Tony Blair, and not the guy from Notting Hill, again. The other nice thing would have been that with Hugh Grant as the lead, Doctor Who would have gotten more mindshare in America, and we might have gotten more of it over here a little quicker. As it is, David Tennant has been great as the new Doctor, with a perfect mix of solemnity and humor, but I can't help wondering about the road not taken.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Top 10 Candidates to Replace Chief Illiniwek and the Fighting Illini as the University of Illinois mascot:
10. The Poorly Conceptualized Parade Floats (never letting this one go, PJ)
9. The Frenchy's Cream-filled Baguettes
8. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne Buckets
7. The Stove Pipe Hats (it's up to the Land of Lincoln to bring back that fashion trend)
6. The Gophers (No way that's taken, right? What?!)
5. The Pandas (the hooligans can bring bamboo sticks to beat the other team with)
4. The River Queens (selling the naming rights to the River Queen in E. Dubuque could fund half the theater department)
3. The Uncovered Manholes (show the North Side some love, if you know what I mean)
2. The University of Illinois Fighting Escaped Prisoners (they already have the orange jumpsuits)
1. Honor Abraham Lincoln's legacy by acknowledging that the whole shape of the state with the Mississippi River coming off the end just looks like a Giant Penis Urinating on the Confederacy.
Monday, February 26, 2007
The 2007 Oscar Shorts... most of them, anyways
The 2007 Oscar nominated shorts turned out to be a fantastic way to spend an evening, and I really wish they could get these distributed a little more widely, so more people would be exposed to them. Some of the animated shorts from major studios find their way onto DVDs, at least.
The live action shorts were all pretty humorous, a nice change of pace from last year's musings on death and tragedy, and the supermarket. Most of them can't be done justice without spoilers, and their individual quirks lose something in description, but here's my shot at convincing anybody else they're worth checking out. “Eramos Pocos” is an amusing piece about a man whose wife leaves him, leading him to collect her mother from a nursing home and trick her into cooking and cleaning up after him and his son, while claiming his wife is just “er, away on a trip,” perhaps making him appreciate the true meaning of family for the first time through what turns out to be a fairly odd set of circumstances. “Helmer & Son” is a cute story about a man called to a nursing home where his father has locked himself in the closet and won't come out. Trying to coax their father out of the closet brings out a lot of the undercurrents in the family relationships, and draws out a long-awaited confrontation. I thought “Helmer & Son” was hilarious, watching this man try to deal with a surreal situation, while everybody acts like he's the one with the problem. “The Saviour” has to be the most controversial, and the one I'd least like to spoil, dealing with religion, adultery, and gullibility in the suburbs, and what people need to believe to make sense of it all, and definitely well worth seeing. If not for “West Bank Story”, I would think it was an easy favorite for the Oscar.
“Binta y la Gran Idea” is a film set in Senegal that's really about two ideas, one big and one little, that Binta and her father have to make the world a little better. Binta and her schoolmates put on a play to put pressure on her very traditional uncle to let his daughter go to school, like her cousin Binta, and maybe change one life for the better. Her father sees how sometimes people miss the point of progress and comes up with his own big idea, and with Binta's help, tries to take it to the government. The scene where Binta's father has a friend show off his new watch that sounds an alarm every day at noon is classic, because his friend so taken with the technology (“It's Swiss!”), but Binta's father can only wonder, what happens at noon? His big idea about how to handle the influx of progress and take what's good from old and new is pretty funny, and “Binta y la Gran Idea” is a pretty neat film.
For me though, the best film out of all of them was “West Bank Story”, about two competing falafel stands in the West Bank, the Jewish-run Kosher King and the Arab-run Hummus Hut. The bitter competition between the two restaurants mirrors the larger conflict in generally ridiculous ways, and I burst out laughing at the first shot of the film, which is several Arab men doing a tough guy strut down the street snapping their fingers in an obvious homage to the Sharks and Jets. The whole film continues as a parody of West Side Story, with some pretty hilarious musical numbers. My favorite line was when this film's Juliet goes out chasing after a customer shouting that he forgot his package of hummus, only to be detained by Israeli soldiers who think she said she's got a package from Hamas. Standing in front of the soldiers in a hideous restaurant uniform with a kabob skewer through the hat, she asks “Do I look like a suicide bomber? You think I'd be caught dead in this?” More than any of the other films, I hope “West Bank Story” gets exhibited to a wider audience, because it's about the best straight comedy I've seen in ages, and maybe its Oscar win will do that.
Several of the animated shorts had me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe, and while it's true I have been told I'm easily amused, I still think the films deserve the credit. I always thought the Scrat did more in five minutes to promote the Ice Age franchise than the rest of the movies combined, and “No Time For Nuts” is some of his best work. The Scrat stumbles on a strangely acorn-shaped time machine buried in the snow, and after darting about it in circles sniffing it over, he pushes a button and zaps his nut away, and what follows is the Scrat's chase through time after his nut. “Maestro” shows a singer warming in front of his dressing room mirror with the assistance of a robot arm in a pretty odd style, where the viewer's perspective rotates around the scene. The animation is tremendous in its three dimensional detail, down to showing the reflections in the singer's eyes, and the film is amusing, but it was the kicker at the end that made me laugh out loud.
I could have done without “The Little Matchgirl”, which is a competent but uninspiring retelling of the grim fairy tale done in a traditional two dimensional style, and I suspect it owes its Oscar nomination to nostalgia over the old Disney cartoons, but who knows. One of the shorts not nominated for an Oscar, “The Wraith of Cobble Hill”, is another inclusion that shows off a different style of animation, which I found interesting but ultimately uninspiring. “Lifted” is an almost purely visual short about an alien abduction with training wheels, as a gelatinous teenage alien takes his equivalent of a driver's test. It's Pixar's inclusion, to be released in conjunction with Ratatouille next year, and I'm sure that helped it get to Oscar night, even though it is quite funny.
Of the other shorts not nominated for Oscars, I was blown away by the technical detail of “One Rat Short”, the star-crossed romance of a street rat and a lab rat. An alley rat out on a rainy rooftop catches a whiff of a bag of cheetos blowing around in the wind, and chases it into an exhaust vent, only to accidentally stumble into a lab full of bar-coded rats in cages being experimented on by an automated system with a sinister glowing red eye. He finds a dainty white lab rat with big, watery blue eyes he sinks into, smitten immediately, and tries to take her away from it all. Like “Maestro”, it's a great visual use of what animation can do, moving in three dimensions in incredible detail, since there's no limitations of sets or crew and equipment.
Definitely at the other end of the spectrum in both tone and style, “Guide Dog” is a brief cartoon with a colored-pencil drawing sort of look about a dog applying for a position as a guide dog for the blind. Just watching the dog run through his whole repertoire in the job interview, showing vigilance, ferocious defense of his charge, enthusiasm, etc. all the while spraying saliva as he bounces up and down on his chair is hilarious. When he actually starts his assignments, he has the most ridiculous set of awful circumstances befall his charges, no matter how hard he tries to protect them. I couldn't believe how funny “Guide Dog” is, and I only wish I could find Plympton's other film with the same protagonist, “Guard Dog” (which apparently did get an Oscar nomination). Also absolutely laugh out loud hilarious in a much more low-key manner is “The Passenger”, this film about a kid out on an eerie, stormy day, walking home with his nose buried in a scary book also titled “The Passenger”. He gets on a bus, and engrossed in his book doesn't notice he's the only one on the bus other than this strange looking fish in a plastic bag on the seat next to him. The mood is somewhat creepy, so the kid puts on some headphones and puts on some groovy tunes to take the edge off, to disastrous results. It's also incredibly funny, with such a cool sense of its own style that I really wonder how it didn't make the cut for an Oscar.
The capper to the exhibition was “Gentleman's Duel”, which featured competing 18th century French and English aristocrats each seeking to charm the same woman, and gradually completely losing sight of her in their attempts to one-up each other. Finally, a challenge is made, and they agree to a duel... with giant steampunk robots. France vs. Britain is always an amusing clash of cultures to watch, and this is a cute little film crammed with sex and poodles, so of course I loved it. And I definitely could see myself being clumsy enough to follow in the footsteps of the Englishman who begins his seduction with “My darling, your grace is matched only by your boobies. I m-mean your beauty!”
Unfortunately “The Danish Poet”, this year's Oscar winner, wasn't included in the Magnolia Pictures' collection that I saw, so I can't comment on it. I also never got around to hitting the documentary shorts, which were showing once a day at an obscure theater, not really getting the star treatment. But I do hope more people see some of the great shorts that get nominated for Oscars and occasionally released on DVD, because there's some great stuff in there... every single one of the live action shorts was a much better film than Babel.
Four Hours of Oscar
Another Oscar night is over, and this year they managed to keep things clicking and give out an award every 11 minutes. (Although that is just an average, early on it went much longer between awards.) The problem is that while some of the usual Oscar filler was interesting, at least the first couple times, after the first couple hours I just wanted to know if Martin Scorsese was going to get robbed a fourth time. Like the dancers who formed silhouettes were pretty impressive, and at least one of the many montages was good (Michael Mann's America), but once you hit that fourth hour they're like hold music: it doesn't matter how much you like the song, it's just an automated voice telling you "Your call is important to us". On the positive side, there was nothing so terrible as the interpretive tap-dance homages to Saving Private Ryan and La Vita E Bella that were practically offensive.
Some of the big favorites got their well deserved rewards, like Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, and Martin Scorsese, and The Depahted for Best Picture and for William Monahan's screenplay. About the only upset I cared about was Pan's Labyrinth taking home awards but losing the foreign film award to The Lives of Others, although that is the only award where you're required to see all the nominees before submitting a ballot, so it tends to hold up a bit better... I couldn't believe Amelie lost to a Bosnian movie about opposing soldiers stuck in a trench with a third guy stuck on a land mine, it turned out No Man's Land was just a truly fantastic black comedy in the spirit of Dr. Strangelove, so there's something to be said for actually seeing the movies before voting.
The idea that the big cash-grab Norbit may have cost Eddie Murphy an Oscar was fairly amusing, especially in light of his comments at the Golden Globes, where he raved about how he had basically done the movie for free only because Bill Condon told him he'd get an award for it. Maybe he already blew through all his Axel Foley money, but I can't help a certain smug schadenfreude when a successful person chases even more commercial success and gets it, but still falls flat on their face when their greed makes them miss more meaningful opportunities. It's like Meg Ryan, she had to do just a few more romantic comedies to put a few more bucks in the bank before the big 4-0. Just to be fair, while writing this I took a look back at her filmography, and I was surprised to be reminded that there are a fair number of dramatic films over the course of her career, but she kept following the Ben Affleck model of doing a safe movie to counterbalance every risk she took, and consequently any credit she gets for Proof of Life is undermined by making sure it was closely followed by Kate & Leopold. Cut out a couple of her less successful romantic comedies and the third time around with Tom Hanks, maybe occasionally take a small part in a good movie, and I wonder if she'd have gotten scripts better than In the Cut for her last gasp "I'll get plastic surgery and drop my pants" attempt at keeping her career alive. And so it is with Eddie Murphy, if he'd held off on fucking Norbit for a few months, doors might have opened for a guy who hasn't done anything but bathroom humor family entertainment in a decade (I blocked out Pluto Nash), but I guess he wanted the cash.
I did enjoy the gags with Al Gore about the possibility of launching his presidential run at the Oscars, almost as much as I enjoyed seeing that POS Babel go home with a consolation prize, and as many Oscars as Pirates of the Caribbean. How that got a best picture nomination over Little Children or The Last King of Scotland, to give a couple alternatives, I'll never know. Rinko Kikuchi can pick a movie up on her shoulders, but she can only carry it so far. There were no outstanding original songs, or animated films, and of course the only animated short I didn't see was "The Danish Poet", which won. And a lot of winners of course had to make passive-aggressive protests against the request not to read lists of names on an international TV broadcast, setting down their Oscars on the floor so they could pull out their little folded pieces of paper to start reading... the reason there's no podium is so you can't settle in and start rummaging around in your pockets and purses for wadded up pieces of paper, dummies. But the best moment was when the announcers cemented how stupid and intrusive their little factoids were by bringing up the Japanese film Infernal Affairs William Monahan used as the basis for his Depahted screenplay, because despite their best attempts, Japan does not in fact include Hong Kong.
Some of the big favorites got their well deserved rewards, like Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, and Martin Scorsese, and The Depahted for Best Picture and for William Monahan's screenplay. About the only upset I cared about was Pan's Labyrinth taking home awards but losing the foreign film award to The Lives of Others, although that is the only award where you're required to see all the nominees before submitting a ballot, so it tends to hold up a bit better... I couldn't believe Amelie lost to a Bosnian movie about opposing soldiers stuck in a trench with a third guy stuck on a land mine, it turned out No Man's Land was just a truly fantastic black comedy in the spirit of Dr. Strangelove, so there's something to be said for actually seeing the movies before voting.
The idea that the big cash-grab Norbit may have cost Eddie Murphy an Oscar was fairly amusing, especially in light of his comments at the Golden Globes, where he raved about how he had basically done the movie for free only because Bill Condon told him he'd get an award for it. Maybe he already blew through all his Axel Foley money, but I can't help a certain smug schadenfreude when a successful person chases even more commercial success and gets it, but still falls flat on their face when their greed makes them miss more meaningful opportunities. It's like Meg Ryan, she had to do just a few more romantic comedies to put a few more bucks in the bank before the big 4-0. Just to be fair, while writing this I took a look back at her filmography, and I was surprised to be reminded that there are a fair number of dramatic films over the course of her career, but she kept following the Ben Affleck model of doing a safe movie to counterbalance every risk she took, and consequently any credit she gets for Proof of Life is undermined by making sure it was closely followed by Kate & Leopold. Cut out a couple of her less successful romantic comedies and the third time around with Tom Hanks, maybe occasionally take a small part in a good movie, and I wonder if she'd have gotten scripts better than In the Cut for her last gasp "I'll get plastic surgery and drop my pants" attempt at keeping her career alive. And so it is with Eddie Murphy, if he'd held off on fucking Norbit for a few months, doors might have opened for a guy who hasn't done anything but bathroom humor family entertainment in a decade (I blocked out Pluto Nash), but I guess he wanted the cash.
I did enjoy the gags with Al Gore about the possibility of launching his presidential run at the Oscars, almost as much as I enjoyed seeing that POS Babel go home with a consolation prize, and as many Oscars as Pirates of the Caribbean. How that got a best picture nomination over Little Children or The Last King of Scotland, to give a couple alternatives, I'll never know. Rinko Kikuchi can pick a movie up on her shoulders, but she can only carry it so far. There were no outstanding original songs, or animated films, and of course the only animated short I didn't see was "The Danish Poet", which won. And a lot of winners of course had to make passive-aggressive protests against the request not to read lists of names on an international TV broadcast, setting down their Oscars on the floor so they could pull out their little folded pieces of paper to start reading... the reason there's no podium is so you can't settle in and start rummaging around in your pockets and purses for wadded up pieces of paper, dummies. But the best moment was when the announcers cemented how stupid and intrusive their little factoids were by bringing up the Japanese film Infernal Affairs William Monahan used as the basis for his Depahted screenplay, because despite their best attempts, Japan does not in fact include Hong Kong.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
I made the unfortunate mistake of crashing at my parents' house last night, because I had some things to do there and I figured it was better than driving back home down an icy road next to a river in the middle of a blizzard. Of course I didn't realize until I got set to leave that there was an accumulated foot and a half of snowfall and it was still snowing, and Mr. Plow seems to have abandoned me. Scrape my asphalt, indeed. So I found whatever scraps of freeze-dessicated leftovers there were in the fridge, and built a fire, because it looks like I'm here until spring. If I didn't have the ghostly bartender to talk to, I think I'd go nuts.
This did give me a chance to download and burn an Internet Freedom Disk, which is the somewhat pretentious nom de guerre some slashdot contributor came up with for linux live CDs, thinking as only a geek can that this would make them more appealing to the unwashed masses. My IFD... god, that acronym sounds like it should either explode or go up somebody's vagina, or possibly both if it's a Friday night in East Dubuque. Okay, putting that thought aside, my IFD was an Ubuntu distro that I downloaded from a UofM computer science department website. Actually speaking of names, I've got to hand it to the people who figured the best way to popularize their work was to give it a sexy name like Ubuntu... featuring the Gnome desktop environment. Not "gnome", but "guh-nome", just to be more up it's own ass.
Now that I've obsessed over the superficial, I have to say I was kind of surprised by how well it worked. Well, on the second try, anyways, since my goofy CD drive didn't seem to be reading the disc the first time and it took forever to load. It also occurs to me that I haven't quite gotten around to mentioning what the hell an Internet Freedom Disk is: it's a CD that can boot your computer straight into a linux OS (in this case Ubuntu) without installing anything on the hard drive, running entirely in RAM and disappearing again when you turn the computer off. The only thing I used it for other than poking around was to see if I could use the web, other than the lack of a wireless connection. I should have tried to print something as well, and cover all the emergency basics in case Windows blows up on me someday, but sadly I'm not that smart. I think it would be totally cool to get this working on a thumb drive so I could save some things to it, and basically have my own portable parasitic desktop that I could run by plugging it into other people's computers, but all the guides I can find to doing this say how ridiculously easy it is and then list seven homebrew utilities to reformat the file system and reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, so no dice.
This did sell me on the possibility of plugging a linux machine into my TV to play around with it a bit. I have no idea why this doesn't take off a bit more as a cheaper option, since getting some basic tasks going through firefox and openoffice was pretty easy without having seen any form of linux before. For environments where all that's needed is an appliance that can write a paper and open a web page, I would think this would be indistinguishable from the alternatives: a pirated copy of XP, an old copy of Windows 98 that MS isn't supporting anymore, and the like. About the only thing I can think of that I don't know if I could run on Ubuntu was the port of the original Legend of Zelda I like to play. Well, that and my favorite usenet program only runs on windows, which would at least temporarily interfere with my steady supply of free pr0n. Obviously a deal-breaker... fuck off, Tux!
Since I'm still snowed in, this will be the first of many half-finished blog posts I can catch up on in the next few hours until I hear a St. Bernard scratching at the door. But for the time being I'll be locked up in here with the creepy twins. Come blog with us... come blog with us, forever...
This did give me a chance to download and burn an Internet Freedom Disk, which is the somewhat pretentious nom de guerre some slashdot contributor came up with for linux live CDs, thinking as only a geek can that this would make them more appealing to the unwashed masses. My IFD... god, that acronym sounds like it should either explode or go up somebody's vagina, or possibly both if it's a Friday night in East Dubuque. Okay, putting that thought aside, my IFD was an Ubuntu distro that I downloaded from a UofM computer science department website. Actually speaking of names, I've got to hand it to the people who figured the best way to popularize their work was to give it a sexy name like Ubuntu... featuring the Gnome desktop environment. Not "gnome", but "guh-nome", just to be more up it's own ass.
Now that I've obsessed over the superficial, I have to say I was kind of surprised by how well it worked. Well, on the second try, anyways, since my goofy CD drive didn't seem to be reading the disc the first time and it took forever to load. It also occurs to me that I haven't quite gotten around to mentioning what the hell an Internet Freedom Disk is: it's a CD that can boot your computer straight into a linux OS (in this case Ubuntu) without installing anything on the hard drive, running entirely in RAM and disappearing again when you turn the computer off. The only thing I used it for other than poking around was to see if I could use the web, other than the lack of a wireless connection. I should have tried to print something as well, and cover all the emergency basics in case Windows blows up on me someday, but sadly I'm not that smart. I think it would be totally cool to get this working on a thumb drive so I could save some things to it, and basically have my own portable parasitic desktop that I could run by plugging it into other people's computers, but all the guides I can find to doing this say how ridiculously easy it is and then list seven homebrew utilities to reformat the file system and reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, so no dice.
This did sell me on the possibility of plugging a linux machine into my TV to play around with it a bit. I have no idea why this doesn't take off a bit more as a cheaper option, since getting some basic tasks going through firefox and openoffice was pretty easy without having seen any form of linux before. For environments where all that's needed is an appliance that can write a paper and open a web page, I would think this would be indistinguishable from the alternatives: a pirated copy of XP, an old copy of Windows 98 that MS isn't supporting anymore, and the like. About the only thing I can think of that I don't know if I could run on Ubuntu was the port of the original Legend of Zelda I like to play. Well, that and my favorite usenet program only runs on windows, which would at least temporarily interfere with my steady supply of free pr0n. Obviously a deal-breaker... fuck off, Tux!
Since I'm still snowed in, this will be the first of many half-finished blog posts I can catch up on in the next few hours until I hear a St. Bernard scratching at the door. But for the time being I'll be locked up in here with the creepy twins. Come blog with us... come blog with us, forever...
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Bobcats 100 - 95 Timberwolves
How do you lose to the Bobcats? Seriously, how do you blow a 15 point lead against the Bobcats? The Bobcats were trailing for almost three full quarters before they took the lead back with four minutes to go. How does a 38% shooter with a shitty teenage mustache go 10-19 from the field and 4-7 from behind the three point line to rally his team to a 4th quarter victory? Early in the game watching Adam Morrison try to create his own shot against Kevin Garnett was just embarrassing for him, late in the game watching him rattle off shot after shot was even more embarrassing for the Wolves. It was an off night for Foye and Davis, but Mike James did score more than enough to make up for Foye's production at point guard, so it really comes down to an underwhelming performance by the rest of the guards at dealing with freaking Morrison, who singlehandedly tied the output of Davis, Hassell, McCants, and Jaric.
I wonder if the turning point wasn't when Mad Dog went down, obviously hurt badly, crying in pain and holding his knee. This is the guy who they used to send in as a doorstop against Shaquille O'Neal, and he'd give up six inches and god knows how many pounds but still not give up ground, so when he went down like that screaming, it was obviously not a booboo. KG immediately turned around and signaled for the trainer, who sat in his chair. KG had to call the guy over multiple times and audibly tell him to hurry it up, but the only person who got up to help was Craig Smith. Which may be part of the reason why "I Like Craig" shirts are selling well. Madsen had to be helped off the court without putting any weight on his leg, by the guys on the coaching staff who apparently aren't paying close enough attention to the game to have heard the whistle and thump when Madsen was fouled and hit the floor like a sack of potatoes. I can't think that was a great morale-building moment for the players they were supposed to be motivating, and maybe Madsen's lunatic enthusiasm and willingness to hit people would have changed the character of the Wolves' defense in the fourth quarter.
The funny thing is I felt ill enough tonight that I considered leaving after the third quarter, since I figured the game was in the bag, but I thought I'd be a real fan and stick it out, and they rewarded me by sticking their fingers down their throats. Now I'll have to hear about Morrison's rally from a certain Chicago banker who's a huge fan of Gonzaga basketball (this week).
I wonder if the turning point wasn't when Mad Dog went down, obviously hurt badly, crying in pain and holding his knee. This is the guy who they used to send in as a doorstop against Shaquille O'Neal, and he'd give up six inches and god knows how many pounds but still not give up ground, so when he went down like that screaming, it was obviously not a booboo. KG immediately turned around and signaled for the trainer, who sat in his chair. KG had to call the guy over multiple times and audibly tell him to hurry it up, but the only person who got up to help was Craig Smith. Which may be part of the reason why "I Like Craig" shirts are selling well. Madsen had to be helped off the court without putting any weight on his leg, by the guys on the coaching staff who apparently aren't paying close enough attention to the game to have heard the whistle and thump when Madsen was fouled and hit the floor like a sack of potatoes. I can't think that was a great morale-building moment for the players they were supposed to be motivating, and maybe Madsen's lunatic enthusiasm and willingness to hit people would have changed the character of the Wolves' defense in the fourth quarter.
The funny thing is I felt ill enough tonight that I considered leaving after the third quarter, since I figured the game was in the bag, but I thought I'd be a real fan and stick it out, and they rewarded me by sticking their fingers down their throats. Now I'll have to hear about Morrison's rally from a certain Chicago banker who's a huge fan of Gonzaga basketball (this week).
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
WTF is going on at DQ?
It's been well below zero recently, and yet the DQ on Lake street was open today, with people standing around outside waiting to order ice cream. What the hell, how is it they planned ahead and hired staff to make ice cream in February? And what's with the idiots (including me) who stop for ice cream when it hits 30 degrees? While I was waiting for my misty freeze and marveling at the crazy weather, I did ask the guy behind the window what he thought of global warming and he told me, "IT SUCKS!!!" (Which was a lot funnier if you're the type of person who repeatedly drives to Baldwin, WI for basically no reason.)
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Caché Americain, or “Oh, hell no!”
I just read that Ron Howard is set to direct a remake of Caché. There's something just horrifying about this, and I wasn't even all that huge a fan of the original film, but ironically for the same reason a Ron Howard remake bothers me so much. Caché didn't grab me because I never penetrated the enigma at the heart of the film, and I never came to any understanding of what it all meant... it's impenetrably mysterious but absolutely gripping all the way to the ambiguous conclusion. That's why a remake goes beyond just being a bad movie, which I can ignore, and to the point of actually being offensive. A highly commercialized Ron Howard version is going to have to take any subtlety or ambiguity out of the film and present a very clear yet non-controversial theme, and this has two problems. The first is that there are distinct political undertones to Caché which I'd hate to see lost in the interest of universal appeal. But while any translation would have to make some changes, what really annoys me is that when the film is inevitably dumbed down there's something really sad in seeing a piece of art supplanted and indelibly linked to something to pass time on an airplane, where the original film will become just the source material for Opie's magnum opus, like an early draft. It feels like we renamed checkers “American chess”. And this just how irrationally upset I got hearing about the possibility, I can't imagine how much I'd have to overreact if I actually saw it.
Friday, February 16, 2007
R.I.P. Incandescent Light Bulbs, 1880-2007
Sometimes I think it's the environmentalism that brings out the most stubborn departure from logic and capacity for empathy in people, more so than the other great mysteries of life: religion, sport, and how much those French cartoons I used to watch as a kid gave me this smoky, sinuous image of women like a burning willow tree and seared it into my brain like a cattle prod cradled against a milky white breast-- so yes, it's the environment that really does the screwing with the train of thought, or with track by... how we perceive things. So what brought this on was a couple slashdot stories about light bulbs: first one about how Walmart is planning on carrying only compact fluorescents in the future, because they're much more attractive from an inventory standpoint and selling one beats selling seven incandescents, and the other about a bill in the California Assembly to ban incandescent lightbulbs.
There are certainly reasonable criticisms of this being a typical California "Our only tool is a hammer to hit ourselves in the head with" approach, where they specify a single, crudely drawn solution and then implementation of all the details and any secondary effects are handled by magic fairies (110% of the budget will be spend on education, other states will sells us cheap power, all cars will run on sunshine, hail Caesar). There are a lot of reasons not to use CFLs that each individually apply to a small number of people, like those sensitive to flicker, artists and museums, or people making movies (although that's all done in Mumbai and Bucharest now), or more generally anybody with a really small light fixture or a dimmer. Now that I've taken my cheap shots at California I can acknowledge that this bill is probably procedural, and serves the actually useful purpose of opening up a discussion as to how California should push conservation.
What kills me though is some of the really strained objections. Like the argument that CFLs would create a class system based on lighting by which only the rich could afford to have quality lighting in their homes, because the bulbs that cover a broad range of the lighting spectrum are expensive. That isn't totally out of left field, but I think the people who can't finance a light bulb have worse problems than the quality of their light fixtures... I don't think the cold, harsh light is going to ruin the effect of that Van Gogh they have hanging on the wall. I also particularly like those who question of cost savings on virtually any energy efficient device by noting that the old, inefficient device kicks out so much heat they can save a penny a month on natural gas. If you think a fucking light bulb is the most efficient way to heat your house, maybe you should just open your refrigerator at night in the summer to save on the expense of purchasing and powering a night light, since the fridge light is always on anyways, right? I did have a girlfriend who left her electric oven on all night so she could save on her heating bill, but at least she was doing it because she could stick her landlord with the electric bill (and the curiously high fire insurance premium). But really, may favorite objection is those people who note that CFLs don't work if you have really bad wiring. Which again is one of those mote in your neighbor's eye kind of issues, if you have electrical wiring so bad you can't run a light bulb off of it, and you don't think this is a problem so long as you can find some incandescent bulb that will flicker along with the fluctuating current and burning smells coming from behind the walls.
What causes the stubborn desire to find a crack in the CFL plan and widen it by any hyperbole necessary is obviously the fact that environmentalism is ultimately a lifestyle critique. I'm lazy, so I don't fix the drafts from my windows and run the heat too high to compensate, but I do like to pat myself on the back whenever I take the bus (instead of walking, because I'm lazy) for supporting mass transit. And it is that lazy hedonism that prevents me from doing any of the things I can do, from thinking ahead so I can waste less. And meanwhile the eye of my internal environmental conscience wanders over my apartment and my lifestyle with the same disapproving gaze as my mother... neither one of them is saying anything, but you know now that you mention it, they both do think like I'd feel a whole lot better and healthier if only I'd clean up my kitchen / Mother Earth / whatever. Actually, in light of that particular metaphor, it's ironic that I keep killing my mother's plants every time I go over to water them.
There are certainly reasonable criticisms of this being a typical California "Our only tool is a hammer to hit ourselves in the head with" approach, where they specify a single, crudely drawn solution and then implementation of all the details and any secondary effects are handled by magic fairies (110% of the budget will be spend on education, other states will sells us cheap power, all cars will run on sunshine, hail Caesar). There are a lot of reasons not to use CFLs that each individually apply to a small number of people, like those sensitive to flicker, artists and museums, or people making movies (although that's all done in Mumbai and Bucharest now), or more generally anybody with a really small light fixture or a dimmer. Now that I've taken my cheap shots at California I can acknowledge that this bill is probably procedural, and serves the actually useful purpose of opening up a discussion as to how California should push conservation.
What kills me though is some of the really strained objections. Like the argument that CFLs would create a class system based on lighting by which only the rich could afford to have quality lighting in their homes, because the bulbs that cover a broad range of the lighting spectrum are expensive. That isn't totally out of left field, but I think the people who can't finance a light bulb have worse problems than the quality of their light fixtures... I don't think the cold, harsh light is going to ruin the effect of that Van Gogh they have hanging on the wall. I also particularly like those who question of cost savings on virtually any energy efficient device by noting that the old, inefficient device kicks out so much heat they can save a penny a month on natural gas. If you think a fucking light bulb is the most efficient way to heat your house, maybe you should just open your refrigerator at night in the summer to save on the expense of purchasing and powering a night light, since the fridge light is always on anyways, right? I did have a girlfriend who left her electric oven on all night so she could save on her heating bill, but at least she was doing it because she could stick her landlord with the electric bill (and the curiously high fire insurance premium). But really, may favorite objection is those people who note that CFLs don't work if you have really bad wiring. Which again is one of those mote in your neighbor's eye kind of issues, if you have electrical wiring so bad you can't run a light bulb off of it, and you don't think this is a problem so long as you can find some incandescent bulb that will flicker along with the fluctuating current and burning smells coming from behind the walls.
What causes the stubborn desire to find a crack in the CFL plan and widen it by any hyperbole necessary is obviously the fact that environmentalism is ultimately a lifestyle critique. I'm lazy, so I don't fix the drafts from my windows and run the heat too high to compensate, but I do like to pat myself on the back whenever I take the bus (instead of walking, because I'm lazy) for supporting mass transit. And it is that lazy hedonism that prevents me from doing any of the things I can do, from thinking ahead so I can waste less. And meanwhile the eye of my internal environmental conscience wanders over my apartment and my lifestyle with the same disapproving gaze as my mother... neither one of them is saying anything, but you know now that you mention it, they both do think like I'd feel a whole lot better and healthier if only I'd clean up my kitchen / Mother Earth / whatever. Actually, in light of that particular metaphor, it's ironic that I keep killing my mother's plants every time I go over to water them.
Monday, February 12, 2007
I'd just like to remind the two people who might actually read this, I've caught up on reviewing every movie I've seen in the past year at Rotten Tomatoes. All of that is over at startthe#$@%ingmovie.com, and there's a permanent link over on the right side of this page as well. I just post the highlights here, and occasionally the lowlights. I see so many bad movies, I figure I may be able to save somebody some pain.
Up next are Little Miss Sunshine and Water.
Up next are Little Miss Sunshine and Water.
Little Children, cocks and bulls, and Venus with a Pot Noodle
I truly think Little Children may be the most underrated film of the year. It's a story about the world of stay-at-home parents who meet at a suburban playground, and the extra-marital affairs and social intrigue that take place over the course of the summer, under the specter of child molester who has returned to the neighborhood. Kate Winslet is one of the five women nominated for seemingly every best actress award this year, for her performance as Sarah, a young mother feeling trapped in her house with her daughter, desperate for any brief escape. Patrick Wilson is Brad, a father whose emasculating wife sends him to the library to study for the bar exam every night, while instead he sits on a bench watches kids doing skateboard tricks. Jackie Earle Haley also got an Oscar nomination for playing Ronnie the child molester, whose sinister presence looms over the neighborhood from the fliers with his picture posted on every available surface.
I had no idea what to expect going in, but Little Children completely grabbed me with the frustrations of Sarah and Brad in the tiny, petty universe in which they find themselves trapped, and Jackie Earle Haley's presence as the simultaneously creepy and pathetic Ronnie and his persecution by a deranged local cop was surprisingly engrossing. It's a fascinating story about adults trying to live out juvenile fantasy, particularly in the case of Brad, dubbed “The Prom King” by the local mothers, joins a football team to moonlight as the star quarterback with Sarah as his adoring groupie. Eventually it all has to end, and this makes for a great drama. The film also makes use of an omniscient narrator, which I usually despise, but in this case it provides another perspective on the dramatic events of the film: the narrator's dramatic voice-over commentary, while completely serious in its insights into the characters, is absolutely hilarious. This over the top dramatic device ironically allows the misadventures of Brad and Sarah to be as much comedy as they are drama. And I loved every frame of it. Although I do think it's weird that every time I see Patrick Wilson in a film there's castration and child molestation involved...
Peter O'Toole apparently was a bit disgruntled at receiving a lifetime achievement Oscar, because he said he considers himself very much still in the game, and while Venus may not be his most inspiring work to date, it does prove his point. I really the idea explored in Venus that all the great iconic images of the female form in art all began with a live model who belched and drooled in her sleep like the rest of us. Jodie Whittaker's first appearance as inspiration slurping up a pot noodle captures this perfectly. Peter O'Toole plays Maurice, an aged actor who becomes obsessed with his friend's great-niece Jessie, a pretty low-class young woman whose exasperated family tried to shuffle her off to her ancient great-uncle Ian. The vapid Jessie wolfs down chips while proclaiming her aims at a modeling career, but Maurice's slightly creepy obsession makes him the first person to see something truly transcendently wonderful in her, including her own mother. Leslie Phillips, and Richard Griffiths round out Maurice's circle of friends of fussy and crude old men, and Vanessa Redgrave is great as his ex-wife. Venus really does get into my favorite thing about the world, the moments of shocking beauty that emerge when you find the right angle to view them from, and the way even a complete chav like Jessie is no less a woman for it, with all that implies.
Finally, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, was Michael Winterbottom's attempt at filming the supposedly unfilmable post-modern novel, so necessarily it stars Steve Coogan as the director and star of another attempt to film the novel. It moves smoothly from actual scenes from the novel, moving past the cameras of the film within a film to follow the actors into the chaos surrounding the film production, concluding in the screening room where a disappointed cast and crew are underwhelmed by Steve Coogan's film. Completely bizarre, obviously, but very funny in a literary nerd sort of way. And it's nice to see Gillian Anderson again and know she survived the X-Files. I just caught it because of its BAFTA nomination, but I was certainly glad I did.
I had no idea what to expect going in, but Little Children completely grabbed me with the frustrations of Sarah and Brad in the tiny, petty universe in which they find themselves trapped, and Jackie Earle Haley's presence as the simultaneously creepy and pathetic Ronnie and his persecution by a deranged local cop was surprisingly engrossing. It's a fascinating story about adults trying to live out juvenile fantasy, particularly in the case of Brad, dubbed “The Prom King” by the local mothers, joins a football team to moonlight as the star quarterback with Sarah as his adoring groupie. Eventually it all has to end, and this makes for a great drama. The film also makes use of an omniscient narrator, which I usually despise, but in this case it provides another perspective on the dramatic events of the film: the narrator's dramatic voice-over commentary, while completely serious in its insights into the characters, is absolutely hilarious. This over the top dramatic device ironically allows the misadventures of Brad and Sarah to be as much comedy as they are drama. And I loved every frame of it. Although I do think it's weird that every time I see Patrick Wilson in a film there's castration and child molestation involved...
Peter O'Toole apparently was a bit disgruntled at receiving a lifetime achievement Oscar, because he said he considers himself very much still in the game, and while Venus may not be his most inspiring work to date, it does prove his point. I really the idea explored in Venus that all the great iconic images of the female form in art all began with a live model who belched and drooled in her sleep like the rest of us. Jodie Whittaker's first appearance as inspiration slurping up a pot noodle captures this perfectly. Peter O'Toole plays Maurice, an aged actor who becomes obsessed with his friend's great-niece Jessie, a pretty low-class young woman whose exasperated family tried to shuffle her off to her ancient great-uncle Ian. The vapid Jessie wolfs down chips while proclaiming her aims at a modeling career, but Maurice's slightly creepy obsession makes him the first person to see something truly transcendently wonderful in her, including her own mother. Leslie Phillips, and Richard Griffiths round out Maurice's circle of friends of fussy and crude old men, and Vanessa Redgrave is great as his ex-wife. Venus really does get into my favorite thing about the world, the moments of shocking beauty that emerge when you find the right angle to view them from, and the way even a complete chav like Jessie is no less a woman for it, with all that implies.
Finally, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, was Michael Winterbottom's attempt at filming the supposedly unfilmable post-modern novel, so necessarily it stars Steve Coogan as the director and star of another attempt to film the novel. It moves smoothly from actual scenes from the novel, moving past the cameras of the film within a film to follow the actors into the chaos surrounding the film production, concluding in the screening room where a disappointed cast and crew are underwhelmed by Steve Coogan's film. Completely bizarre, obviously, but very funny in a literary nerd sort of way. And it's nice to see Gillian Anderson again and know she survived the X-Files. I just caught it because of its BAFTA nomination, but I was certainly glad I did.
Friday, February 09, 2007
This just in: people are stupid
I was again marveling at the stupidity of people today, when I encountered that persistent failure of synapses to close that plagues people who sneak food into theatres. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of theatre it is, whether it's a movie, a college art history lecture, or whatever, just so long as its dark and quiet, so every noise is magnified. People who sneak in food for some reason love two things: crunchy chips in crinkly foil bags, and soda in aluminum cans. It never crosses their minds at the store that they're buying the loudest goddamned food on earth short of brining in a live lobster and dropping it screaming into a boiling pot in the seat next to them. The film Babel's Japan subplot has scenes immersed in the perspective of a deaf girl, that are almost perfectly silent... which is probably not the time to slowly pop the top on your soda can. Why is it the people who can't go two hours without snacks can't ever bring an egg salad sandwich? If you need to chew with your mouth open, try bringing some softer foods you can gum down, for god's sake.
I would probably have dismissed the stupid snackers if it wasn't for the fact that when I got home, I had about my 4th "Breaking News" email from CNN.com about fucking Anna Nicole Smith. I thought the first one, dumbass freak with big tits found dead (something like that anyways), really covered that story in all the detail I was looking for. If I needed to know more, I would have been perfectly happy to seek that information out on my own. But now I can rest easy because I've just been assured there is no indication of foul play. I'm not kidding, I think I've had as many emails from CNN about Anna Nicole Smith as I have about Osama bin Laden in the last five years, and I'm convinced, the people who demand that CNN do more hard-hitting stories about unintelligible blonde gold-diggers that can be used as a flotation device are also the ones making nachos with a blowtorch in the back of movie theatres.
(And yes, my pretentious use of the anglophilic spelling "theatre" is also a sign that people are stupid.)
I would probably have dismissed the stupid snackers if it wasn't for the fact that when I got home, I had about my 4th "Breaking News" email from CNN.com about fucking Anna Nicole Smith. I thought the first one, dumbass freak with big tits found dead (something like that anyways), really covered that story in all the detail I was looking for. If I needed to know more, I would have been perfectly happy to seek that information out on my own. But now I can rest easy because I've just been assured there is no indication of foul play. I'm not kidding, I think I've had as many emails from CNN about Anna Nicole Smith as I have about Osama bin Laden in the last five years, and I'm convinced, the people who demand that CNN do more hard-hitting stories about unintelligible blonde gold-diggers that can be used as a flotation device are also the ones making nachos with a blowtorch in the back of movie theatres.
(And yes, my pretentious use of the anglophilic spelling "theatre" is also a sign that people are stupid.)
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Bruegger's Bagels secret driver of US inflation?
I popped in to buy a couple of bagels at Bruegger's today, and I seriously thought I must have been overcharged, so I had to ask the price of bagels. I had a serious old man moment when the cashier told me they were up to 89 cents, but I avoided the temptation to make a grumpy "In my day bagels cost 39 cents!" speech, but I did feel really old for living long enough to have inflation cause me sticker shock. On a bagel.
Then something from my years of training in economics kicked in, and I realized, the US rate of inflation is nowhere near enough to cause that. In fact, over the past 11-12 years, Bruegger's bagels outpaced inflation by 5%. There may be perfectly logical causes, like a particular vulnerability to rising real estate and labor costs, I still say they're ripping me off with their overpriced bagels, damnit, and I think it's this and not the gaping current account deficit that's eroding the value of the US dollar. And of course now I feel old again because I'm obsessing over the price of bagels. I blame Brueggers. Now get off my lawn.
Then something from my years of training in economics kicked in, and I realized, the US rate of inflation is nowhere near enough to cause that. In fact, over the past 11-12 years, Bruegger's bagels outpaced inflation by 5%. There may be perfectly logical causes, like a particular vulnerability to rising real estate and labor costs, I still say they're ripping me off with their overpriced bagels, damnit, and I think it's this and not the gaping current account deficit that's eroding the value of the US dollar. And of course now I feel old again because I'm obsessing over the price of bagels. I blame Brueggers. Now get off my lawn.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Colts 29 - 17 Bears
Really not that thrilling a game, with a predictable result given the limitations of the Bears offense and their play late in the game. Even the commercials were fairly uninspiring, like they knew nobody was watching outside the greater Ft. Wayne metro area this year. On the bright side, at least there'll be no poorly constructed green and yellow float careening through downtown Chicago mowing down Bears fans, unlike when the White Sox won the World Series.
Children of Men
I really felt overwhelmed by Children of Men, I really did, and I was amazed on reflection to realize it's really down to one technical factor that raises a good dystopian thriller into something transcendent. Much of the film is shot in incredibly long, fluid takes following Theo Faron (Clive Owen), often as he moves through a variety of locations. Because Theo's world is so large and fluid and I was never shown the seams, it felt incredibly real. At several points Theo passes by or eavesdrops on the rest of the cast as he walks into earshot of conversations, so there is a definite sense that the world around him continues without him, like the of the reverse Truman Show(1). The cumulative effect is to make Theo and his world, and everyone in it, seem so real that I was completely absorbed into the story, to the point of feeling the crawling grief of Theo's world, and feel the warm spark when he glimpses something brighter. The exploding coffeeshop clip from the opening used to promote the film packs this surprising punch because the long, intimate shot of Theo captures so well his feeling of “I was just there.”
The themes of the film when presented in that manner take on a greater significance, and they take on a range of issues, from the obvious authoritarianism and xenophobia, to a more general malaise of despair in a culture that sees no future for itself, to the fleeting nature of the transcendent, unifying moments we experience as a culture. The general premise of the film is that no children have been born in the world in 18 years, without any explanation, and the looming extinction of the human race has created a climate of overwhelming depression. When the first pregnancy is introduced into this world in almost two decades, the effect is briefly overwhelming on those around the mother, before politics set in and protecting her becomes secondary to exploiting her. In particular there's an image in this film of soldiers kneeling penitently before the child before resuming fighting in an Iraq-like wrecked urban landscape, which evoked the fleeting effects of both Christ and 9/11 of turning our focus to something higher than our usual squabbles ourselves, before both were exploited.
I can be biased by the fact that I love a few of the actors in this film, and Clive Owen and Julianne Moore both do well, as does Chiwetel Ejiofor in a supporting role that needed the depth of feeling he brings to it. Michael Caine, however, who is having a very good year, steals a lot of his scenes playing an John Lennon-inspired aged hippie. So my response may have been exceptional, but the only other film I've seen this year that moved me as much as Children of Men was The Depahted.
1 - Technically that would be the real world, but I suppose I was referring to the way that The Truman Show was about constructing an obviously fake, idealized world that let people escape their own lives and carefully protected its audience through panning away from Truman's sex life, letting imagination substitute where our romantic ideals get... sticky. Truman being a real person makes him an anchor to ease the suspension of disbelief even though the parameters of Truman's world are laid out as fake, and Children of Men does the opposite. Alfonso Cuaron makes the world around his actors seem real, and ties it into our own through careful references to media imagery from Abu Ghraib, The Green Zone, and Guantanamo, to give a few, and to some of our most profound real and fictional nightmares through references to Orwell, Auschwitz, and others. So Cuaron has Clive Owen's stomping around in the world I brought into the theater but lured me in with a premise that keeps the story at a safe distance (global infertility, decades into the future).
Thursday, February 01, 2007
The Devil Wears Prada
I was really excited about The Devil Wears Prada, because when award nominations started coming out I basically hadn't seen any of the top rated female performances of last year. Overall I have to admit to being a little disappointed. It's well made, and it's great to see a well-made, enjoyable film of a female experience, which being grumpy and critical I rarely do.
So The Devil Wears Prada was certainly stylish and funny enough to charm me. Meryl Streep is excellent, and I positively adored Anne Hathaway's character. Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci put in delightful supporting performances, and the four of them do make it a film well worth seeing, and earn the film all its props.
My complaint is that the story of Andy Sachs' rude introduction to, seduction by, and rejection of the fashion world is such a well-worn story, it's hard not to know where it's all going within the first fifteen minutes, and when this started to sink in, I found it hard to maintain interest in the second half.
I suppose my real problem is it doesn't feel like it has a lot to say about this meme, about fashion or powerful women, or even Andy Sachs, outside of a few tantalizing moments, like when Sachs first dares to snort a bit at how far up their own asses the fashionistas she works with are. Miranda Priestly (Streep) breaks down everything she wears in terms of its relation to high fashion and how Sachs is using her fashion choices to present an image of herself, and completely punctures the air of superiority surrounding Sachs' view of herself, by reminding her that we cannot live outside our culture, and that culture includes Runway Magazine. I wish it had gone further along this line, and had showed a real transformation for Sachs, since her wardrobe throughout the film is a barometer for changes in her character. Instead she goes from dressing in the dark to runway model and back to dressing in the dark... by the end, she's back to where she started and her wardrobe more than anything tells us that.
There were other threads that could have been the basis for this to be a great movie, but ultimately The Devil Wears Prada is only a good movie, albeit full of great actors in smashing outfits.
So The Devil Wears Prada was certainly stylish and funny enough to charm me. Meryl Streep is excellent, and I positively adored Anne Hathaway's character. Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci put in delightful supporting performances, and the four of them do make it a film well worth seeing, and earn the film all its props.
My complaint is that the story of Andy Sachs' rude introduction to, seduction by, and rejection of the fashion world is such a well-worn story, it's hard not to know where it's all going within the first fifteen minutes, and when this started to sink in, I found it hard to maintain interest in the second half.
I suppose my real problem is it doesn't feel like it has a lot to say about this meme, about fashion or powerful women, or even Andy Sachs, outside of a few tantalizing moments, like when Sachs first dares to snort a bit at how far up their own asses the fashionistas she works with are. Miranda Priestly (Streep) breaks down everything she wears in terms of its relation to high fashion and how Sachs is using her fashion choices to present an image of herself, and completely punctures the air of superiority surrounding Sachs' view of herself, by reminding her that we cannot live outside our culture, and that culture includes Runway Magazine. I wish it had gone further along this line, and had showed a real transformation for Sachs, since her wardrobe throughout the film is a barometer for changes in her character. Instead she goes from dressing in the dark to runway model and back to dressing in the dark... by the end, she's back to where she started and her wardrobe more than anything tells us that.
There were other threads that could have been the basis for this to be a great movie, but ultimately The Devil Wears Prada is only a good movie, albeit full of great actors in smashing outfits.
Annoying Soccer Update
Michel Platini wins UEFA election
This is actually a big deal, since Platini campaigned by courting the smaller European countries, and promised to reform the Champions League. In Platini's vision, nobody will have more than three entrants (currently the top three countries get four and England once got five), and he wants more champions of smaller countries to be in the big show. This could signal a philosophical shift from pursuing big money markets to developing the game in smaller markets, depending on how much influence Platini really has. Personally I wish they'd just go ahead and merge a few small leagues in the Benelux and the Alps, but that's just me.
Ronaldo returning to Milano
Now that he can't run for more than 20 minutes a game, Real Madrid is shipping out former galactico Ronaldo, to AC Milan. Since he had all those injury plagued years at Inter, some Italians are saying he'll need to fortify his home. He'll also be reunited with former Inter teammate Clarence Seedorf, who was rumored to have played a part in Ronaldo's transfer to Real Madrid, because he was (allegedly) doing Ronaldo's hot wife, ex-model and pro soccer player Milene Domingues. Since then, Ronaldo has moved on and apparently had an entire bus full of hookers delivered to a party he was hosting in Madrid. If he can get in shape and come on as a supersub for Milan, he could still be pretty useful in getting Milan into next year's Champions League. I think he may be the last of the galactico era buys to leave Madrid, now that Zidane, Figo, Beckham, and Michael Owen are all gone.
Ridiculous lead by Inter
On the topic of Italian football, what is going on with Inter's ridiculous lead? They're up 11 points on Roma, 18 on Palermo, and there's a staggering 27 point difference between first and fourth place. I know this was supposed to be their year with Juventus relegated and most of the other seven sisters having points docked for rigging the league, but yikes, I guess they'll win a scudetto for once. I'm still rooting for Il Piccolo Principe and Roma.
Arsenal v Chelsea, Feb 25th, Cardiff
Arsenal will play Chelsea in the final of the Carling Cup, kind of a Mickey Mouse event, but it does give automatic qualification to Europe next year. This is a bigger deal for Arsenal than for Chelsea, since Arsenal could really use the safety net, given the importance of European revenue to finance their stadium debt. Arsenal have traditionally played younger players from the reserves in the Carling Cup, and after the kids saw off Tottenham Hotspur in the semi-finals, Arsene Wenger announced that the players who got them this far will get to finish the job and play in the final in Cardiff. If Chelsea's free agent stars were to lose to a youth team from Arsenal's academy, this would really be a stunning embarrassment for Chelsea, and certain front-runners in the financial world might have to reconsider their loyalties.
That is all.
This is actually a big deal, since Platini campaigned by courting the smaller European countries, and promised to reform the Champions League. In Platini's vision, nobody will have more than three entrants (currently the top three countries get four and England once got five), and he wants more champions of smaller countries to be in the big show. This could signal a philosophical shift from pursuing big money markets to developing the game in smaller markets, depending on how much influence Platini really has. Personally I wish they'd just go ahead and merge a few small leagues in the Benelux and the Alps, but that's just me.
Ronaldo returning to Milano
Now that he can't run for more than 20 minutes a game, Real Madrid is shipping out former galactico Ronaldo, to AC Milan. Since he had all those injury plagued years at Inter, some Italians are saying he'll need to fortify his home. He'll also be reunited with former Inter teammate Clarence Seedorf, who was rumored to have played a part in Ronaldo's transfer to Real Madrid, because he was (allegedly) doing Ronaldo's hot wife, ex-model and pro soccer player Milene Domingues. Since then, Ronaldo has moved on and apparently had an entire bus full of hookers delivered to a party he was hosting in Madrid. If he can get in shape and come on as a supersub for Milan, he could still be pretty useful in getting Milan into next year's Champions League. I think he may be the last of the galactico era buys to leave Madrid, now that Zidane, Figo, Beckham, and Michael Owen are all gone.
Ridiculous lead by Inter
On the topic of Italian football, what is going on with Inter's ridiculous lead? They're up 11 points on Roma, 18 on Palermo, and there's a staggering 27 point difference between first and fourth place. I know this was supposed to be their year with Juventus relegated and most of the other seven sisters having points docked for rigging the league, but yikes, I guess they'll win a scudetto for once. I'm still rooting for Il Piccolo Principe and Roma.
Arsenal v Chelsea, Feb 25th, Cardiff
Arsenal will play Chelsea in the final of the Carling Cup, kind of a Mickey Mouse event, but it does give automatic qualification to Europe next year. This is a bigger deal for Arsenal than for Chelsea, since Arsenal could really use the safety net, given the importance of European revenue to finance their stadium debt. Arsenal have traditionally played younger players from the reserves in the Carling Cup, and after the kids saw off Tottenham Hotspur in the semi-finals, Arsene Wenger announced that the players who got them this far will get to finish the job and play in the final in Cardiff. If Chelsea's free agent stars were to lose to a youth team from Arsenal's academy, this would really be a stunning embarrassment for Chelsea, and certain front-runners in the financial world might have to reconsider their loyalties.
That is all.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Timberwolves 121 - 112 Suns
Three players with 20+ points, 18 assists for Steve Nash, a total team score of 112 points and they still couldn't top the Wolves, because Kevin Garnett dropped a bomb on the Phoenix Suns. 44 points from him and a decent night from everybody else was enough to come back for the win, as The Big Ticket choked the life out of the Suns in the last few minutes. This is the first time I've seen them since Randy Wittman took over as head coach, and while I can't really detect any substantial effect of the Wittman philosophy, but I'll take a win over a very good team as a good sign. (Tonight's loss ties Phoenix with Dallas at 36-9, good for best record in the league.)
I did wonder about some other Timberwolves news I heard before going to the game, that the deadline had passed on a trade exception. Last year, as part of the Celtics trade that shipped out Wally Szczerbiak, the Wolves got a $4.2m trade exception, which you would think would have gone to help facilitate a deal to trim our guard-heavy roster and bring in another big man. Instead they just let it go along with all the draft picks we've traded away, so it looks like this year's roster will be next year's roster as well. So our only hope is that Wittman shows some previously unheralded genius and coaches up a .500 team into a playoff contender. Or the front office is planning to trade Garnett to the Clippers in the summer and burn down the building on their way out of town.
I did wonder about some other Timberwolves news I heard before going to the game, that the deadline had passed on a trade exception. Last year, as part of the Celtics trade that shipped out Wally Szczerbiak, the Wolves got a $4.2m trade exception, which you would think would have gone to help facilitate a deal to trim our guard-heavy roster and bring in another big man. Instead they just let it go along with all the draft picks we've traded away, so it looks like this year's roster will be next year's roster as well. So our only hope is that Wittman shows some previously unheralded genius and coaches up a .500 team into a playoff contender. Or the front office is planning to trade Garnett to the Clippers in the summer and burn down the building on their way out of town.
Arsenal 2-1 Manchester United
I just finally got around to watching this game, but it was worth the wait. A great, fast-paced game between two quality teams banging away at each other's goals, something I don't often see with all the Chelsea vs East Piddlington Chip Shop games that Fox likes to show now that Chelsea are the big money team. Seriously, since Abramovich/Mourinho took over Chelsea, the two biggest achievements in English football have been Arsenal's undefeated season and Liverpool's European Cup win, and the most thrilling story is Ferguson coaching up United into a contender when they looked likely to collapse under Glazer's belt-tightening regime. So why is boring-ass Chelsea on TV all the time again?
In this game Wayne Rooney ironically broke a goal-scoring drought when Ferguson played him out on the wing to take the pressure off of him. A cross was flicked by Kolo Toure in the Arsenal box, but the central defense and Lehmann were all drawn to the near post cross. On the backside of the play Gael Clichy, watching the ball, let Rooney stray from him and when the flick from Toure went to the far post Rooney had the space to head it down onto the goal line, and Lehmann couldn't get to that in time.
Arsenal had taken a lot of weak or off-target shots, and really weren't turning their numerous attacks into solid scoring opportunities, and it looked like United were going to control the game after Rooney's score, until the last ten minutes. In the 83rd minute Henry sent a cross to the far post and Robin van Persie, somehow extended a toe past his defender to knock it into the roof of the net past a diving Van der Sar's hand. In injury time with less than a minute left, a cross from Eboue to a strangely open Henry let him put in a rare header for the win.
A great comeback in an exciting game, and a couple of nice goals to do it. And Cristiano Ronaldo is still a cheating prick.
Rooney '53
Van Persie '83
Henry '90
In this game Wayne Rooney ironically broke a goal-scoring drought when Ferguson played him out on the wing to take the pressure off of him. A cross was flicked by Kolo Toure in the Arsenal box, but the central defense and Lehmann were all drawn to the near post cross. On the backside of the play Gael Clichy, watching the ball, let Rooney stray from him and when the flick from Toure went to the far post Rooney had the space to head it down onto the goal line, and Lehmann couldn't get to that in time.
Arsenal had taken a lot of weak or off-target shots, and really weren't turning their numerous attacks into solid scoring opportunities, and it looked like United were going to control the game after Rooney's score, until the last ten minutes. In the 83rd minute Henry sent a cross to the far post and Robin van Persie, somehow extended a toe past his defender to knock it into the roof of the net past a diving Van der Sar's hand. In injury time with less than a minute left, a cross from Eboue to a strangely open Henry let him put in a rare header for the win.
A great comeback in an exciting game, and a couple of nice goals to do it. And Cristiano Ronaldo is still a cheating prick.
Rooney '53
Van Persie '83
Henry '90
Saturday, January 27, 2007
African Doubleheader
Last Wednesday I caught Blood Diamond and The Last King of Scotland, and in retrospect I should have gone down to the West Bank for an African meal in between, instead of sushi, had I realized I was going for that much African tragedy in one night. The most engrossing, intense theatre experience I ever had was a performance of Macbeth set in West Africa, complete with fright wigs and machetes, and these films certainly tied into the same violent spectacle.
Blood Diamond is a pretty straightforward, some say cliche, story of a father (Djimon Honsou) kidnapped and sent to Sierra Leone's diamond mines, who finds an enormous pink diamond and uses it as leverage to find his family, with the help of a cute but manipulative smuggler (Leonardo Di Caprio) and the earnest reporter in an open necked shirt (Jennifer Connelly) who falls for him. The problems of the film that numerous reviews will comment on come from trying to set a high moral tone and make an important film about the exploitation of Africa's minerals, and the feeling that such a traditional story told in a high-minded way has a certain inevitability to its plot, as everyone must either get their just rewards or punishment, or if they're a crooked smuggler with a heart of gold, achieve salvation. However, even if it's not told in an innovative way, that story is at least told well.
So while some rolled their eyes a little bit, for me what's good about Blood Diamond far overshadows its limitations. And it does achieve its moral objective (using Jennifer Connelly as a Mary Sue), which is to put a real sense of the horror of conflict diamonds to a wider audience of diamond consumers in wealthier countries. I suspect that if this movie, which is set in 1998, had come out a few years ago in support of the Kimberley Process and not after it, or while Sierra Leone and the antics of certain mercenary groups were still fresh topics, its message would have been received as more relevant than preachy. It doesn't help that last year's Oscars featured Hollywood patting itself on the back for championing yesterday's social issues, and Blood Diamond sadly gets caught in that, making me wonder if this screenplay wasn't buried in some exec's drawer for a few years. On the other hand, diamonds aren't the only mineral supporting armed conflict in Africa so maybe the failure is the film's inabilty to suggest that it's about more than Sierra Leone.
It is also a great look at Africa (I should qualify that by admitting I've got no particular knowledge of West Africa, so I can't speak to how accurate a depiction it is). It's still a step closer than we usually get, since early on the film spends a fair bit of time following Danny Archer (Di Caprio) through Freetown. This may be just my own perception, but Western filmmakers don't spend a lot of time in Urban Africa, or looking at industries like mining and energy. Given the probable importance of the Niger delta to an energy-hungry world, it's odd that pastoral peoples like the Samburu and Masai get more screen time, and it's why a film like Tsotsi seemed so startling for depicting side by side shanty town gangsters and a modern train station and gated homes.
One of the criticisms of Blood Diamond has been that it's told from a white person's perspective, but given its political ambitions, that's where it needed to be. The two perspectives on Africa are the cynical native-born mercenary smuggler and the ignorant in her idealism American journalist, but there is some awareness of this within the film. In a film about exploitation, these two are particularly suited as guides. Archer is all about exploitation with only some sense of fair trade to act as a moral compass, but the idealistic journalist is not actually the moral barometer of the film, since she has to acknowledge her own role in shaping what Africa is to the world: a victim, passively exploited without any consciousness of its own agency. The stories of victimized Africans make thiem into such a flat image of tragedy, with faceless tormentors rather than actual people who live in the same world as her readers; they are separated more by the level of reality they reside, than by geography. The moral barometer is Djimon Honsou as Soloman Vandy, who has an actual purposeful life populated by real people and not images, and both white people nevertheless reduce him to a couple of photograph captions and his only possession, the diamond.
There's a subplot ignored in all of the reviews I've read as well, and that is the graphic, brainwashing violence of the RUF. From chopping off hands in a symbolic act to protest democracy to their mining operations, they are clearly the primary antagonist. The element that's interesting about them is the subplot with Vandy's son Dia being recruited as a child soldier, and the transformation required to survive that ordeal, the rites of forced violence and drugs, and creation of a violent new persona, in Dia's case renaming himself "See Me No More". This effect of creating armies of violent children, remaining very much emotionally children but with the capability for violence of the most hardened men, is a truly frightening phenomenon that exists far beyond Africa. The only mention of it, or the violence and intimidation in failed states, in any review I read was to suggest that the film was too violent, as if the solution was to ignore the message about Western consumption supporting violence and instead continue to turn our heads. Democracy and violence, making sure children pick up a gun rather than go to school, sounds like issues we find ourselves embroiled in outside of Africa.
Now that I've written god knows how much about it, what I really enjoyed most about this movie had nothing to do with message or politics, or all the analysis I can muster up. I just really loved watching these actors prance through a lush African setting. I've been a big Leonardo Di Caprio admirer since before he did Titanic, and just listening to him talk in this movie was a treat. His Zimbabwe accent and the Krio he uses in Sierra Leone along with the melodic charm of his character made it a captivating performance, and I found myself thinking of some of his casual expressions after the film. Archer's conversations with pretty much anyone in the film were shiny in Leo's Zimbabwe banter. Djimon Honsou as always brings such a dominant presence to the screen his every movement held my attention. And for the first time in a long time, Jennifer Connelly looked like she'd been enjoying good food and fresh air, because she looked quite good.
The characters may seem a little thin, a little cliche, but I do think the film redeems some of that by presenting over the course of the film by grounding enough of Danny Archer's cynicism in the details of his past that he becomes something other than a stock character, and Archer's amusement at the earnestness of Djimon Honsou's Solomon Vandy reminds us that Vandy is an unusual man. The sharpness of his insights into Connelly's Maddy Bowen tear the veneer of the earnest do-good reporter she is playing enough to suggest a deeper human character underneath,. This is perhaps the whole point of the film, that these images, these characters from this tale of Sierra Leone were not fully formed into their roles, something made them this way just as the real conflict didn't spring out of the red earth fully formed and impenetrable to outside forces. It isn't enough to throw up our hands and say there will always be Danny Archers and Colonel Coetzees and Captain Poisons, because as the film shows briefly with Dia's indoctrination and Danny's history as a soldier, these people and their country were formed, and perhaps can be reformed.
The other Africa film I saw was The Last King of Scotland, the story of the rise and fall of Idi Amin in Uganda from the perspective of his personal physician, a very different experience. Nicholas Garrigan travels from Scotland to Uganda on a lark, and by a chance meeting becomes the president's doctor and by the murderous whims of the mercurial Amin becomes the dictator's closest advisor.
What's so fascinating about this is that we only see Amin through Garrigan's eyes, although the benefit of history gives us a certain cynical insight that Garrigan lacks, allowing to see more of what Garrigan's enthusiasm and Amin's charm glosses over. The youthful Garrigan basks almost entirely in the charm of Amin, and in the promise of an independent African state led by a man of Amin's stature. Garrigan is further pushed towards Amin by his Brittish peers' distrust of Amin, which he assumes is the racist cynicism of the former empire that can't stand to see a black nation rise. It takes Garrigan far too long to see the stituation he has gotten himself into, and he does not see the dangers in his carefree Ugandan odyssey until long after the point of no return. In the end each notes about the other that there is something childlike in the way they view the world, believing it cannot hurt them no matter how far they push.
The reason to see this film is Forest Whitaker. He plays Amin with the perfect mix of charm and terror, and I couldn't help but grin and (and sometimes shudder) watching every scene he was in. I've always had a soft spot for Forest Whitaker since Good Morning, Vietnam but now I want to rewatch that movie because I can't believe it was the same guy. Apparently he also had some trouble abandoning the persona of the Ugandan dictator after spending months immersing himself in all things Idi Amin preparing for the role, and couldn't shake the accent for a long time, so if he doesn't get an Oscar for this, he may hang Leonardo Di Caprio by his skin backstage.
James McAvoy puts in a great performance as Nicholas Garrigan, bubbling with this infectious enthusiasm that enticed me to see Amin through his eyes. Some of Garrigan's story is a little thin, but McAvoy helps a lot with the energy he brings to it. And it's nice to know Gillian Anderson is alive and well and still has an agent (I also liked her contribution to last year's A Cock and Bull Story).
Seriously a great evening, two great films and some great octopus in between. And don't get excited, PJ, I said a cock and BULL story, and it's an adaptation of an 18th century postmodern novel, not Peter North's latest oeuvre.
Blood Diamond is a pretty straightforward, some say cliche, story of a father (Djimon Honsou) kidnapped and sent to Sierra Leone's diamond mines, who finds an enormous pink diamond and uses it as leverage to find his family, with the help of a cute but manipulative smuggler (Leonardo Di Caprio) and the earnest reporter in an open necked shirt (Jennifer Connelly) who falls for him. The problems of the film that numerous reviews will comment on come from trying to set a high moral tone and make an important film about the exploitation of Africa's minerals, and the feeling that such a traditional story told in a high-minded way has a certain inevitability to its plot, as everyone must either get their just rewards or punishment, or if they're a crooked smuggler with a heart of gold, achieve salvation. However, even if it's not told in an innovative way, that story is at least told well.
So while some rolled their eyes a little bit, for me what's good about Blood Diamond far overshadows its limitations. And it does achieve its moral objective (using Jennifer Connelly as a Mary Sue), which is to put a real sense of the horror of conflict diamonds to a wider audience of diamond consumers in wealthier countries. I suspect that if this movie, which is set in 1998, had come out a few years ago in support of the Kimberley Process and not after it, or while Sierra Leone and the antics of certain mercenary groups were still fresh topics, its message would have been received as more relevant than preachy. It doesn't help that last year's Oscars featured Hollywood patting itself on the back for championing yesterday's social issues, and Blood Diamond sadly gets caught in that, making me wonder if this screenplay wasn't buried in some exec's drawer for a few years. On the other hand, diamonds aren't the only mineral supporting armed conflict in Africa so maybe the failure is the film's inabilty to suggest that it's about more than Sierra Leone.
It is also a great look at Africa (I should qualify that by admitting I've got no particular knowledge of West Africa, so I can't speak to how accurate a depiction it is). It's still a step closer than we usually get, since early on the film spends a fair bit of time following Danny Archer (Di Caprio) through Freetown. This may be just my own perception, but Western filmmakers don't spend a lot of time in Urban Africa, or looking at industries like mining and energy. Given the probable importance of the Niger delta to an energy-hungry world, it's odd that pastoral peoples like the Samburu and Masai get more screen time, and it's why a film like Tsotsi seemed so startling for depicting side by side shanty town gangsters and a modern train station and gated homes.
One of the criticisms of Blood Diamond has been that it's told from a white person's perspective, but given its political ambitions, that's where it needed to be. The two perspectives on Africa are the cynical native-born mercenary smuggler and the ignorant in her idealism American journalist, but there is some awareness of this within the film. In a film about exploitation, these two are particularly suited as guides. Archer is all about exploitation with only some sense of fair trade to act as a moral compass, but the idealistic journalist is not actually the moral barometer of the film, since she has to acknowledge her own role in shaping what Africa is to the world: a victim, passively exploited without any consciousness of its own agency. The stories of victimized Africans make thiem into such a flat image of tragedy, with faceless tormentors rather than actual people who live in the same world as her readers; they are separated more by the level of reality they reside, than by geography. The moral barometer is Djimon Honsou as Soloman Vandy, who has an actual purposeful life populated by real people and not images, and both white people nevertheless reduce him to a couple of photograph captions and his only possession, the diamond.
There's a subplot ignored in all of the reviews I've read as well, and that is the graphic, brainwashing violence of the RUF. From chopping off hands in a symbolic act to protest democracy to their mining operations, they are clearly the primary antagonist. The element that's interesting about them is the subplot with Vandy's son Dia being recruited as a child soldier, and the transformation required to survive that ordeal, the rites of forced violence and drugs, and creation of a violent new persona, in Dia's case renaming himself "See Me No More". This effect of creating armies of violent children, remaining very much emotionally children but with the capability for violence of the most hardened men, is a truly frightening phenomenon that exists far beyond Africa. The only mention of it, or the violence and intimidation in failed states, in any review I read was to suggest that the film was too violent, as if the solution was to ignore the message about Western consumption supporting violence and instead continue to turn our heads. Democracy and violence, making sure children pick up a gun rather than go to school, sounds like issues we find ourselves embroiled in outside of Africa.
Now that I've written god knows how much about it, what I really enjoyed most about this movie had nothing to do with message or politics, or all the analysis I can muster up. I just really loved watching these actors prance through a lush African setting. I've been a big Leonardo Di Caprio admirer since before he did Titanic, and just listening to him talk in this movie was a treat. His Zimbabwe accent and the Krio he uses in Sierra Leone along with the melodic charm of his character made it a captivating performance, and I found myself thinking of some of his casual expressions after the film. Archer's conversations with pretty much anyone in the film were shiny in Leo's Zimbabwe banter. Djimon Honsou as always brings such a dominant presence to the screen his every movement held my attention. And for the first time in a long time, Jennifer Connelly looked like she'd been enjoying good food and fresh air, because she looked quite good.
The characters may seem a little thin, a little cliche, but I do think the film redeems some of that by presenting over the course of the film by grounding enough of Danny Archer's cynicism in the details of his past that he becomes something other than a stock character, and Archer's amusement at the earnestness of Djimon Honsou's Solomon Vandy reminds us that Vandy is an unusual man. The sharpness of his insights into Connelly's Maddy Bowen tear the veneer of the earnest do-good reporter she is playing enough to suggest a deeper human character underneath,. This is perhaps the whole point of the film, that these images, these characters from this tale of Sierra Leone were not fully formed into their roles, something made them this way just as the real conflict didn't spring out of the red earth fully formed and impenetrable to outside forces. It isn't enough to throw up our hands and say there will always be Danny Archers and Colonel Coetzees and Captain Poisons, because as the film shows briefly with Dia's indoctrination and Danny's history as a soldier, these people and their country were formed, and perhaps can be reformed.
The other Africa film I saw was The Last King of Scotland, the story of the rise and fall of Idi Amin in Uganda from the perspective of his personal physician, a very different experience. Nicholas Garrigan travels from Scotland to Uganda on a lark, and by a chance meeting becomes the president's doctor and by the murderous whims of the mercurial Amin becomes the dictator's closest advisor.
What's so fascinating about this is that we only see Amin through Garrigan's eyes, although the benefit of history gives us a certain cynical insight that Garrigan lacks, allowing to see more of what Garrigan's enthusiasm and Amin's charm glosses over. The youthful Garrigan basks almost entirely in the charm of Amin, and in the promise of an independent African state led by a man of Amin's stature. Garrigan is further pushed towards Amin by his Brittish peers' distrust of Amin, which he assumes is the racist cynicism of the former empire that can't stand to see a black nation rise. It takes Garrigan far too long to see the stituation he has gotten himself into, and he does not see the dangers in his carefree Ugandan odyssey until long after the point of no return. In the end each notes about the other that there is something childlike in the way they view the world, believing it cannot hurt them no matter how far they push.
The reason to see this film is Forest Whitaker. He plays Amin with the perfect mix of charm and terror, and I couldn't help but grin and (and sometimes shudder) watching every scene he was in. I've always had a soft spot for Forest Whitaker since Good Morning, Vietnam but now I want to rewatch that movie because I can't believe it was the same guy. Apparently he also had some trouble abandoning the persona of the Ugandan dictator after spending months immersing himself in all things Idi Amin preparing for the role, and couldn't shake the accent for a long time, so if he doesn't get an Oscar for this, he may hang Leonardo Di Caprio by his skin backstage.
James McAvoy puts in a great performance as Nicholas Garrigan, bubbling with this infectious enthusiasm that enticed me to see Amin through his eyes. Some of Garrigan's story is a little thin, but McAvoy helps a lot with the energy he brings to it. And it's nice to know Gillian Anderson is alive and well and still has an agent (I also liked her contribution to last year's A Cock and Bull Story).
Seriously a great evening, two great films and some great octopus in between. And don't get excited, PJ, I said a cock and BULL story, and it's an adaptation of an 18th century postmodern novel, not Peter North's latest oeuvre.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
2007 Oscar Nominations
I haven't seen many Oscar contenders this year, but I was pleasantly surprised to find I'd seen seven Oscar nominees and only six Razzie nominees. Usually those numbers are reversed, given the number of awful movies I see. I did find a couple things amiss in this year's nominees, such as Marky Mark getting the only acting nomination for The Depahted, and the total lack of Razzie nominations for the steaming pile of... well, for 16 Blocks. I also see that once again the technical awards form the Oscar-Razzie overlap: Poseidon is up for an award from both organizations. This is why the technical awards get no respect on Oscar night, because they bring in the riff-raff. Seriously, when Click is up for an Oscar, and Steven Seagal as a losing nominee came back to present the next year, that just brings down the level of the whole event.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Pistons 104 - 98 Timberwolves
I only caught the end of the first overtime, and found the Wolves play in the final seconds so mystifying that I didn't bother watching the second overtime. With 13 seconds left in a tie game, Mike James took a couple bumps dribbling down the sideline, looked like he'd lost the ball and stepped out of bounds, but somehow came up with an improbable three point shot to put the Wolves up by 3. It was a pretty impressive feat of athleticism to come up with that. So then following a time-out, the Wolves left Rasheed Wallace wide open at the top of the arc to take the tying shot. He missed, but the Wolves lost the rebound to Rip Hamilton, who made a lay-up. The Pistons then fouled and Randy Foye's free throws made it a three point game again. So they leave Billups alone at the top of the arc on the inbound pass, and he ties the game. Supposedly Wallace and Billups both came off of screens to get these shots, but two back-to-back set three point pieces coming up with barely contested shots is pretty disheartening.
KG had already been tossed from the game for scuffling with Antonio McDyess, a player the Wolves were rumored to be looking at in trade talks, so I guess he won't be coming here. KG will face a league suspension, and he won't be the only player the Wolves go without. Ricky Davis decided after being pulled in the 3rd quarter disappeared to the locker room, and when coaxed back out, refused to play again, in a 2-OT game with the team's best player ejected. Seriously, big changes are needed, trade Garnett and get a new GM who believes in draft picks, and a coach who can start developing a new team. Rather than stay mired in mediocrity for the rest of a great player's career, I'd rather they just spread around gasoline and burn the place down. It's seriously not even fun anymore.
KG had already been tossed from the game for scuffling with Antonio McDyess, a player the Wolves were rumored to be looking at in trade talks, so I guess he won't be coming here. KG will face a league suspension, and he won't be the only player the Wolves go without. Ricky Davis decided after being pulled in the 3rd quarter disappeared to the locker room, and when coaxed back out, refused to play again, in a 2-OT game with the team's best player ejected. Seriously, big changes are needed, trade Garnett and get a new GM who believes in draft picks, and a coach who can start developing a new team. Rather than stay mired in mediocrity for the rest of a great player's career, I'd rather they just spread around gasoline and burn the place down. It's seriously not even fun anymore.
Addenda on movies
With Arthur et les Minimoys out in theatres, Wired did a story about the pop culture legacy of Luc Besson. It runs through a few of the actors and character archetypes he brought to our attention in his ten films (or really the ones that got released or remade in America). This makes a nice addition to my previous homage to Luc Besson.
I revisited my comments on Casino Royale from when it came out, and I realized multiple viewings did change my view of the film, especially the final third. Knowing what is really going on in Vesper's head, and why she's conflicted and alternates between warm and prickly, really made the romance between Bond and Vesper flow a lot better, and seem less of a typical Hollywood "Now that our lips have brushed I must have your babies" instantaneous romance. It really was a great film, and it definitely held up in the three times I saw it in five days Thanksgiving weekend.
I also finally caught the ridiculous, three and half hour extended using every available bit of footage cut of Apocalypse Now that Francis Ford Coppola released a couple years ago as Apocalypse Now Redux. It is a fantastic film, and most of the additional footage blends in very smoothly. The extended surfing mania of Robert Duvall is hilarious, and well worth checking out, especially Martin Sheen stealing his surfboard for spite... Charlie don't surf!
One thing that was jarring was the chronology felt different. I felt like the original edit had this progression where the farther they go up river, the psychology and mood of the whole group becomes increasingly neurotic, as they get deeper into the same darkness that swallowed up C0lonel Kurtz. Lance seemed like the yardstick as he starts putting on face paint and dropping acid in a combat zone, but in this edit he seems to descend into lunacy a long time before they get near Kurtz. The change in the timeline also changes the implied reason for Willard to complete his mission. The original edit implies that when Kurtz brings him Chef's head, Willard resolves any remaining ambivalence about Kurtz and kills him, which is continuous with his order to Chef to call in an air strike. The extended stay in the camp in the extended edit introduces new motivation, that Kurtz himself knows this is coming to an end. This is a fascinating symmetry with Duvall's Colonel Kilgore, who has the same anxiety that the war may end: both men see that it will end without accomplishment, and there will be a void left in both of them they can't fill.
There's only one segment that feels out of place, the French plantation, which may introduce some interesting material for the film, but comes so late that it seemed out of place with the mood I expected from that section of the film, based on seeing the original edit; it's too jarring to see Capt Willard sit down to a dining room table that far upriver. This may be something that requires more viewings and a fresh perspective, tying it back to the meal at the beginning of the film. Also surprising was that in this longer cut, there's still very little about the man sent before Willard, Capt Colby. There's something to the idea that Kurtz may have broken and converted Colby but eventually just releases Willard, showing the fight going out of Kurtz, so I would have expected a bit more of Colby beyond the initial look Willard gets of him. I still say it's a great movie, and an appropriate one to re-release in this way when America's fighting two more land wars in Asia. Three and a half hours but worth every minute.
I revisited my comments on Casino Royale from when it came out, and I realized multiple viewings did change my view of the film, especially the final third. Knowing what is really going on in Vesper's head, and why she's conflicted and alternates between warm and prickly, really made the romance between Bond and Vesper flow a lot better, and seem less of a typical Hollywood "Now that our lips have brushed I must have your babies" instantaneous romance. It really was a great film, and it definitely held up in the three times I saw it in five days Thanksgiving weekend.
I also finally caught the ridiculous, three and half hour extended using every available bit of footage cut of Apocalypse Now that Francis Ford Coppola released a couple years ago as Apocalypse Now Redux. It is a fantastic film, and most of the additional footage blends in very smoothly. The extended surfing mania of Robert Duvall is hilarious, and well worth checking out, especially Martin Sheen stealing his surfboard for spite... Charlie don't surf!
One thing that was jarring was the chronology felt different. I felt like the original edit had this progression where the farther they go up river, the psychology and mood of the whole group becomes increasingly neurotic, as they get deeper into the same darkness that swallowed up C0lonel Kurtz. Lance seemed like the yardstick as he starts putting on face paint and dropping acid in a combat zone, but in this edit he seems to descend into lunacy a long time before they get near Kurtz. The change in the timeline also changes the implied reason for Willard to complete his mission. The original edit implies that when Kurtz brings him Chef's head, Willard resolves any remaining ambivalence about Kurtz and kills him, which is continuous with his order to Chef to call in an air strike. The extended stay in the camp in the extended edit introduces new motivation, that Kurtz himself knows this is coming to an end. This is a fascinating symmetry with Duvall's Colonel Kilgore, who has the same anxiety that the war may end: both men see that it will end without accomplishment, and there will be a void left in both of them they can't fill.
There's only one segment that feels out of place, the French plantation, which may introduce some interesting material for the film, but comes so late that it seemed out of place with the mood I expected from that section of the film, based on seeing the original edit; it's too jarring to see Capt Willard sit down to a dining room table that far upriver. This may be something that requires more viewings and a fresh perspective, tying it back to the meal at the beginning of the film. Also surprising was that in this longer cut, there's still very little about the man sent before Willard, Capt Colby. There's something to the idea that Kurtz may have broken and converted Colby but eventually just releases Willard, showing the fight going out of Kurtz, so I would have expected a bit more of Colby beyond the initial look Willard gets of him. I still say it's a great movie, and an appropriate one to re-release in this way when America's fighting two more land wars in Asia. Three and a half hours but worth every minute.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Holy #$*& is Superman Returns boring
There's just not even anything to say about it. After an hour and 15 minutes, there's been abo15 minutes of plot and character introduction... that's not hyperbole, I seriously think somebody could edit the first hour and a half down to 15-20 minutes, ditching the endless flying through space opening credits, and trimming the endless fawning over a bubbling model train set.
Actually there are some things to say. For one thing, when the model train set-up is being destroyed by the bubbling crystal from Krypton, I wondered who has a model train set where the miniature model people emit human screams if they get knocked over? I think that was supposed to be a bit more subliminal, but it's still stupid. Richard Branson makes yet another aviation cameo as the shuttle flight engineer, when he really would have been more useful as a flight attendant telling Lois Lane to put her seat belt on so she wouldn't have been thrown around the cabin during the crash. She survives that with no bruises or broken bones, but then faints from the sight of Superman, which really makes me wonder, when did fainting come back in style for ladies? Are corsets a fashion necessity for Metropolis women?
Really, what kills Superman though is the floating. The old Superman used to land and walk around in an authoritative way, where the current boyish Superman gives off a different vibe. Christopher Reeves played the character as Superman, and had the man of steel play at being Clark Kent, showing some amusement at how people perceived him because underneath he was all strength and confidence. Brandon Routh is playing Clark Kent all the time, and he's resentful of how nobody can see his Superman persona. When he plays at being Superman, he's trying so hard he seems that much more like a little boy in a Superman costume, imagining himself as something important, and powerful. And then he cements it by floating around everywhere. Superman flying with the fist out in front of him: strong and majestic, and he makes the flying seem like a forceful, challenging mode of transport only Superman could do by taking the running start, and by landing, which respects the power of flight in the imagination of the audience. Clark Kent in tights daintily floating down from the ledge is just channeling Peter Pan.
With two and a half hours and a plot that I can summarize in... well, Superman goes to Krypton so Lex Luthor steals a crystal from the Fortress of Solitude and a Kryptonite shard, and uses them to make a new Kryptonite continent, so Superman flies in and throws it into space. In all the time allotted for that, you'd think there could be one character driven story to tell, but at the end of Superman Returns, nobody has changed in any way due to their experiences, other than Superman now knows he has a Super-rugrat (with asthma). All it really accomplishes is to show why children outgrow Superman: there's nothing for him to do that's beyond a five year old's attention span.
Actually there are some things to say. For one thing, when the model train set-up is being destroyed by the bubbling crystal from Krypton, I wondered who has a model train set where the miniature model people emit human screams if they get knocked over? I think that was supposed to be a bit more subliminal, but it's still stupid. Richard Branson makes yet another aviation cameo as the shuttle flight engineer, when he really would have been more useful as a flight attendant telling Lois Lane to put her seat belt on so she wouldn't have been thrown around the cabin during the crash. She survives that with no bruises or broken bones, but then faints from the sight of Superman, which really makes me wonder, when did fainting come back in style for ladies? Are corsets a fashion necessity for Metropolis women?
Really, what kills Superman though is the floating. The old Superman used to land and walk around in an authoritative way, where the current boyish Superman gives off a different vibe. Christopher Reeves played the character as Superman, and had the man of steel play at being Clark Kent, showing some amusement at how people perceived him because underneath he was all strength and confidence. Brandon Routh is playing Clark Kent all the time, and he's resentful of how nobody can see his Superman persona. When he plays at being Superman, he's trying so hard he seems that much more like a little boy in a Superman costume, imagining himself as something important, and powerful. And then he cements it by floating around everywhere. Superman flying with the fist out in front of him: strong and majestic, and he makes the flying seem like a forceful, challenging mode of transport only Superman could do by taking the running start, and by landing, which respects the power of flight in the imagination of the audience. Clark Kent in tights daintily floating down from the ledge is just channeling Peter Pan.
With two and a half hours and a plot that I can summarize in... well, Superman goes to Krypton so Lex Luthor steals a crystal from the Fortress of Solitude and a Kryptonite shard, and uses them to make a new Kryptonite continent, so Superman flies in and throws it into space. In all the time allotted for that, you'd think there could be one character driven story to tell, but at the end of Superman Returns, nobody has changed in any way due to their experiences, other than Superman now knows he has a Super-rugrat (with asthma). All it really accomplishes is to show why children outgrow Superman: there's nothing for him to do that's beyond a five year old's attention span.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
"God will forgive them. He'll forgive them, and allow them into heaven. I can't live with that."
That's the opening narration of Dead Man's Shoes, and I have no idea why this movie is so amazing, but it is. Paddy Considine, who wrote the screenplay, stars as this soldier named Richard whose retarded brother Anthony is tormented by thugs in their hometown. It's not clear what he's been doing in the army, but it's clear Richard has become an extremely dangerous man since leaving town... describing him, one of these thugs says "The man who left isn't the one who came back," and alludes to his having been a commando. He's right, because Richard has come back to town only to hunt down his brother's tormentors one by one. It's like Get Carter with Grizzly Adams, and it's brilliant.
What's so gripping is the realness of this film, especially Paddy Considine as Richard, who seems like such a genuine, real person but gets this murderous look flashing over his eyes, sliding mercurially from warmth to rage in an instant. He's a sympathetic hero, very likable, and it's hard not to root for him, but he's also a genuinely frightening character. This film manages to be both so stark and horrifying in its depiction of what amounts to a series of violent crimes, but also strangely funny. This is what the realistic feel of the grainy film, shaky cam without autofocus style of film-making was intended for, filming Paddy Considine right up close where every drop of rain on his coat and his hair is in perfect, sharp focus. The victimization of his brother is all shot in black and white, super-8 film like some awful home movie, the vivid image everyone touched by it has keeps replaying in their head.
When Richard first makes contact with one of his targets, while it's still unclear what he has in mind, he appears at the doorway to an apartment building in a gas mask, pounding on the glass and gesturing for his target to come out. I don't know what's so scary about that, but there is something terrifying in this inhuman face Richard chooses to put on. His drugged out mark goes running back up the stairs screaming about an elephant with great, staring eyes outside the door, not really sure what he saw in the shocked moment before he ran. When asked about his first round of psychological warfare, he makes it clear in about two sentences that this will not end until people are dead.
There's some brilliant lines in the drug-addled tough guy rambling of the local gangsters Richard is stalking, and in the absolutely chilling things he says to them. When one of them waking from a drugged stupor gets off the couch he passed out on, and sees a blurry Richard standing in the room with him, he asks, "Are you the Devil?" Richard's response, with a shy grin and no bravado, is "You wish I fucking was, mate."
There is more to this than a grimly executed revenge story, because there's more to it than Richard initially tells us. He's a fascinating character, in a film that's so perfectly executed it really mysteriously rises way above the genre flick I thought it would be. I still don't really have a grasp on how this is so good, but my first thought when the credits rolled was just wow.
I never would have heard of it either, had it not been nominated for Best British Film at the '05 British Academy Awards. Paddy Considine seems to be showing up in more and more quality stuff, like the excon who's found Jesus in My Summer of Love, devoted to being a man of peace, building a cross to overlook the valley and starting his own church, but still capable of snapping and choking the life out of a teenage girl without warning. Seriously, if you were at a dinner with this guy, based on the characters he plays I'd love to sit next to him but also give him plastic utensils: fascinating but scary as hell.
"I told him not to mention the elephant."
What's so gripping is the realness of this film, especially Paddy Considine as Richard, who seems like such a genuine, real person but gets this murderous look flashing over his eyes, sliding mercurially from warmth to rage in an instant. He's a sympathetic hero, very likable, and it's hard not to root for him, but he's also a genuinely frightening character. This film manages to be both so stark and horrifying in its depiction of what amounts to a series of violent crimes, but also strangely funny. This is what the realistic feel of the grainy film, shaky cam without autofocus style of film-making was intended for, filming Paddy Considine right up close where every drop of rain on his coat and his hair is in perfect, sharp focus. The victimization of his brother is all shot in black and white, super-8 film like some awful home movie, the vivid image everyone touched by it has keeps replaying in their head.
When Richard first makes contact with one of his targets, while it's still unclear what he has in mind, he appears at the doorway to an apartment building in a gas mask, pounding on the glass and gesturing for his target to come out. I don't know what's so scary about that, but there is something terrifying in this inhuman face Richard chooses to put on. His drugged out mark goes running back up the stairs screaming about an elephant with great, staring eyes outside the door, not really sure what he saw in the shocked moment before he ran. When asked about his first round of psychological warfare, he makes it clear in about two sentences that this will not end until people are dead.
There's some brilliant lines in the drug-addled tough guy rambling of the local gangsters Richard is stalking, and in the absolutely chilling things he says to them. When one of them waking from a drugged stupor gets off the couch he passed out on, and sees a blurry Richard standing in the room with him, he asks, "Are you the Devil?" Richard's response, with a shy grin and no bravado, is "You wish I fucking was, mate."
There is more to this than a grimly executed revenge story, because there's more to it than Richard initially tells us. He's a fascinating character, in a film that's so perfectly executed it really mysteriously rises way above the genre flick I thought it would be. I still don't really have a grasp on how this is so good, but my first thought when the credits rolled was just wow.
I never would have heard of it either, had it not been nominated for Best British Film at the '05 British Academy Awards. Paddy Considine seems to be showing up in more and more quality stuff, like the excon who's found Jesus in My Summer of Love, devoted to being a man of peace, building a cross to overlook the valley and starting his own church, but still capable of snapping and choking the life out of a teenage girl without warning. Seriously, if you were at a dinner with this guy, based on the characters he plays I'd love to sit next to him but also give him plastic utensils: fascinating but scary as hell.
"I told him not to mention the elephant."
Friday, January 12, 2007
Becks going down, to... La La Land
Something 'bout those little pills unreal the thrills they yield until they kill a million brain cells...
Yes, it's true, the Beckham Rule has indeed been invoked... by this I mean MLS's new salary cap exemption for a single franchise player who can be paid whatever the club wishes, without regard to the $2.3m salary cap. Recently introduced, the rule was intended to facilitate bringing to MLS international media darlings whose presence and financial demands might skew the competitive and financial balance of the league's franchises, but would like the tide, raise the profile of the whole enterprise enough to be in the best interests of both New York and Salt Lake City. It was nicknamed the Beckham Rule because the eponymous footballer was the obvious target: a huge English-language media figure who's clearly lost a step, married to a has-been pop singer, both of whom are hungry for a new market.
I'm not knocking Beckham, I think it's possible he's made a very ambitious, and also very brave choice, if he's coming here with the idea of being the face of the new era of American soccer. Even after the New York Cosmos, the World Cup, and ten years of MLS, there's still room to be the guy who brought football to the colonies, and the media savvy of the Beckhams will serve them well. Beckham was long regarded as the key player to selling European football in Asia, and if he wants to market himself in America, this is the only way to do it. I do think it took some self-awareness and some guts to sign a 5-year deal with MLS, for a big name to acknowledge that his time with the English national team and in the big show in Europe is done, that he'll never lead England to a trophy (not after the momentum shift once Aaron Lennon came on for him in the World Cup). Admittedly, the gigantic sack of cash he's getting probably helps too, upwards of $250m over five years in salary, endorsements, and a share of club profits, assuming things work out.
Beckham also has the advantage of a distinct ability, which is obvious to even casual fans: his crosses and free kicks. Given enough space to work, Beckham's precision passing for England this summer was still something to see, and in MLS, he's more likely to be able to create that space and to play with the high work-rate he used to. Beckham's assists are something that can make mainstream media highlights, which MLS doesn't do a whole lot now. Previously, it seemed the trickle of European players heading to MLS had dried up, after too many of them didn't make the cut. The last one I think I paid any attention to was when the Grim Reaper left Arsenal for the Colorado Rapids, but made it like a week before he ran back to France, so it's nice to see somebody who's still interested in playing come over, and hopefully set a high standard in the wake of a few more of the league's current stars finding their way over to Europe.
I don't know how this will turn out, if Posh & Becks will be loved or ridiculed by America, if he'll really shine or just phone it in, or be hacked to death every time he touches the ball, if this will raise the profile of the LA Galaxy or MLS at all. I will watch him play, though, and I usually pay pay a lot more attention to women's basketball than I do MLS. At least nobody will tell me the score of an LA Galaxy game when I tivo it.
Continuing my Beckham-related thoughts later, one factor I didn't consider is who is he going to play against? This league had a rivalry for about a week when DC United were the cream of MLS and the Chicago Fire beat them in the final, but I've never heard much else. The geographic separation of all the franchises really hurts. There was some talk of Beckham urging some other aging Galacticos like Luis Figo to come over and spark up MLS, and if Becks is the first of a series of former stars, it would be huge in giving a face to every team. There are plenty of players who take off for one more year in the sun in Qatar or Saudi Arabia, with the salary cap exemption, New York and San Francisco should be able to compete with Dubai. Kansas City and Dallas maybe not so much.
Yes, it's true, the Beckham Rule has indeed been invoked... by this I mean MLS's new salary cap exemption for a single franchise player who can be paid whatever the club wishes, without regard to the $2.3m salary cap. Recently introduced, the rule was intended to facilitate bringing to MLS international media darlings whose presence and financial demands might skew the competitive and financial balance of the league's franchises, but would like the tide, raise the profile of the whole enterprise enough to be in the best interests of both New York and Salt Lake City. It was nicknamed the Beckham Rule because the eponymous footballer was the obvious target: a huge English-language media figure who's clearly lost a step, married to a has-been pop singer, both of whom are hungry for a new market.
I'm not knocking Beckham, I think it's possible he's made a very ambitious, and also very brave choice, if he's coming here with the idea of being the face of the new era of American soccer. Even after the New York Cosmos, the World Cup, and ten years of MLS, there's still room to be the guy who brought football to the colonies, and the media savvy of the Beckhams will serve them well. Beckham was long regarded as the key player to selling European football in Asia, and if he wants to market himself in America, this is the only way to do it. I do think it took some self-awareness and some guts to sign a 5-year deal with MLS, for a big name to acknowledge that his time with the English national team and in the big show in Europe is done, that he'll never lead England to a trophy (not after the momentum shift once Aaron Lennon came on for him in the World Cup). Admittedly, the gigantic sack of cash he's getting probably helps too, upwards of $250m over five years in salary, endorsements, and a share of club profits, assuming things work out.
Beckham also has the advantage of a distinct ability, which is obvious to even casual fans: his crosses and free kicks. Given enough space to work, Beckham's precision passing for England this summer was still something to see, and in MLS, he's more likely to be able to create that space and to play with the high work-rate he used to. Beckham's assists are something that can make mainstream media highlights, which MLS doesn't do a whole lot now. Previously, it seemed the trickle of European players heading to MLS had dried up, after too many of them didn't make the cut. The last one I think I paid any attention to was when the Grim Reaper left Arsenal for the Colorado Rapids, but made it like a week before he ran back to France, so it's nice to see somebody who's still interested in playing come over, and hopefully set a high standard in the wake of a few more of the league's current stars finding their way over to Europe.
I don't know how this will turn out, if Posh & Becks will be loved or ridiculed by America, if he'll really shine or just phone it in, or be hacked to death every time he touches the ball, if this will raise the profile of the LA Galaxy or MLS at all. I will watch him play, though, and I usually pay pay a lot more attention to women's basketball than I do MLS. At least nobody will tell me the score of an LA Galaxy game when I tivo it.
Continuing my Beckham-related thoughts later, one factor I didn't consider is who is he going to play against? This league had a rivalry for about a week when DC United were the cream of MLS and the Chicago Fire beat them in the final, but I've never heard much else. The geographic separation of all the franchises really hurts. There was some talk of Beckham urging some other aging Galacticos like Luis Figo to come over and spark up MLS, and if Becks is the first of a series of former stars, it would be huge in giving a face to every team. There are plenty of players who take off for one more year in the sun in Qatar or Saudi Arabia, with the salary cap exemption, New York and San Francisco should be able to compete with Dubai. Kansas City and Dallas maybe not so much.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Joyeux Noel, and the dangerous subversiveness of Christmas
It's quite a thing, this film about small acts of kindness, and that fraternal spirit in all human beings that lets us recognize each other despite differences in language or skin color... well some of us anyways. It's about the Christmas spirit, and the way all that for one night and one day, we can all stop caring about the problems of this world and care more about each other. For a little while. Maybe because of that, there was an overwhelming feeling of sadness for me watching this film, knowing what had to happen when Christmas was over.
Joyeux Noel is a story inspired by the events in Europe on December 24th, 1914, when all up and down the western front, soldiers of all nationalities came up out of their trenches to share Christmas together. The story some of the survivors told was of singing Silent Night and hearing across no man's land other soldiers singing Silent Night, or Douce Nuit, or Stille Nacht, and realizing they had far more in common than what separated them. They were all young men far from their loved ones, likely to die in the mud without seeing home again, whose individual lives didn't amount to much beyond moving a border a few yards back and forth. So they took a break from killing each other and played football in the snow between the trenches, until it was time to go back. Soldiers exchanged letters for family in occupied territory, showed each other pictures of their children, made plans to see each other again after the war, and wished each other well.
The film focuses on the subversive effect of that kind of contact between people, when all these soldiers gathered together singing Christian songs, in need of both physical and spiritual. German, French, and Scottish, they all gather together for a mass said by a Scottish minister. The mass is said in Latin, appealing to one of the connections between these men, a spiritual authority that operates independent of the authority of governments, that no longer belongs to any single language, or culture, or people. The subversive effect of Christians acting like Christians, forgiving and loving their neighbors, is not lost on the powers that be, that have to present their own version of doctrine and reframe genocide as holy work against an inhuman horde. As one commander says in the aftermath, you can't execute 200 men, recognizing that if the entire mass of soldiers dying on the front lines were to stop hating the enemy, there would instantly be no war for the generals to direct and with which to inspire the public.
This is what's so sad about Joyeux Noel, is knowing that the truce didn't continue, that those who weren't on the front line on Christmas Eve did restore order, and that most of the men who took a risk and climbed out of their trench were buried somewhere on that same field. The final image of the film is heartbreaking, German soldiers shut up in a box car being sent off to the Russian Front where they will have a fresh set of strangers to kill, far from the friends they made on Christmas Eve. As the train leaves, they hum the song the Scottish soldiers taught them, "I'm Dreaming of Home". There is a powerful image, Germans in a box car (with their Jewish lieutenant), being sent off to die in a bloodbath that killed an entire generation of men, making the point that this genocide was no more noble than any other.
I was also struck by the opening, with children in three countries reciting wartime rhetoric in a classroom like a book report. There's something very curious about how we sometimes only recognize the grotesqueness in our public discourse from our children, when it's wrong for them to repeat what the views of their elders. Jon Stewart has exploited this to great effect with the children reading transcripts of political pundits arguing on TV, undressing everything the way only children can, where there is no excuse of hyperbole or point of view, and we must decide if we believe these things to be true, before passing them on as fact.
It is an uplifting film, even in its sadness, for reminding us of what kind of people we should like to be at Christmas, if we can't do it the rest of the year. It was made by French filmmakers last year, and it's nice to see despite the animosity towards the French over the war in Iraq some of them found it in their hearts to tell a story about soldiers far from home, when so many American and British soldiers are spending Christmas in hellish conditions. God bless them all and keep them safe.
Joyeux Noel is a story inspired by the events in Europe on December 24th, 1914, when all up and down the western front, soldiers of all nationalities came up out of their trenches to share Christmas together. The story some of the survivors told was of singing Silent Night and hearing across no man's land other soldiers singing Silent Night, or Douce Nuit, or Stille Nacht, and realizing they had far more in common than what separated them. They were all young men far from their loved ones, likely to die in the mud without seeing home again, whose individual lives didn't amount to much beyond moving a border a few yards back and forth. So they took a break from killing each other and played football in the snow between the trenches, until it was time to go back. Soldiers exchanged letters for family in occupied territory, showed each other pictures of their children, made plans to see each other again after the war, and wished each other well.
The film focuses on the subversive effect of that kind of contact between people, when all these soldiers gathered together singing Christian songs, in need of both physical and spiritual. German, French, and Scottish, they all gather together for a mass said by a Scottish minister. The mass is said in Latin, appealing to one of the connections between these men, a spiritual authority that operates independent of the authority of governments, that no longer belongs to any single language, or culture, or people. The subversive effect of Christians acting like Christians, forgiving and loving their neighbors, is not lost on the powers that be, that have to present their own version of doctrine and reframe genocide as holy work against an inhuman horde. As one commander says in the aftermath, you can't execute 200 men, recognizing that if the entire mass of soldiers dying on the front lines were to stop hating the enemy, there would instantly be no war for the generals to direct and with which to inspire the public.
This is what's so sad about Joyeux Noel, is knowing that the truce didn't continue, that those who weren't on the front line on Christmas Eve did restore order, and that most of the men who took a risk and climbed out of their trench were buried somewhere on that same field. The final image of the film is heartbreaking, German soldiers shut up in a box car being sent off to the Russian Front where they will have a fresh set of strangers to kill, far from the friends they made on Christmas Eve. As the train leaves, they hum the song the Scottish soldiers taught them, "I'm Dreaming of Home". There is a powerful image, Germans in a box car (with their Jewish lieutenant), being sent off to die in a bloodbath that killed an entire generation of men, making the point that this genocide was no more noble than any other.
I was also struck by the opening, with children in three countries reciting wartime rhetoric in a classroom like a book report. There's something very curious about how we sometimes only recognize the grotesqueness in our public discourse from our children, when it's wrong for them to repeat what the views of their elders. Jon Stewart has exploited this to great effect with the children reading transcripts of political pundits arguing on TV, undressing everything the way only children can, where there is no excuse of hyperbole or point of view, and we must decide if we believe these things to be true, before passing them on as fact.
It is an uplifting film, even in its sadness, for reminding us of what kind of people we should like to be at Christmas, if we can't do it the rest of the year. It was made by French filmmakers last year, and it's nice to see despite the animosity towards the French over the war in Iraq some of them found it in their hearts to tell a story about soldiers far from home, when so many American and British soldiers are spending Christmas in hellish conditions. God bless them all and keep them safe.
Snakes on a Plane
After all the anticipation, that was certainly disappointing. The promise of Snakes on a Plane was that it was making an earnest commitment to an incredibly stupid premise, embodied in the minimalist title. From what I read, Samuel L. Jackson signed on to make a bad movie without the self-consciousness of parody, but the suits got a hold of it, hence the astroturf promotional campaign and the flaw of the final product: it's too good. SoaP ends up taking what's been done before, and done better, and just throws it up on the screen with really cartoonish CGI snakes, and this would be fine, except that it plays it safe and doesn't include the two ingredients that make schlock into cult films: risible incompetence and excess.
Everything is a little too polished, all the details of the plot ironed out, except for the one thing that needed to look good, the fake snakes. I didn't need an explanation for how they got the snakes to attack everybody, or to have the mechanism for their release established. We laugh at cheap-ass horror movies that strain our suspense of disbelief, like if we'd been asked to believe somebody piled venomous snakes into an overhead bin. All the characters are carefully introduced and fleshed out as real people over the course of a long introduction, which is kind of the antithesis of what I watched this movie for. The cast seems to know it too, as they all sleepwalk through the film. I expected horror and exploitation, not bland drama with snakes... this was more like an episode of MacGyver, where you know all the characters with names have to make it to the end (and they all do).
The other thing that was missing was excess, just gratuitous nudity, death, sex, horror, and nudity. There's a brief section when the snakes first emerge that starts to fulfill this, but then the whole thing settles down for a long denouement in which everybody's more or less safe up in first class. And the video game freak cheerfully saves the day by landing a 747. Samuel Jackson's big signature line feels forced, no doubt because it had to be included in re-shoots after it became a huge running joke on the internet... the fans knew he should be running around yelling like a crazy man, but the film only begrudgingly gave us two seconds of it. There are early nods to the sex and violence this type of film is supposed to be about, the mile high clubbers and the guy taking a piss who all get attacked in the bathroom, but really only nameless minor characters who appear for those two minutes. All the beautiful people stay buttoned down, and are filmed in a very restrained way as they maintain a chaste distance in their polite conversations, lest they say something provocative and appear too flirtatious. What's sad is when the big rap star starts his routine chatting up the rich white girl, or the flight attendant loosens her top button to go chat up the FBI surfer witness, we all know not a single one of the four of them's going to get any satisfaction out of it.
It started out with some promise, but this film is just so conservative, never daring to even let the characters enjoy themselves, much less the audience. It's Neocon America, You can kill all the throw-away characters you want, as long as the good guys win and the good girls don't have any fun.
Everything is a little too polished, all the details of the plot ironed out, except for the one thing that needed to look good, the fake snakes. I didn't need an explanation for how they got the snakes to attack everybody, or to have the mechanism for their release established. We laugh at cheap-ass horror movies that strain our suspense of disbelief, like if we'd been asked to believe somebody piled venomous snakes into an overhead bin. All the characters are carefully introduced and fleshed out as real people over the course of a long introduction, which is kind of the antithesis of what I watched this movie for. The cast seems to know it too, as they all sleepwalk through the film. I expected horror and exploitation, not bland drama with snakes... this was more like an episode of MacGyver, where you know all the characters with names have to make it to the end (and they all do).
The other thing that was missing was excess, just gratuitous nudity, death, sex, horror, and nudity. There's a brief section when the snakes first emerge that starts to fulfill this, but then the whole thing settles down for a long denouement in which everybody's more or less safe up in first class. And the video game freak cheerfully saves the day by landing a 747. Samuel Jackson's big signature line feels forced, no doubt because it had to be included in re-shoots after it became a huge running joke on the internet... the fans knew he should be running around yelling like a crazy man, but the film only begrudgingly gave us two seconds of it. There are early nods to the sex and violence this type of film is supposed to be about, the mile high clubbers and the guy taking a piss who all get attacked in the bathroom, but really only nameless minor characters who appear for those two minutes. All the beautiful people stay buttoned down, and are filmed in a very restrained way as they maintain a chaste distance in their polite conversations, lest they say something provocative and appear too flirtatious. What's sad is when the big rap star starts his routine chatting up the rich white girl, or the flight attendant loosens her top button to go chat up the FBI surfer witness, we all know not a single one of the four of them's going to get any satisfaction out of it.
It started out with some promise, but this film is just so conservative, never daring to even let the characters enjoy themselves, much less the audience. It's Neocon America, You can kill all the throw-away characters you want, as long as the good guys win and the good girls don't have any fun.
Monday, January 01, 2007
The Films of Luc Besson
Apparently in his native France Luc Besson is referred to as an American director for making what come across as very Spielburgesque commercial films. Which makes it even funnier when they get chopped up or remade by American producers, like it's some sort of taunt to French critics: "You think that's American? WE'LL show you American!" Anyways, he has declared he will likely not direct any more films after Arthur et les Minimoys, his tenth, although he has written several others (including District B13). So since nobody asked, here's a look at his ten films, most of which I haven't seen.
1. Le Dernier Combat (1983)
This is one I've never gotten around to seeing, starring Jean Reno as a scarred survivor of a crumbling post-apocalyptic world in which humans have lost the ability to speak. It's a cheaply made, black and white, stark image of that world, expanding on an even cheaper black and white short film, which started the trend for Besson of casting Jean Reno in every movie he made for the next 12 years.
2. Subway (1985)
I love Subway, although I cannot explain why. Christophe Lambert, who was the mysterious Scotsman with an intermittent French accent in Highlander, gets to create another mysterious, unnervingly strange character here in Fred. This film is full of another Besson smirk, English names that sound ridiculous in French: this film's characters include Fred (Fhhhhred), Big Bill (Beeg Beeyill), and Batman et Robin (Botmon and Rhhhoa-Been). Fred is a strange character who crashes a high class party in a tuxedo and impulsively cracks a safe, then escapes into the Paris Metro where he hides out with the strange subculture that lives underground, including the Florist, the Drummer, and a roller-skating purse snatcher (The Roller), all pursued by the underground crime-fighting duo of Parisian cops nicknamed Batman and Robin, as well as the smitten wife of the man whose safe Fred has cracked. There's a non-conformist charm in all of these characters, who lie and steal and lurk in the tunnels underneath a thriving city.
3. The Big Blue
I don't care what anybody says, this is one of my favorite movies of all time, and at one time was my best trick to prove my romantic heart to vulnerable, cerebral girls. (Not that I was trying, it just seemed to happen that way... I've been assured I'm only non-maliciously manipulative.) This is based on the true story of Jacques Mayoll and Enzo Molinari, the first two free divers to go below 100 meters, at a time when conventional wisdom was that a diver's lungs would collapse under that pressure, and such a dive would be suicide without diving equipment. The rivalry between childhood friends Mayoll and Molinari that drove them so far below the surface, as well as Mayoll's uncanny affinity for dolphins and incompatibility with normal human relationships, made this an incredibly captivating film for me. As a friend put it, anybody who can make a movie about holding your breath interesting has some talent. The Big Blue has a noticeably happier American edit, which Besson apparently hated but I actually really enjoy, while the director's cut adds an hour that changes the entire meaning of a lot of the film, making it a lot deeper and more sorrowful, but incredibly moving. Seriously, you people who keep accusing me of not watching enough romantic films because I don't watch a lot of Drew Barrymore romcoms, watch this movie and then shut up.
4. Nikita
Also known for commercial reasons related to its release date as La Femme Nikita, this is possibly my favorite spy movie of all time. The absolutely bad-ass Nikita, excruciatingly sexy, impulsive, and incredibly dangerous, sets the standard for the Sydney Bristows of the world. She begins the story as a drug addict sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in a poorly conceived robbery attempt, forcibly recruited to work for the French government as an assassin. What I love about Nikita is usually a woman in a spy film has to be some boring, unquestionable paragon, and Nikita is instead a person capable of the most horrific violence that the state found unfit to continue to live. She's not a hooker with a heart of gold either, and her traumatic emotional state prevents her from making normal emotional connections to other human beings, or from dropping right into a normal cover life. The gritty, need-to-know existence of a spy, her violent past, and the difficulty of opening up to somebody who loves her enough to suffer her strange behavior all combines into an impossible situation. This is all tied up in a wild ride full of gun battles, betrayal, emergency corpse disposal, and a brief but memorable appearance by Jean Reno as Victor, the Cleaner.
5. Leon
Like Nikita, this film got its title changed for an American release, to The Professional. This breaks up the symmetry between the two films, which are both about assassins. Inspired by Jean Reno's cameo as the cleaner in Nikita, this is a movie about what the ghostly, inhumanly efficient hit man does when he's off the clock. In the case of Leon, he goes home and drinks a big glass of milk before going to bed. Leon has no purpose, no real life, beyond the people who exploit his remarkable ability to kill, and no passion besides slipping off to showings of old black and white movies. When his neighbor's entire family is brutally murdered by a insane Mozart afficionado and drug lord played with considerable relish by Gary Oldman, Leon allows his neighbor's 12-year old daughter Mathilda sanctuary in his apartment (Nathalie Portman in her first and best acting job). The bond between Leon and Mathilda grows as she teaches him what she knows, how to read, and he teaches her about the world of contract killings. Nikita and Leon are a great pair of films, fascinating and resonant in their characters, but great rides because of the ridiculous and fun Luc Besson action movie style.
6. The 5th Element
This is definitely a movie where I don't care what the rest of you all say, I love every frame of it. The futuristic New York with such own flamboyant and alien sense of style is great all by itself, an even more vertical Manhattan where Bruce Willis can order sushi from a guy on a blimp who pulls up to his window. The speculation on the evolution of fashion is amusing, showcased in Jean-Paul Gaultier's personal design of several hundred costumes for extras. Chris Tucker is perfect as the MTV VJ of the future, with several hundred years to become more ridiculous and self-absorbed, and this is also the film that began my infatuation with Mila Jovovich. Often I see comic-book movies that take the unique visual artistry of the comic and squash it into something much more drab and mundane that looks like any other movie, and this is in a way what they all should have been aiming for, a movie where everybody looks like they just stepped off the page
in bright colors and impossible outfits, especially Gary Oldman as a fantastically evil comic book villain. I thought Eric Serra's score for this film and Nikita were his best, especially the alien opera that no human singer could reproduce.
7. The Messenger
Er, I guess they can't all be perfect. I did like Mila Jovovich as Joan of Arc, if for no other reason than Jeanne's possibly schizophrenic, possibly divine dialogues with a phantasmal Dustin Hoffman. Appearing to Jeanne as amongst other things Jesus and the Devil, he questions her divine inspiration, and offers mundane explanations for every sign she receives from God. That element was at least interesting.
8-10. Angel-A, Arthur et les Minimoys, Atlantis
I have not seen these, so I'm going to be a complete fanboy and assume they're all great films. So there.
1. Le Dernier Combat (1983)
This is one I've never gotten around to seeing, starring Jean Reno as a scarred survivor of a crumbling post-apocalyptic world in which humans have lost the ability to speak. It's a cheaply made, black and white, stark image of that world, expanding on an even cheaper black and white short film, which started the trend for Besson of casting Jean Reno in every movie he made for the next 12 years.
2. Subway (1985)
I love Subway, although I cannot explain why. Christophe Lambert, who was the mysterious Scotsman with an intermittent French accent in Highlander, gets to create another mysterious, unnervingly strange character here in Fred. This film is full of another Besson smirk, English names that sound ridiculous in French: this film's characters include Fred (Fhhhhred), Big Bill (Beeg Beeyill), and Batman et Robin (Botmon and Rhhhoa-Been). Fred is a strange character who crashes a high class party in a tuxedo and impulsively cracks a safe, then escapes into the Paris Metro where he hides out with the strange subculture that lives underground, including the Florist, the Drummer, and a roller-skating purse snatcher (The Roller), all pursued by the underground crime-fighting duo of Parisian cops nicknamed Batman and Robin, as well as the smitten wife of the man whose safe Fred has cracked. There's a non-conformist charm in all of these characters, who lie and steal and lurk in the tunnels underneath a thriving city.
3. The Big Blue
I don't care what anybody says, this is one of my favorite movies of all time, and at one time was my best trick to prove my romantic heart to vulnerable, cerebral girls. (Not that I was trying, it just seemed to happen that way... I've been assured I'm only non-maliciously manipulative.) This is based on the true story of Jacques Mayoll and Enzo Molinari, the first two free divers to go below 100 meters, at a time when conventional wisdom was that a diver's lungs would collapse under that pressure, and such a dive would be suicide without diving equipment. The rivalry between childhood friends Mayoll and Molinari that drove them so far below the surface, as well as Mayoll's uncanny affinity for dolphins and incompatibility with normal human relationships, made this an incredibly captivating film for me. As a friend put it, anybody who can make a movie about holding your breath interesting has some talent. The Big Blue has a noticeably happier American edit, which Besson apparently hated but I actually really enjoy, while the director's cut adds an hour that changes the entire meaning of a lot of the film, making it a lot deeper and more sorrowful, but incredibly moving. Seriously, you people who keep accusing me of not watching enough romantic films because I don't watch a lot of Drew Barrymore romcoms, watch this movie and then shut up.
4. Nikita
Also known for commercial reasons related to its release date as La Femme Nikita, this is possibly my favorite spy movie of all time. The absolutely bad-ass Nikita, excruciatingly sexy, impulsive, and incredibly dangerous, sets the standard for the Sydney Bristows of the world. She begins the story as a drug addict sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in a poorly conceived robbery attempt, forcibly recruited to work for the French government as an assassin. What I love about Nikita is usually a woman in a spy film has to be some boring, unquestionable paragon, and Nikita is instead a person capable of the most horrific violence that the state found unfit to continue to live. She's not a hooker with a heart of gold either, and her traumatic emotional state prevents her from making normal emotional connections to other human beings, or from dropping right into a normal cover life. The gritty, need-to-know existence of a spy, her violent past, and the difficulty of opening up to somebody who loves her enough to suffer her strange behavior all combines into an impossible situation. This is all tied up in a wild ride full of gun battles, betrayal, emergency corpse disposal, and a brief but memorable appearance by Jean Reno as Victor, the Cleaner.
5. Leon
Like Nikita, this film got its title changed for an American release, to The Professional. This breaks up the symmetry between the two films, which are both about assassins. Inspired by Jean Reno's cameo as the cleaner in Nikita, this is a movie about what the ghostly, inhumanly efficient hit man does when he's off the clock. In the case of Leon, he goes home and drinks a big glass of milk before going to bed. Leon has no purpose, no real life, beyond the people who exploit his remarkable ability to kill, and no passion besides slipping off to showings of old black and white movies. When his neighbor's entire family is brutally murdered by a insane Mozart afficionado and drug lord played with considerable relish by Gary Oldman, Leon allows his neighbor's 12-year old daughter Mathilda sanctuary in his apartment (Nathalie Portman in her first and best acting job). The bond between Leon and Mathilda grows as she teaches him what she knows, how to read, and he teaches her about the world of contract killings. Nikita and Leon are a great pair of films, fascinating and resonant in their characters, but great rides because of the ridiculous and fun Luc Besson action movie style.
6. The 5th Element
This is definitely a movie where I don't care what the rest of you all say, I love every frame of it. The futuristic New York with such own flamboyant and alien sense of style is great all by itself, an even more vertical Manhattan where Bruce Willis can order sushi from a guy on a blimp who pulls up to his window. The speculation on the evolution of fashion is amusing, showcased in Jean-Paul Gaultier's personal design of several hundred costumes for extras. Chris Tucker is perfect as the MTV VJ of the future, with several hundred years to become more ridiculous and self-absorbed, and this is also the film that began my infatuation with Mila Jovovich. Often I see comic-book movies that take the unique visual artistry of the comic and squash it into something much more drab and mundane that looks like any other movie, and this is in a way what they all should have been aiming for, a movie where everybody looks like they just stepped off the page
in bright colors and impossible outfits, especially Gary Oldman as a fantastically evil comic book villain. I thought Eric Serra's score for this film and Nikita were his best, especially the alien opera that no human singer could reproduce.
7. The Messenger
Er, I guess they can't all be perfect. I did like Mila Jovovich as Joan of Arc, if for no other reason than Jeanne's possibly schizophrenic, possibly divine dialogues with a phantasmal Dustin Hoffman. Appearing to Jeanne as amongst other things Jesus and the Devil, he questions her divine inspiration, and offers mundane explanations for every sign she receives from God. That element was at least interesting.
8-10. Angel-A, Arthur et les Minimoys, Atlantis
I have not seen these, so I'm going to be a complete fanboy and assume they're all great films. So there.
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