Freaky Carolina Georgia

(Warning: The Following Parade of Letters will Eventually Disclose their Author as a Paranoid Hallucinomaniac who Believes the Whole Universe is Spread out Before Him to Seduce, Amuse and Abuse Him with "EXPERIENCES")

Dear Imaginary Reader:
First, suspend your disbelief from tenter-hooks and then let's just chill and watch said disbelief as it wavers in the sweet Georgia breeze.
All right, so you know how I've had this dumb unfulfilled crush on a girl called Carolina who lives on the state of Georgia?
I've very much had a "My Dinner with Andre"-ish situation these last two weeks- (If I adore that movie it's because seldom do I see the two halves of my brain so plainly sit at a table and converse). Follow me if you dare on this linguistic tangle of a paranoid mind that's obviously grasping at straws in order to construct a magical straw house that will be blown on by rational winds.



So she "resurfaced" and a visit to Georgia seemed an imperative. Half of my brain KNOWS that if I walk into a store and just then "Midnight Train to Georgia" starts playing it's just a conicidink-


-"I'll rather live in her world- than live without her in mine..."-

And darn it if I don't walk across the street to hear Ray Charles be all like "Georgia is on his mind." And sure enough I run into a Starbucks and there's Mister Neil Diamond going all like: "Sweet Caroline" (pa pa pa)

GODDAMNIT, I can't even LOOK at a newspaper without hearing about how the Russians are invading Georgia- a different Georgia, but STILL, to a wishful heart- you hear horrible warfare and I hear "awww, I know a kindred heart in Atlanta, Georgia". DAMN. So there I am anyway, lending an ear to the Raconteurs with their "Carolina Drama" song- (see what I'm saying? Her name is popping out everywhere!) And things are kicked up a notch when I pick up that story about "CLARA" from Roberto Bolanos, who's my recent literary "discovery"- That story "burned with thunder and coal"- Remember? I was so struck by the story I blogged about it here, which I never do.
WELL
At the same time I was reading Joyce Carol Oates' "A Garden of Earthly Delights", (I'm a double, and often triple-reader) and what do you know, it's about another girl named Clara- but here what's interesting: Joyce Carol Oates has an afterword where all she does is talk about about how years later she's realized that subconsciously she'd used the name CLARA to stand in for the name of her mother, which was- no surpise here- CAROLINA. And I went: "HMMMM." And THEN I read an old interview with the late Roberto Bolanos, and wouldn't you know it, indeed, that "CLARA" story that was just published in the New Yorker was actually about a girl called CAROLINA LOPEZ- to whom he dedicates the book which I am currently reading, ("Nazi Literature in the Americas".) Add to this that my brother nearly gives me a heart attack there and then by sending me a call from his girlfriend's house- wanna know the girl's name? Georgette Carolini. I kid you not. SO I am hanging with my friend Ana yesterday and I tell her: "It's soooo very crazy, but I GUARANTEE YOU that if you hang with me for more than twenty minutes, someone will say the name Carolina." She probably chalks it to my craziness. On the way to dinner Ana introduces me to this album I hadn't heard before, Ryan Adams' "Heartbreaker"- (We listen to "Come Pick Me Up" and I briefly believe in rock and roll again)- We meet up with Ana's friend, chit chat some, sure enough at one point in the conversation, out of nowhere Ana's friend mentions that she's waiting for a certain Carolina- and is quite confused when I crack up: "Told ya!" I explain about how oddly invasive those Carolina syllables are in my life, we have a good laugh about it, and Ana's friend says: "Maybe the universe is telling you something". (Which it isn't- I'm just sensitively picking her up everywhere, just like I pick up flowers, just like I picked her up when I was watching David Lynch's "Inland State" and TOTALLY RANDOMLY a character starts to follow a dancer called CAROLINA. "Where's Carolina? I'm looking for Carolina!" Did I dream that movie? Didn't we all?)
SO
end of the night, introduced to a new album, Ryan Adams, "Heartbreaker", I'm moved by the album.
MOTHERFUCKER.
Will you kindly look at track number 5 and tell what it's called?
That's right, no points for guessing:
"Oh My Sweet Carolina".
Thanks a LOT!

GRRRR.
I am NOT going to GEORGIA, because I am a rational human being who does not risk everything on a silly chance at love that wouldn't work out anyway. There are girls here in Miami. It's too bad no one else amazes me like she does.
GRRRR.

The Uninformed Pundit 2

So McCain tears himself away from the monitor in his campaign bus that plays "Apocalypse Now" in a loop and says: "Ok, ok, I got it you guys, I got it!!! It can't fail!!! What we need is to fuck with everyone's heads and catch those disappointed Hillary Clinton voters and show that I'm all about change and new strategies while at the same time appeasing the right wing whackos who think I'm not Republican enough!!!! Somebody, find me a black woman who's tough-on-oil companies but is Christian, hates gays a little but not too much, and is definitely anti-abortion!!! I'm a maaaaverick!!!" Aide: "Hmmm, couldn't find her. We found a white one, though." McCain: "Ehhh, too predictable." Aide: "But her husband is like half Eskimo or something! Shows we're color blind. And her kid has Down's Syndrome!" McCain: "GOD DAMN, why didn't you say so? Oh, man, yeah yeah that's her... Now hush... Marlon Brandon is speaking."


ABOVE: As sexy as a Vice-President gets

The Uninformed Pundit

I suspect I lack the audacity of hope.

I'll give you Obama is inspirational- maybe not as inspirational as Bill Pullman in "Independence Day", but he'll make you tear up once or twice in his speeches. If I wasn't an alien, (just like the ones in the above mentioned "Independence Day") he would totally have my vote, on the grounds that he doesn't mispronounce words, (actually last night he sort of flubbed "inextricably", but I have a large, forgiving heart.)
STILL, come on, he's just a politician, saying what politicians have always said-"we'll stop those Washington fat cats stomping on the little guy, etc etc tax cuts egalite fraternite liberte- America, fuck yeah!" Just 'cause he's a cosmetic make-over at your photo op doesn't mean somehow the political sphere will be re-arranged and Washington will turn into an on-going Stevie Wonder concert. Folks, look at freakin Joe Biden! Joe Biden IS John McCain!
Am I wrong for finding Obama too slick, too camera ready? There was exactly ONE moment during last night's address where the HUMAN BEING broke through the facade- go hunt for it on your TiVo- when he rousingly says "Eight is enough!" and people start shouting "Eight is Enough!" and he can't keep a straight face and he cracks himself up at how ridiculous that was, and you see his ACTUAL, non-demographically-tested thoughts reflected on his face:
"I can't believe I just got away with referencing a '70s sitcom, and these idiots are lapping it up!!!"
Watch how quickly he composes himself.

"Torchwood" Series 1

To be honest, my interest in Dr. Who's brand of British nerdiness grew directly proportional to Billie Piper's role and when she jumped off, so did I. Still gave the spin-off "Torchwood" a try- ("Torchwood is an anagram for "Dr. Who", if you care to know.) It's a serviceable show about that ol' undercover operation dealing with preventing alien invasions yadda yadda yadda.
It's also noticeably more interested in sex than "Dr. Who" ever was. Most sci-fi shows feel like they're written by sweaty virgin nerds, (which they ARE), so, sexy sci-fi for a change, cool, right? Eeeeh.
"Torchwood" could be interesting if it was more about the character's "fluid" trysexuality (they'll try anything once, wink wink!)- instead, the "sexy situations" often devolve into the embarrassing. If you want a real groan-inducer, try the episode in which an alien force has sex with people causing them to burst into little piles of ashes upon orgasm- or something... As I said, my loud groans prevented me from hearing, and the rolling eyes from seeing.
"Angel" did that bit sooo much better.

Here, in case you've forgotten what a hot mouth Billie Piper has.

Lee Child's "Nothing to Lose"

Lee Child's Jack Reacher thrillers are popular because while they seem to operate on a middle ground between John Sandford and W.E.B Griffin, they're really old-fashioned Westerns: Reacher walks into saloons, disrupts the arranged corruption of a card game, enrages the local cattle lord, proves himself to be the fastest shooter in a duel, and walks off into a burnt orange sunset. If he stops a serial killer or enlightens us about how the latest air-to-ground missile works, those are just decoys.

"Nothing to Lose" works as smoothly as any of the other Reacher novels, but a cursory look at Amazon.com suggests Child has antagonized his audience. Already there was some hubbub over the fact that in his previous novel, Reacher said he supported PETA. Reacher's fans expect him to support the troops. NOT PETA. Catch the drift? This time around, Reacher rags against the war in Iraq, Christian fundamentalists, and the American government's shitty treatment of veterans.
It's sort of like if Tom Clancy had joined a hippie commune.
Now, even *I* feel that it just comes out of an unnatural place in Reacher's persona, so I can't begin imagine what Reacher's many fans at the local army base must feel!
*excited about Reacher starting a green business next time around*

Bharat Nalluri's "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day"

This champagne fizz of a movie pays SUMPTUOUS tribute to West End farces and screwball comedies from the 1930s- the kind that found it obligatory to spend half their running time inside a cabaret. It's entertainment in the way we seldom get anymore, a romantic comedy you'll regret not having taken your date to see- and like "Mad Men", it simply submerges you into a different time and era without apologies or too many winks of the eye.
Miss Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) is a domestic laborer whose strict moral code keeps her frumpy and poor in antebellum England until she finds herself a stow away on the glossy shipwreck of a life led by "Delysia Lafosse" (Amy Adams). Delysia- as if her name didn't tell you- is a wannabe starlet prey to her own confused hyper-sexuality ( watch how she gets distracted in the middle of a weighty moment by discovering that if she rubs herself against her sofa while wearing nothing but a light robe, IT FEELS REALLY GOOD!).

Oh, how can I refrain myself! AMY ADAMS!!! There is no one out there better at playing the sidereal ditz; there may not have been anyone as good since Marilyn Monroe... Ok, that smacks of hyperbole: Adams has the vulnerable fake-dumb cuteness, but not necessarily the VA-VOOM factor. All the same- who lights up the screen the way she does? I'm not even sure if she's a good actress- but she's a STAR.
This might be why this movie, just like "Enchanted", loses some of its sizeable charm when it lets Adams wander away from the scene- or when it stops her from playing with her role and chains her down to the tracks of a plot that would have set Noel Coward's eyes a-spinning.
With Miss Pettigrew's help, Delysia learns to choose between the man who offers her money, the man who offers her sex, and the man who offers her true love. We on the other side of the screen who are so much older and wiser and always choose correctly in our own existences know who's the worthier lad, right?!?

Oh, there's also something about old Miss Pettigrew "living for a day" and "finding true love". Sorry, Frances McDormand, I'll care about that plotline when I'm 60.

Beck's "Modern Guilt"

Dear Imaginary Reader:
Suppose you went to this ol' college town and you kept on hearing about this awesome dude that throws some great parties, and he's pretty good friends with all of your friends, and you know just from hearing stories about him that he's toootally awesome, hell, if you and him ever met it would be love at first sight, it certainly all added up on paper, the problem is that your conflicting schedules just keep you from colliding. And then finally, FINALLY, months down the line, you get to meet him at this one party he's throwing, and the party is a little gloomy and you have a pretty ok time but it's nothing special. So you go outside, leaning aqainst the side of your car and other people are exiting the party and you're trying to gauge their reaction, and this is the consensus: "Oh, no, we had fun, but, it wasn't like the old times. It wasn't ODELAY, you know, oh wow, that was something. And it wasn't even deep like SEA CHANGE either. And the girls weren't as cute as they were at the GUERO party. Did you notice how grey all the walls looked?"


KEY: The awesome dude is Beck and the parties are his back catalogue, and "Modern Guilt" is the first Beck album I ever really listened to from beginning to end. (And it's only ok.) How unbelievable is that?

G. K. Chesterton's "The Complete Father Brown"

THE PARLOR SCENE, Chesterton style.
"You're probably wondering why I have gathered you all here tonight... But first, let's pray."


I looove G.K. Chesterton. Like C.S. Lewis, he's a lucid Catholic. I adore how everybody's favorite frocked sleuth, Father Brown, smokes out a fake priest who's going on ranting about how science is stripping the universe of God's wonder. Father Brown humbly shakes his head and is like: "No. No. No. You're attacking REASON. That's bad theology."
But I have to say, much as he tolerates his misguided Protestant brethren, the usually mild Father Brown lets out some horrible feelings about the, er, brownier peoples of the world in "The Wrong Shape". If you think I have ever made a comment that may have seemed culturally insensitive about the Muslim co-habitants of Planet Earth, you totally gotta watch out for Chesterton, 'cause he pretty much takes a huge dump on Islamic Art in that story.
(Father Brown goes on about how non-representational art strikes him as horrifying, devoid of humanity, abominational, the Devil's dancing in those sandy Eastern mosaics, etc etc... )
Hmmm, Chesty, their art is non-representational BECAUSE of a strict Biblical reading: "Thou shalt not make images of God/ Man is in the image of God/ therefore drawing Cartoons is a Sin!"
LOOK, it's the convoluted logic that all religions partake in, yes, but there were no cruel intentions there.
Tolerance, tolerance. Pass the wafer to the left.

Bye Bye Commie Olympics!

Awkward Olympic Moment # 332:

Guest at my Closing Ceremonies party: "I hope this doesn't sound racist, but to me all Chinese people kind of look like Jackie Chan."
Me: "Er. DUDE. That IS Jackie Chan."
Guest: "..."
Me: "This quiche turned out great!"

Charles Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop"

"I have sat by the bedside of poor little Nell..."
T.S. Eliot, "Old Possum's Books of Practical Cats".
(Ok, ok, I'm quoting from the musical. Meeeeemoryyyyyy...)


Indeedy, this is the one in which Dickens infamously KILLED THE LITTLE GIRL and bleary-eyed weepers rioted by the docks while they waited to find out Little Nell's fate, and the whole of Londontown cried, (except of COURSE for Oscar Wilde who cattily remarked that it took "a man with a heart of stone not to LAUGH at little Nell's death"- thus setting the precedent for every critical assessment of the novel)

And it's all a little UNFAIR.
The IDEA of little Nell's death scene becomes so huge that it obscures what actually happens in the text.

The fact is- THERE IS NO DEATH SCENE.
That protracted, weepy, sentimental tearjerking dying moment is simply not there- just like no one says "Play it again, Sam" in "Casablanca", just like no one ever sees a knife wound in "Psycho".
It all happens off-stage. Little Nell is "sleeping peacefully" in another room and only when her senile grandfather walks do we learn that she's actually dead. It's not a tearful goodbye, she's killed off in ONE SENTENCE, (namely: "For she was dead.") If there was any "Will she make it or not" anxiety it came from the reader and not really from Dickens- it's quite clear from about halfway through the novel that there is only one possible outcome for Nell. Only in that sense is the death drawn out. Besides, the only thing that would make the novel too sentimental and false would be if little Nell miraculously DIDN'T DIE. THEN this would have been boo-able.

The fact is- SOMETIMES LITTLE KIDS DIE.

The fact is- There are SOOOO MANY PROBLEMS WITH THE NOVEL that to fixate on little Nell's death is practically petty. How about the fact that it's clearly bereft of any plot? How about the fact little Nell and her grandfather- the characters on which our interest is supposed to be invested- go entirely missing for at least three quarters of the novel? Or how about the fact that the novel has pretty much NOTHING TO DO WITH THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP, which we abandon in the early chapters NEVER TO RETURN TO? Or the fact that Dickens is manifestly pulling stuff out of his ass to pad out the thing, and it's obvious he has no idea where it's going? Or the fact that he seems to really REALLY hate MIDGETS- I mean, "lil' people"..?

What can I say, the novel is wonderfully defended by G. K. Chesterton in an afterword that can be found on the Everyman's Library Edition I read. This afterword is far more engaging than the actual main feature, which is practically post-modern in its refusal to have a discernible narrative line. It makes "Pickwick" seem of a piece. The thing is, though, Dickens IS a master entertainer, and convinces you to hang around even through a mess like this one by virtue of his caricatures. Remember, this was a serial, this was what you read in installments with your morning doughnut and coffee, or whatever the Brits feasted on back then (Irishman's blood?). You saw it unfold slowly over time and got caught up with it and its detours and sketches and prolongations in a way the modern reader seldom finds time to do, (unless you're reading the SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA?!?). "The Old Curiosity Shop" was the comic strip of its time, really. No wonder little Nell's death left its tragic mark.

It's like when the dog from "For Better or Worse" died. That was some fucked up shit!!!

Stephenie Meyer's "The Host"

Just started Stephenie Meyer's "The Host". In the prologue:

At the word "Seeker", Fords gave Darren a look that could only be described as a glare.

I can't get past that sentence.
Holy fan-fiction, Stephenie, didn't you mean to say "Fords GLARED at Darren"?!? Why didn't you? I'm going to send Ross MacDonald to kick your ass.

Just started Stephenie Meyer's "The Host."
Actually, I think I'm just about done with it.

"Mad Men" Season 1

To paraphrase someone or other's assessment of Shakespeare, the weird thing about "Mad Men" is that even though all the critics say it's very good, it actually IS VERY GOOD.

It's not easy to pitch to the skeptic: why should you care about a Mad Avenue advertising agency in 1960- isn't Aaron Sorkin supposed to give us a breathless, jargon heavy expose of advertising agencies NOW? No? What's David E. Kelley up to?
It's best to look at its significant parts.

THAT DIALOGUE! In a way "Mad Men" speaks a language that's as rarified as Shakespeare's: the language of uncompromising intelligence. Here is a show that doesn't explain itself and offers very little in the nature of footnotes. Although it's sexy and it has "seeeeecrets", it's not about sex or secrets, its characters may be dashing but are not heroic- in fact, the more dashing they look, the less heroic they act. And even though what they say it's invariably clever, what's not being said it's often what you need to listen to.

THE WAY IT LOOKS! Few shows LOOK this meticulously beautiful, like they ran away with all the costumes and sets from a Douglas Sirk movie- (or, more chronologically likely, Todd Solonz' "Far from Heaven".)

THE ACTING! What a freaking ENSEMBLE! Jon Hamm, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, VINCENT KARTHEISER (Heavens to Buffy, who would have thunk that Angel's little Connor could ACT?!?)- everyone, everyone here makes you wonder how they've slid by peripherally in the entertainment eye.

THE SYMBOLS! Typically: a male character might make an off-the-cuff dismissal of a woman's interest in seeing a shrink as "it's the thing to get, this year's pink stove." Way at the end of the show, the camera notes a woman's non-pink stove. (Get it? The woman is not getting what she wants!!!)
Yeah, they're not Nabokov's symbols, but they're not a big OBVIOUS BEAR like in "The Sopranos"!

WHAT ELSE? The way the characters don't have to embody diagonally conflicting world views in order to create drama. Sure, that's what I was taught in all my OVER-THE-TOP-THEATRE 101 classes: She MUST be a fading, deluded Southern Belle; he MUST be an uncouth Polack full of brutal vitality. AND there must be a rape.
That shit works great once, but sometimes it's a lot more delicious to watch two slightly diverging REAL people duke it out for the same promotion.

But again and again, Jon Hamm, so great at playing Don Draper: women want him, men want to be him- and he doesn't want to be himself.

3-EP: THE ANATOMY BLESSING

THE ANATOMY BLESSING



ANATOMY

My heart is broken

Down into septum, atria, ventricles.
Spews blood,
Like a Victorian consumptive
Sips it back in,
The bloated vampire.
There is no alcove for love,
Not according to Gray’s.

I’m beginning to understand I’ve been lied to.



A KNOWLEDGEABLE HEART

Some folks believe in forever
They think they’ve been handed a chart
I happen to know that my feet won’t run long
I was cursed with a knowledgeable heart

You keep on warning me gently
You’ve never felt much from the start
Can’t lie to yourself that life matters at all
You were cursed with a knowledgeable heart

We bite in- it’s ours and it’s bitter
But pleasant, like sweet lemon tart
While others, the fools, they go on feeling blessed
We were cursed with a knowledgeable heart.



BABY WITHOUT A SOUL

Sweep Aunt Helena’s prints off the floor
Mommy said she’s a burn out from ‘74
Uncle Hector is lecturing, loads his gun up with suffering
And we’re sitting outside on the porch
Under the acid torch

There are times when I think that our minds are all scrambled
By Jesus or crack or by Procter and Gamble
And Lainey went hysterical
When they told her George Washington didn’t discover America
She didn’t know what to believe-

So she flew out
She wanted to feel she was whole
Blew some guys at the truck stop
She knew that she’d fucked up
And her baby grew up without a soul

And this is an early planet-
God in his Youth planned it-
But He’s gotten much wiser since then.
We keep killing each other,
God’s like: “Why even fucking bother?”
He’s too busy taking care of Sirius- 10.

Pretty Lainey,
You don’t have to be such a dumb baby
Lay your body
Down by mine
We know we’re empty
But we’re almost like something together
You and I
Let’s stare up at God’s disappointment,
And make Him smile.



Alvis Rockett (lead singer, guitar): Well, Matt had this idea about metaphors, about how we still use the heart as a metaphor for love even though we know love is all, you know, IN OUR HEADS, and he says it’s the same thing, you know, the “soul”, there is no such thing, that’s all part of our minds and brains that we didn’t understand. So he had this thing where I think he was watching that hot chick from Grey’s Anatomy, you know the one I mean. And then he would write about how love doesn’t exist. And then the next song would still insist in the metaphor. And finally I think he’s been listening to a lot of Bruce Sprinsgteen. Character portraits and all that shit, you know?

Matthew Porfirio (main lyricist, bass, harp in the last segment of “Baby Without a Soul”): With “Anatomy” I set out to create a truly ambiguous song. One night it may mean one thing, the next the other. The speaker begins by saying that his heart is broken- a common enough complaint, right? But then we see he’s “breaking it down” into a textbook description of the heart and its chambers. It’s just a muscle. There is no love there. So the speaker understands he’s been lied to.
BUT
What does that mean?
Which is the lie?
On a sad night I want that song to mean,
There is no love, we have been misled by blind men,
On a happy night I want that song to mean,
Gray’s Anatomy is a liar, it fails to understand something essential
That my heart beats faster when it’s thinking of YOU, BETTY, GODDAMNIT.

Helen Sandborg (drummer, nurse assistant): I want to get a heart tattoo on my ankle. Matt got dumped by that French girl because he was still obsessing over that freakin’ Betty. Jesus, have you actually seen that chick? One boob points up, one points down. At least mine are pert and purty. Fuck.

CHAPTER 47: THE SORCERER'S WIFE

I'll jog your memory on three of our protagonists which have not graced the stage in AGES, and you have quite understandably forgotten by now:
That studly black horse, DJERID, which was stolen from under Joseph Balsamo's nose by a hot Italian lady called LORENZA FELICIANI, (played by Monica Bellucci.) Of course we could tell there had been something going on between Joseph and Lorenza- I may have referred to her as the runaway bride at one point- but this chapter heading makes it super OFFICIAL. Lorenza is Joseph Balsamo's wife.
I cannot imagine the wedding taking place other than in a dark underground catacomb with the bride doped up into willingness, since she's spent all the time running away from him and calling him THE DEVIL, but I guess we'll learn more about their unorthodox marital arrangements.
The other character you have DEFINITELY forgotten by now is MADAME LOUISE, the King's daughter who abandoned the court in a mystic fit of self-righteousness, got herself to a nunnery, and has been writing pamphlets against the monarchy.
Remember her? She retired to the Convent at St. Denis.
That's right, the same convent towards which Marie Antoinette is travelling with Andree de Taverney, the same convent that Gilbert is going to make a siege against in order to see his true love, and the same convent before which Djerid the wonder horse arrives in a dusty cloud of sheer urgency.
Lorenza shakes the bridle loose on the horse's neck, and the freed animal paws the ground of the courtyard in such a thunderous manner that it brings a nun to the door of the convent.
NUN: "Gracious, what a beautiful horse. But we lean towards vows of silence, my child. So get."
LORENZA: "I must speak to the abbess! I seek asylum! Like that Hunchback of Notre Dame! But way hotter!"
NUN: "Oh dear, our abbess is not the typical crusty old sort- it's her Royal Highness, Madame Louise, and she's just getting settled in, and I'm afraid she's requested solitude. Be on your way."
LORENZA: "You don't understand, I have to make a REVELATION OF THE HIGHEST IMPORTANCE to the abbess!"
NUN: "Oh, blessed soul, blessed soul. There are other convents around, other abesses. Go reveal things to them."
LORENZA: "Only the King's daughter can protect me from those who pursue me!!! Oh, that I would be turned away from the house of God!!!"
NUN: "Oh dear oh dear. What to do. If only I had a real INCENTIVE to let you come in."
LORENZA: "..." (Flashes her boobs.)
NUN: "Come in, child, you'll be quite welcome here among the sisters!"

CRITERION: Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole"

What a great, horrible movie.

Watching Adam Guettel's musical "Floyd Collins" was one of the great grueling experiences of my life. Floyd Collins was the 1925 victim of a cave-in; a gruesome media circus was built about his body, which was pinned down fifty-five feet below the ground. (He died before rescue). Being buried alive is one of the great, wholly justifiable human fears, and to construct a MUSICAL out of the experience is daring and possibly misguided- it didn't please many of my blue-haired co-spectators.
Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole" references the Floyd Collins incident, and it's as distant from "Some Like it Hot" or "The Apartment" as imaginable- truly, it makes "Double Imdemnity" and "Sunset Boulevard" seem almost charitable about human nature.
Kirk Douglas puts his dented chin and raspy voice to their best use as a newshound who puts the American Dream way ahead of common decency and needlessly prolongs the rescue of an explorer caught in a deep cave (the longer the rescue, the longer the story makes it to front page!). Sorry to spoil it, this leads to the man's death and one of the great moral breakdowns of cinema. The movie was a flop in its time- its cynicism STILL stings, but it's also Billy Wilder's most "Christian" film. Watch how a crucifix hovers aboce the terrible decisions the Kirk Douglas character makes to gratify his ego.
It's startling how defensive contemporary criticism was: "That would NEVER happen! The media would NEVER put the news before human lives!!!"
Excuse me while I laugh along with Billy Wilder's ghost.

Bryan Talbot's "Alice in Sunderland"

"Alice in Sunderland" is much in the vein of Phillip Jose Farmer's faux-literary theories that created genealogical trees for practically every salient fictional character you can think of (say, "Lord Greystoke is actually second cousin by marriage to Henry Jekyll"). For a more modern parallel, think of Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".
It's also one of the fuckin' weirdest graphic novels I've read in a while- and I'm not sure that it all works. It's a metaphysical history of a town that "doesn't exist"-except it actually DOES; a biography of notorious child molester Lewis Carroll; and a C.V. for Talbot himself- an ocassional "Sandman" artist and a charming name dropper that has ties with everyone in the comic business from Neil Gaiman to Scott McCloud. Incidentally, McCloud appears as "himself" in a hilarious psychedelic cameo in the style of his work in the groundbreaking "Understanding Comics" (one of my peripheral Bibles).
To top it all off, "Alice in Sunderland" it's a convoluted work of research- except that it goes out of its way to suggest half the research might be ENTIRELY FAKE. Which half? I sure as hell don't know. It's like getting tangled in a conversation with that decrepit old man on the Greyhound bus that swears he once got into a fist-fight with Gandhi and you don't even feel like contesting the claim.

Lazy?!?

Any reaction to ANYTHING is critical, and comes from the infinitely fallible viewpoint of us mere mortals. In my Catholic days I was told the Pope was infallible by virtue of dogma, but I don't think either I or the Pope ever truly believed that. Reaction to Woody Allen movies, for instance, is tinged by personal experience. Woody fans love them and hate them in the context of a 40+ years career. Other people judge them on a movie to movie basis and may indeed be puzzled- but judging Woody Allen by one movie is like judging me by my ankle- there's so much more to me.
OF COURSE his youthful days of epiphanies and creation are over- but it's amazing that he's working at all. And when I glance over at reviews like Lawrence Toppman's on the Charlotte Observer or J. R. Jones' on the Chicago Reader and see them categorize Woody as a lazy person, I have to bristle. First, there's hardly a more industrious personality in the filmmaking arena. There's nothing lazy about a film director's personality in the first place- lazy people sit at home and complain about how filmmakers aren't entertaining them enough. But to see someone in his late 60's still churning a movie a year- hell, I will complain as gladly as anyone at the varying quality, but laziness is not the motivating factor- he's clearly rushing through ideas before he dies. And what has Lawrence Toppman produced? Or J. R. Jones?
Most of us would be happy to be as lazy as Woody Allen.
This really reminds me I have to finish at least the SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA before I die in my late 20s of a botched appendicitis operation.

The Raconteurs

BROKEN TOY SOLDIERS

CONSOLERS OF THE LONELY


I've been listening to both- the first is famelic and scattered, but by the second outing it's clear that Jack White (the Third, don't you know?) is just trying to dip his feet into every musical idea that falls outside of "The White Stripes" aesthetic.
And that's GOOD.
Jack White is an enthusiastic sound adventurer, and I don't mind following him. The other dude's cool too, I'm convinced.

Ross MacDonald's "The Wycherly Woman"

In this Lew Archer novel, MacDonald does something that he'd never done for me before; he actually makes me want to FIND THE MISSING GIRL. Phoebe Wicherly. He makes me care for someone's salvation, and what's magical is that the someone in question is a composite of gossip and misunderstandings. There IS however a very unbelievable moment late in the novel- a twist too contrived. But I don't wanna razzle the guy who writes the most crystalline prose imaginable. He's a hero to the mystery writerdom.

The Hold Steady's "Boys and Girls in America"

“There are times when I think Sal Paradise was right: Boys and Girls in America have such sad times together.”

Yes, it’s only recently that the Hold Steady's 2006 album has wallpapered my nights of revelry- (my IMAGINARY nights of revelry, where I have my bar brawls and my drug-addled hook-ups at the chill out tent.) I’m no hipster music site. If a song stops making you dance because it’s oh so two years ago, it was never a good song.
Another good reason why you can never count on me for speedy music assessments (you get those elsewhere): I like to lounge on CDs like the brontosaurus I am, discovering nuances twenty listens into them. I don’t think you can groove and grow with MP3s the same way: they’re usually backdrop to your G-Chats and your commute and they’re perpetually being shuffled out of your mind.
I didn’t think old foggery would hit me as hard and as quickly as it has, but there you go. And really, it’s old foggery that makes me love the Hold Steady, because I don’t think any of us are kidding ourselves here: we love Craig Finn, because, come on, dude’s channeling THE BOSS, and “Boys and Girls in America” is a slightly updated “Born to Run”.
But I mean nothing dismissive by that: I wish there twenty American poets as good as Springsteen. And Craig Finn is a damn good one, he imbues his tales of drunken parties with all the desperation and the wisdom of someone who knows he’s fucked up and he’s totaled his car and broken some chick’s heart in the process, but he wants to be redeemed, because all he wanted to do was feel like something beautiful and magical could happen before the night ended.
So, yes.
Two years later.
I'm in love with "Boys and Girls in America".
I'll get to "Stay Positive" soon. Or should I first hark back to "Separation Sunday"?

CRITERION: Spencer G. Bennet's "The Atomic Submarine"

Obviously, someone dropped their bottle of Scotch on a keyboard, there was a shipping mix-up, and the MST3K crew is somewhere out there, trying to make fun of a Claude Chabrol movie.
The best that can be said for this B-lister is that it is relatively restrained and competent- but who wants restraint and competence in a movie about an underwater UFO who seeks to lure men into its deadly trap by, of all things, HIDING DEEP UNDER THE ARCTIC POLE? (Some joker must have told them that's where all the best human specimens hang.)
Oh, and the Darwyn Cooke artwork is rocking the drive-in!

ABOVE: IT'S THE DEADLY EYE!!! CAN YOU RESIST ITS PENETRATING, JUDGEMENTAL GLARE?!?

David Sheff's "Beautiful Boy"

"Harrowing" is the word that comes to mind. I bet it comes up plenty of times on the press surrounding "Beautiful Boy". One of the most heartbreaking books I've read in a while- I really felt like hugging the father and saying: "It's ok, it's ok, it's not your fault your son's a meth addict, please understand that, you're obviously just about the sweetest, most kick-ass, Kurt Cobain-quoting Dad any kid could hope for. It's not your fault that most of us are not sufficiently informed about the way CHEMICALS work, the way our BRAINS work, that your son was prey to dealers and ignorance and taboos and stigmas and..." *sniff sniff*

You really must read this book... if only as the moving father-son tribute it is.

I'm not gonna quote the Lennon song here. It's been overquoted plenty. I'm sure you've heard it before. Cliche, almost. We need to let it rest. It's old hat. We don't need to-

Ok ok, FINE, let's pretend we've stumbled across these words anew:

Before you cross the street
Take my hand
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans
Beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful boy

There, I made myself cry.

CRITERION: Michael Powell's "49th Parallel"

Propaganda is seldom this sophisticated. A movie whose very first line uses the word "Athwart" (ATHWART, for Pete's!) has got its smarty pants on.

One of several powerful collaborations between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, "49th Parallel" has a noble enough agenda: To convince America that the Nazi menace could easily slip in through the unprotected Canadian border, and shake it out of an isolationistic stance. It's the filmmaker's odd choices that make this movie so hard to enjoy.
The protagonists are the "bad guys". Six Nazi U-Boaters run through the Canadian wilderness, encountering examples of the free-ranging Canuck spirit that does not mix well with goose-stepping. The movie plays like a series of dialectic vignettes. At first the Nazis are intelligently humanized, and their enthusiasm for Hitler is played as noxious naivete, complacency, or ignorance- (which is a lot better than the typical war movie of the era provided), but eventually they are exposed as inflexible monsters. (It's what Nazism has forced them into.) You never know which character to center on. An over-acting Laurence Olivier is top-billed, but quickly killed. Leslie Howard as a cultured voice appears much too late in the movie to preach for Picasso, Matisse and Thomas Mann, but his isolationism from the war angers the escaping Nazis. Are we preaching for or against isolationism here, propaganda movie? The asshole Nazi martinet played by Eric Portman emerges as the character whose final capture we're supposed to cheer for- but notice that we've basically been asked to follow the fate of a character we're supposed to dislike, and is indeed unlikable.

As an effective conveyor of ideas- democracy vs. totalitarianism- it works. As a visual record of Canada's beauties, it awes. But you can't feel warmth for this.

CRITERION: WHERE WE AT?

The Onion's Jonathan Rabin recently revealed that his "MY YEAR OF FLOPS" was the alternative to his watching and reviewing the Criterion Collection, which was a stimulant to my competitive little ass who had already been reviewing the Criterion Collection alphabetically since way back when- in my post-college days- luckily he chose his turf among the stunted might-have-beens-of-cinema. I bravely watched (sometimes re-watched) a ton of the great movies in the Criterion collection- if you have some of the Indiana Jones in you and want to go to my livejournal- "hanspanicsrants" - you may find those reviews. I don't. It's all as distant to me as the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But since I want to renew my Criterion attempt, and I hope that you, My Dear Imaginary Reader, may similarty grow culturally (vicariously) through me, let's see what my ailing memory has to say (BRIEFLY) of my glorious Criterion DVD days:


3 Films by Louis Malle: Lucien, Lacombe, Murmur of the Heart, Au Revoir Les Enfants.
"Au Revoir Les Enfants"- This is tied to me by high school French club memories. (I was the president! For real!) "Murmur of the Heart": If my mom was a hot French woman, maybe I would try to fuck her too. "Lucien, Lacombe": I don't remember this one at all.


Shelley Duval and Sissy Spacek always were this close to ugly. Sexy ugly?



Love Hitchcock. All about the innuendo.


So this is where Woody Allen got so many of his ideas! From Truffaut!


Simply the best movie about movies. This is just so rewatchable.


A delightful early lark- tied to Charles Chaplin's "Modern Times".

This was kind of a chore. Sorry, Mother Russia.


The most brilliant simple story of how unlikely love can be destroyed by stupid intolerance.


Melodramatic? Sure. But Douglas Sirk knew how to make a soap opera matter.



Honestly, this is more a movie to GET than to enjoy. Godard can be like that.

One of Fellini's most unforgettable, undeniable pleasures. This what my childhood felt like. Open to wonder.


Brigitte Bardot was HOOOOOOT. But that's all.

Fellini was being a little kooky in this one, but I had adapted enough to his social satire to enjoy the double decker action.


Panoramic. Tarkovsky is awesome and hypnotic.


These movies were all about how war sucks. It does. It does. Damn. War sucks.


I have no clue why Michael Bay's "Armagedon" is in the Criterion list other than to put the auteur theory on its head. YES, you can totally tell a Michael Bay when you see it, you can tell a Michal Bay shot, you can pick out a Michael Bay obsession- but it don't mean the movie is any goddamned GOOD!



This was about a donkey that eventually died. The flies ate him. We are all big human donkeys. The flies will eventually eat us. It's all about how we enjoy our time here on Earth... Heaven? Sorry... I actually went on an airplane... There ain't nuttin' but clouds up there.


Bergman says that mother and daughters have a pretty conflicted relationship, so it must be true.

If your friend disappears while on an island trip, you really must have sex with her boyfriend- so says Antonioni.


Even the Soviets could never convince themselves that Communism was any good.

The Godard movie you're bound to like, wild youth and freedom.


Politically powerful- feels like a documentary though it isn't- a must see.


Vittorio de Sicca's "The Bicycle Thief"- the most grueling Neo-realist movie that you cannot afford to NOT WATCH. "Chop Shop" might be a modern substitute.


"Ocean's Eleven" at the root.


Honestly, this one did nothing for me.

Probably the most textbook, powerful exposition of my "triangles" theory.


The Orpheus myth is one of the most recurrent in my head. We artists love to pipe dead lovers out of hell, even though we know it's bound to fail.


Aside from the DTs scene, this one left no mark.


I remember liking this movie a lot as I watched it... but then I don't remember anything else about it.


Cool Japs.

Terry Gilliam is better than anyone at playing with what you think you know. You retreat to Brazil, because... What is real? Is life a dream?


I haven't seen anywhere near enough of Fassbinder's movies.


This one is just undeniably important and likable.

You know what I liked best about this story of an affair? How they went to see a Donald Duck short and admitted that... all these horrible things are going on around us... but at least we'll always have Donald Duck. I don't know what better thing to hold on to. Jesus?


Repressed homosexuals in British classrooms, who would have thunk it?


You must SEE a Werner Herzog movie. You must PRAY that you're never involved in the making of a Herzog movie.


Peace is good. War is good. The Burmese are the ugly.


Love to watch film slowly decompose? You're in for a treat!


Awesome B-Movie!


Aaaah, jealousy and a pretty French face. It could turn out bad.


I know I saw it, but I don't remember it. Is this the one with the DTs, and not "Bob Le Flambeur"? It's possible.


Shit. "Chasing Amy." God, I love this. I don't know what to tell you. I was a big Kevin Smith fan in the 90s. What hapenned to him? I don't know.


This is one of the best movies ever, a movie that feels like a great engrossing Romantic novel I should return to soon... The one problem? The "open" ending.


I cannot tell you the impact this movie had on my life. Discovering it on Bravo on a Sunday night, being slowly drawn into the plight of its main character (he wants to lose his virginity before the Nazis blow him away!). For many reasons, it opened me to world cinema. And to adulthood. And I thank it.


Sometimes Eric Rohmer's movies share a certain "sameness". This one definitely sticks out.


Brigitte Bardot's ass is prominently featured. Really, that's a damn good reason to watch this movie. There is just something to those curves that... well, explain God's ways more than Milton can.


Russian roomies. I was forced to watch this in Cuba, so I never cared for it much.

Those Japanese girls are hot, y'all.


All the pain of watching someone die from cancer compiled into 91 Bergman minutes.


This was well acted... Didn't really make me testify much.


NOT the one with Sharon Stone. The real thing.


Alcoholism and the priesthood don't go together... or do they???


In Bunuel's movie, they're always sitting down to eat... but they never eat. Ah, it's just like being in Cuba all over again.


Amusing trifle.

Possibly the best most honest movie about race in America. Half of the time I don't know what to think about Spike Lee, but this movie always makes me respect him.


Kabuki kamikaze sayonara. Medium rare.


Jim Jarmusch's prison blues. It works, if you're lenient.

Interesting but minor Bergman movies- you can see where he compromises to form.

AND THIS IS WHERE I STOPPED... ONLY TO FIND MANY NEW TITLES HAD BEEN ADDED TO THE COLLECTION. FEAR NOT, I'LL WADE THROUGH THOSE.