"The Last House on the Left" Trailer

I guess we're all just feeling extra protective about our daughters these days?
Wes Craven's original "Last House on the Left" was, in a way, the "Taken" of its time- except that its third act of retribution is supposed to be a gruesome twist in an already execrable movie (The older generation is just as capable of dealing out sick punishment). It was a masterpiece of culture-shock horror that left no one unscathed.
(Actually, I don't know about about masterpiece. It was kind of shoddy and exploitative. But it did its duty. And earned Craven his stripes- which Freddy Kruegger would go on to wear.)
We've recently remade "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", we've remade "Halloween", and we dolled up the babes and stripped the killers of their menace. But why do this to "Last House on the Left"?
I guess it's letting you know it's gonna be FUN, turning discomforting horror into comfy fantasy... But why spoil it in the trailer?
Ugh. I liked it when trailers teased, and not synopsized.

Joyce Carol Oates' "Wonderland"

We're subtly notified that the young woman from the ridiculously zeitgeisty "Taken" is a virgin. Surely that's why the non-descript Arabian sheiks at her auction are paying such huge sums for her? I mean, escorts aren't THAT expensive, Abu!
Thankfully Liam Neesom gets to her just in time; her virginity is preserved- about a hundred dead guys make sure of it.
One wonders though- what if he'd gotten there AFTER she'd... er... lost it? Would Liam Neesom have beamed his smile: "Well, now we can put aaaaall that behind us. And no more getting kidnapped, you hear?" How reassuring that nothing worse happened to the young girl than being forced into a Kate Moss-like modeling daze.

"Taken" -er- "takes" its cues from similar searches in better movies like "Traffic" and, yes, "The Searchers", where the men are desperately trying to rescue young women from being sexually exposed to a ravenous world. What "Taken" doesn't -er, again- "take" into account is that the quest, any quest, is supposed to be transformative, for better or worse. Liam Neesom doesn't learn anything that he didn't already know. And he's inexplicably happy at the end of the movie. Why? Because his fears were magically confirmed? The real life counterpart to that character would have been left a mental cripple- not by his conscience as a murderer, but by the fact that he knows every single time his daughter steps out on the street she could be kidnapped/raped/mugged/have her heart broken/ be treated with derision/be devastated by a snarky remark from a bitchy co-worker.
Might as well just kill your own daughters, no? That will keep them pristine.
It's that possessive fear of degradation that made "The Searchers" such a great masterpiece of obsession.
(Really, IS John Wayne going to save Natalie Wood? Or kill her? Or fuck her? We're not even sure until the end, are we?)

And YES, this IS a blog about Joyce Carol Oates' "Wonderland"- also a story that ends with a father out on a heat-seeking daughter-search. Jesse Vogel stands just like John Wayne or Liam Neesom with a gun in his hand, he has come to rescue HIS offspring from the den where she definitely has been defiled by the 60s, by free sex and not-so-free drugs- and his daughter stares at him, wondering if he's going to save her or kill her or fuck her, and wondering if he's the devil.
And where Joyce Carol Oates stands superior to the above examples is that she is aware that HER searcher/rescuer/taker-backer probably HAS become the devil in the process of the quest.
But he does not use his gun.
Great novel.

"Wonderland" opens with a quote by Jorge Luis Borges about the fabrication of our unrealities, and I'm still re-reading the Collected Fictions, so I might be under the pall of that. Expect me to suggest things like a MAIN blog that recaps all possible blogs...

Steven Millhauser's "Dangerous Laughter"

Though there are many delights in Steven Millhauser's "Dangerous Laughter", (delights of a familiar, half-Borgesian, half-New-Yorkerish, and all-adult nature- so the book's jacket reassures us), it's "Cat 'n' Mouse", the existential "Opening Cartoon" that tickled my fancy.

"The Mouse leans against the Cat, conspiratorial brows raised as they accept how symbiotic their connection is."
Millhauser, who won the Pulitzer for "Martin Dressler" and wrote the story on which the underrated Edward Norton movie "The Illusionist" was based, is a fantasist: his stories peer over the edge of possibility and sometimes whole characters vanish or materialize on authorial whims. A characteristic tic is the Faulknerian communal "WE", as in: "Later that summer we learned that Harriet Schwartz had been Houdini's lover." (Not a real story, but a sensible, Millhauserian prompt.)
Evidence of execution, this story from the New Yorker.

Jakob Dylan's "Seeing Things"

Jakob Dylan's decision to go solo seems more calculated than he would like you to believe. The mellow pop-folk of "Seeing Things" is not enough of a detour from the alt-rock of "The Wallflowers" that it would merit the shedding of a band that already was ABOUT Jakob Dylan. Clearly he's just fleeing a ship that was sinking in the public awareness. The result is much less rocking, more sparse and meditative. But Dylan Jr.'s meditations are not those of a great thinker, (he "ain't got much on his mind") and the overly-folksy lyrics about working the land with sweat in your brow for meager pay have a faint taste of FAKENESS. That's hardly a terminal problem: there are plenty of nice ditties in "Seeing Things"- "Evil Is Alive and Well", "Something Good This Way Comes", and "Will It Grow" stand out, but there's no danger of them harshing your mellow. This is muted, rainy day fare.

Things I did During My Favorite Oscar Moments

I clapped at Hugh Jackman's courageous decision to come out as a mutant.

I laughed at Joaquin Phoenix's brilliant jab at Ben Stiller. Agreed: Stiller needs to die, like, NOW.

I was very moved by Heath Ledger's last minute resurrection, and even cheered when he jammed a pencil up Sean Penn's nose.

I sang along to A. R. Rahman's triumphant ode to Mumbai's sex workers, "High Ho!".

I faced the facts: Beyonce looks like she's completely over me.

When Kate Winslet came on, I practiced my Oscar acceptance speech with a shampoo bottle. Ok, a K-Y bottle.

I cried realizing I wasted an entire night staring at beautiful fakes who wouldn't use my worthless hide to line their million dollar purses.

R. A. Salvatore's "The Dark Elf Trilogy" Part 3: "Sojourn"

There's a certain decline in the quality of book 3 of "The Legend of Drizzt". The action scenes are fantastic as usual in Salvatore's work- how many compelling sword fights did John Updike write? But there's a by-the-numbers "Star Warsy" vibe: Drizzt, unjustly suspected of having killed a farmer's family, learns the proper use of his scimitar from Obi-Wan-Kenobe- er, Montolio the Wise Blind Ranger. The sudden, pathetic fate of that character adds to the feeling that things were rushed to conclude a set.
First sidebar: How loose is the naming of characters in this saga? In the same world we have Drizzt (love Drizzt, but really that name is what happens when a frustrated writer stamps down on the keyboard and likes the result); we have the majesty of a Dove Falconhand; the Arthurian hint in the black panther, Guenhwyvar - or Ginny as I like to think of her; the Italian/ French Montolio De'Brouchee (who somehow becomes Mooshie!); and the Scottish Roddy McGristle (R. A. gave up on the fantasy names there.) This isn't George R. R. Martin, of course- there isn't a strong attempt at cohesive world building. It's more like the half-hearted games of AD&D fence-straddling nerds like me would play, where characters would be named Konan "D" Barbarian.
Not that I ever played AD&D.
Second sidebar:
Byeeee Conan O'Brien!!! Until June!!!

Judith Thurman's "Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire"

Dear Imaginary Reader:
OUCH!!!
If you want to feel saddened for any particular author other than your eternally unpublished current companion, (moi), then feel for Judith Thurman.

Thurman is a long time staffer at the New Yorker and "Cleopatra's Nose" is a collection of 39 essays that has received 1 two-star review from someone who thinks she uses "big words".
Check it, it's just hilarious.
"All them Jew Yorkers with their intellectuality!"
That the review comes from "Texas" is almost too perfect, makes me think it's a fake.
I didn't notice any particularly high-fallutin' tone in these essays, often sketches of influential women like Diane Arbus- if anything they seemed almost too "Vogue"-friendly. Believe you me, I'm the first person to piss on people's ivory towers, and yeah, Thurman writes for the New Yorker, but there's no pedantry here. (What would that reviewer make of Jacques Barzun's essays? Provided s/he would ever pick them up, which is doubtful?) Judith Thurman and Jacqes Barzun are peas in a pod, culling history out of social observation. Feminine fashion is Thurman's fetish: History Hangs on Beauty's Closet. (Her authoritative "Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette" is also on my Q.)
This a wonderful collection of essays, despite the low Amazon rating which I've pointed.
DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT read the essay on Marie Antoinette!!! It contains a spoiler for my SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA, and no, it's not something obvious like er, MARIE ANTOINETTE DIES AT THE END, DUH. It's a subtle one. Relating to a certain character called Nicole Legay :-)

A Jacques Barzun Reader; Dorothy L. Sayers

"From Dawn to Decadence" was pretty inescapable during my college years, an erudite summary of Western civilization that was published in 2000, when its author, Jacques Martin Barzun, was 93 years old. The man is alive as far as I know, must be over 100 years old, and still an intellectual factory of one. I can't imagine hitting 100- let alone writing best-sellers that late in life. I think I'll be needing a walker by the time I hit my 40s. Anyway, "From Dawn to Decadence" was a suggested title at more than one of my courses- pretty inescapable, as I said- to all but ME, who dodged it with all the might of my rebellious spirit. But I feel great guilt about it, and it's there, on that anacondian queue of "THINGS I MUST READ TO BECOME A REAL BOY" along with "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu." (Look at me bustin' out my four years of high school French! And they say the American educational system sucks!)
The wide-range of the essays in "A Jacques Barzun Reader" keep me entertained in the meantime. Barzun is a cultural commentator, (one of the first serious workers in the "cultural history" field) and equally at ease exposing academic ossification, writing about Darwin and Lincoln, or discussing popular thrillers.
DETOUR:

One of his favorites- and mine- is the Christian humanist and quasi-feminist Dorothy L. Sayers. (Random nice Sayers quote: "The first thing a principle does is kill somebody.") Sayers' awesome Lord Peter Wimsey whodunits have inexplicably waned in popularity, but you can remedy that on your own. I re-read them often.
Enough. Read Sayers if a love child between Agatha Christie and P.G. Wodehouse sounds like something you want to invite into your home.
END OF DETOUR.
Barzun even indulges in humor in an Asimov vein, as when a "future" historian analyzes modern ('50s) society and concludes we all bow to a God called Advt. who provided us with a state of "pep", which manifested at its extreme of religious ecstasy is known as "pepsicola." But it's in his bilingual observations as a Frenchman in America that I delighted most. Few languages are as seemingly close as French and English while being so wide apart in delivery. Barzun made me realize this: English is about the CONSONANTS, French is about the VOWELS. Might as well be different universes. In Nglsh I cn wrt lk ths nd b srt f ndrstd. I can pronounce "sir" as "sir, sur, sar and ser" and you know what I mean. Not so in French, where a vowel's pronounciation CHANGES EVERYTHING. Barzun's details a cabby's frustration at an American's attempts at la langue: "Danton", "d'autant", "detend", "detonne"? Waaaay different things- but all the same mush in a foreigner's mouth.

"Vermilion Pleasure Night", "The Fuccons", "Kappa Mikey"

One of the more lasting horrors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings is that, according to the Human Genome Project, 73% of Japanese have an allelic mutation in the humor gene, (#15,394-FKDUP). "Vermilion Pleasure Night" was a short lived, cult-starting show so bizarre that the studio in which it was filmed had to be raided and decontaminated by U.N. forces.

Its hypnotic combination of pupil-hacking colors, seductive women, and what can best be termed as "disconcerting randomness" make for one of those artifacts of Japanese pop culture that lure Westerners like me into the very maws of Gojira. "Vermilion Pleasure Night" spawned the ever-popular "Fuccons", (yeah, it's meant to sound naughty) a parody of the American nuclear family as enacted by endlessly cheerful mannequins.

When Americans will themselves into Japanese poses, it's so forced: In the Nicktoons show "Kappa Mikey", the titular character is an American-styled cartoon hero hired to work on an anime, and his frequent attempts to be all Jappy, (like manifesting sweat beads to signify embarrassment/puzzlement) fail because of his innate design. The show is a small gem for American Anime fans, though- the humor apes the surrealism of the land of the Rising Sun while staying within the confines of sanity one expects from the good ol' U.S. The designs- crude, like a gaijin's first attempts at manga- have a flash-made charm that's sure to appeal to all the nerds who have tried to draw their favorite Naruto characters and noticed it wasn't THAT easy.

Greg Rucka's "Queen and Country: Operation Broken Ground"

Even if Echo from "Dollhouse" doesn't join the pantheon of all-purpose ass-kicking women- and sad ratings for the pilot spell doom- I can find comfort in the character of Tara Chace, from Greg Rucka's "Queen and Country" series, which ran from 2001-2007. Before becoming one of the big-name writers at DC comics, Rucka had already worked out his spare, no-nonsense approach to characters in "Whiteout" (which I loved) and in his "Atticus Kodiak" mass market paperback novels, which people have recommended enough for me to take a swing at. But "Queen and Country" feels like the place where he gets to let loose in a playground all his own. Tara Chace is James Bond- if James Bond had been subject to the jurisdictional nightmare of post-cold War, post-9/11 bureaucratic espionage. License to Kill? Sure- but first let's run it triplicate through MI5, CIA, FBI, Interpol, Red Mafyia, THE ALBANIANS, The Saudis, Al-Qaeda, Taliban- we don't want to ruffle any feathers with this snipe-shot. In his introduction to the first volume, Warren Ellis proudly outlines the migration of intelligence from British television to the comic book arena. There might be a parallel in American shores.

Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" Pilot

Dear Imaginary Reader:
Among many other things, I was not surprised that Echo's real name was Caroline in this "Coraline" weekend- long time readers (all three of them) will know about my fascination for that name in its many variations.
Wait, I confused you, Dear Imaginary Reader.
Let's back track.
Who's Echo?
Echo is the Doll played by Eliza Dushku in Fox's "Dollhouse", the new, possibly doomed, series created by Joss Whedon. This IS the Fox Friday Night where Science Fiction goes to die- Remember "VR5"? "M.A.N.T.I.S"? "The Lone Gunmen"? "Millenium"? "Harsh Realm"? "Dark Angel"? "Firefly"? If you never saw those shows, that's because you were out having some sort of a life and didn't stay home hand-painting your Warhammer figurines and waiting to see what great new concept the likes of Chris Carter were conjuring. I don't know why Fox even HAS Friday nights, they should just jump right into Saturday morning cartoons or something.
So anyway, "Dollhouse". This series has been highly anticipated by the nerdery because Joss Whedon is some sort of balding TV god, and if he sees fit to bless us with another show as wonderful as "Buffy" or "Angel" then we will all just ascend to Nirvana propelled by jets of nerd ejaculate.
Is "Dollhouse" it?
Yes?
No?
Who the hell knows! It's only one episode! If someone had told me after my cursory viewing of the first goofy episode of "Buffy" that, like, five years later I would be crying because Buffy's fictional mommy had just died, I would have been like: "Sir, you are tripping." We're taught to expect love at first sight, but whatever happens at first sight is not love, it's infatuation. Love grows, develops over time.
Ok, wait, this is turning out too Oprah. "Dollhouse", yes! Intriguing premise. I will continue watching and not contort my brain wondering where the writers will take the show, or wincing about the fact that the character is a subservient blank and a blow to Joss' feminist cred, or worrying whether audiences will find it hard to relate to someone who keeps on being emotionally re-set, or whether the big bad in season 5 will be Anthony Stewart Head in purple make-up.
I leave that to the rest of the Interweb, I'll just enjoy my TV brainlessly as usual.
What else is there? I could have used more quippy Whedonisms.

Oh, and Eliza Dushku is HAWT and has matured as an actress- she can carry a series now, which was not true 10 years ago.
OMG, was it really 10 years ago that Buffy (and I!) graduated as class of '99?!?
Time to cut this post short and weep.

Henry Selick's "Coraline"

It's easy to pour hyperbole on "Coraline." It may just be the best 3-D movie ever made; the best stop motion movie since Selick's own "The Nightmare Before Christmas"; the only Dakotta Fanning movie that didn't bring out a rash of cutesy, and the best screen adaptation of a Neil Gaiman work, by far. There is fair criticism you may level at it: the plot is overly confusing, too scary for kids, and not as universally crowd-pleasing as the ones in typical animated fare. I will combat by saying that a) it offers richness that demands and will reward repeated viewing, b) who says it was only for kids? and c) no, it is not a 'typical' movie; it is an original, in many ways an "indie" in perspective.

Unusually rich in its symbols, this is story about a girl who travels into an alternate world where her neglectfully busy parents have been replaced by button-eyed, magical dolls, only to find that the perfect world is a lie, (sort of like a colorful candy trail that leads to a bear trap.) There are familiar elements: clearly, Gaiman has traveled over the dream maps of Narnia, Oz and Wonderland, and the eye-popping spectacle may leave the less adventurous cold: "Wait- why the fuck am I looking at some trippy display of dancing rats?" (BECAUSE IT'S WEIRD AND COOL, DUH). But the love and attention paid to every frame would do Pixar proud, even if they would find the on-goings too shockingly uncommercial- OH, another hyperbole: this could be the most hard-core PG movie ever.
Will kids understand why it is that Coraline's parents, (those assholes who blog all day) are eventually found to be preferable than the show-bizzy fantasy doppelgangers? Not unless they've read William Blake. But "Coraline" is an adult's explanation to his offspring: "I am not a better person because growing up has sucked it out of me, but I am an honest and loving parent in my own way, and the reality I can offer is always preferrable to an illusion that will lead you astray."
Coraline's journey doesn't have the streamlined, video-game-level progression of a movie like "Wall-E" or "Finding Nemo"; instead it is a druggy amble. But hazy though its winding, phantasmagorical plot may seen, it has the truthful imprint of mythology: at one point, experience will find itself at conflict with innocence, and we must choose to deal with reality, not dellusion, if we want to escape alive.

That Was Delightful!!!

SHHHHH, don't tell anyone, but I spent my Valentine's with an under-aged girl.
Her name was Coraline.

Larry Gonick's "Cartoon History of the Universe" Volume 8-13

Gonick's style is still one of skeptic irreverence in the second collection of his comic history, (Thank God!). Here he draws strongly from the Asterix tradition of historical lampooning, (the diminutive Gaul even has a cameo). Gonick outdoes Gibbon's description of Roman decay, if only by condensation and clarity. Also, his summaries of the essential cultural differences between India and China could certainly give pointers to some of us who are just now fiding out that, despite what Uncle Disney said, the world is pretty big and has a lot of people in it who don't even speak English!
Gonick's witty depiction of Jesus, while historical and not exactly offensive, is not going to be pinned up on the Pope's cubicle anytime soon. No handsome, blue-eyed, white-robed, haloed superman, this Jesus is a wild-haired skinny shaman who's not big on personal hygiene- in short, the most logical portrait a skeptical reader can draw from the Bible. It's pretty funny and fair over all.
Not as funny as this, though!

Semi-Mute Acknowledgements

What are these? Sometimes I have gone through too many loggable items to dedicate entire posts to, so I must quickly dispatch them before moving on to the next thing. I CAN be lazy, it's my birthday.


Charles Dickens' "Barnaby Rudge"- One of Dickens' less extolled efforts, it was a real pleasure to me because for once I approached one of his works without the burden of any Masterpiece Theatre memories. Dickens reins in the weirdo names, (No Mr. Skullshambles here) and instead opts for a truly historic vision of British fanaticism. Barnaby Rudge is a simpleton that gets caught in the real-life riots organized by George Gordon against "Popery"- and British Catholics were murdered with as much glee as French Protestants had been in France during the events of Dumas' "Queen Margot". There are reasons other than the aesthetic for the relative neglect of this work: this is a mean, harsh sequence of events, that nonetheless stands along with "A Tale of Two Cities" in the historical field. Even though its ambition to be picturesque a la Walter Scott often outstrips the final effect, it is as entertaining as any of Dickens' books. It must have felt like a harsh bath of reality on dirty minds of the time: Dickens is quite clear on the fact that a Protestant that murders a Catholic is a murderer, PERIOD, and not fulfilling God's will in any way. Few works of the time speak so boldly against religious fanaticism, but that very factor is bound to redeem this book in the eyes of Dickens scholars before too long.


Sarah Vowell's "The Wordy Shipmates"- A book like this may be amateur history, certainly falls deep in the shadow of something like Nathaniel Filbrick's "Mayflower", but it is inspring, a liberal assesment of Puritans that's somehow objective and yet admiring and seduces me because it captures my own feelings towards the "city on the hill" this country still is- and I hope continues to be. Sure, America is flawed and built by religious hypocrites, but WOW, it is worth believing in, every nook and cranny of her!


David Macaulay's "The Way We Work"- I read this stuff, but really, I don't even want to know. Like James Franco says in "Freaks and Geeks", it just reminds me of all the crap that can go wrong inside you.


Animal Collective's "Merryweather Post Pavilion"- At first this didn't make sense- the new will do that to your ears. But eventually things settled, and I figured there must be some new drug out there I'm just not privy to. Animal Collective felt ecstatic, but not necessarily in a pleasant way, sort of like swallowing a quarterful of sunshine. But by now it has sort of "settled" in my head and I heard definite pop tunes that have been weirdly recorded- like maybe with the right orchestration this could be a Paul McCartney album circa "Ram."


The Smiths' "The Sound of the Smiths"- I've been told repeatedly not to listen to 'Best ofs', it's a betrayal of the album concept! Well, MP3s are a betrayal of the album concept- the album concept, for better or worse, is a dry bone sticking out of the beach of the begone. So juicy Smith singles are fine by me.


Joy Division's Oeuvre:
Ian Curtis died at 24! Ha! OUTLIVED that sucker! AND Kurt Cobain! And Jim Morrison! And Jimi Hendrix! BOOYAH!!! I'm still alive!!! Because I rock like THAT.
(Gotta make it 33- Jesus Christ AND Alexander the Great)

Angela Christlieb and Stephen Kijak's "Cinemania"

This Finnish documentary from 2002 is a real relief: like the protagonists, I love movies and watch as many as 5 or 6 a week; unlike the protagonists, I wouldn't consider suicide if a ticket-taker rips my ticket apart and ruins my collection of cinema stubs that date back to 1935. I had never been so pleasantly relegated to the realm of sanity. The characters here, New Yorkers who consider "getting a job" a genuine threat to their passion for gathering moss at movie palaces, are OCD sufferers- movie buffs that refuse to shower because the noxious cloud that surrounds them is guaranteed to provide the best seats at a MoMa Henry Ford retrospective. The profiled weirdoes are hilarious, nerdy monsters, no doubt- typical sentiment: "What?!? There are no Bressons in your Top Ten Movies of All Time?!? I part ways with you, sir!" but they're really not representatives of our widespread need for cinema's enlightened windows: these are crazy people who have nowhere else to go but the movies. Similarly, I wouldn't call the homeless folk that swarm to my library the last bastion of literacy.

WHOO-BIRTHDAY

As previously established, I share a birthday with Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, and Christina Ricci. I am looking to trade any pictures of Lincoln in lingerie. Until then, this will have to do.

2009? 1569? Same Thingge!

New Yorkke Tymes: Ye Olde Catholic Church is Once More Giving Away Indulgences!

International: Hordes of Turbaned Trolls have been spied in the magicked lands of Araby, bearing a Banner that represents the Sideways Horns of Satan along with the Sign of Lucifer Morningstar, all on a field of martyred Christian blood.


Local: A five-headed Dragon was seen to provoke great torment to St. Anthony of Hoboken, who took each head to symbolize, respectively: Nineveh, Pontius Pilate, A Scary Dragon Head, The Lust for Male Flesh, and Calvinist Heresy.


Sports: Exciting Results in Today's Flaying of the Jews, with the Brooklyn Inquisitors presenting 27 more Hebrew pelts than the Sox.


Entertainment: You didn't find the Flaying of the Jews entertaining Enough? Surely the Flames of Hell Await You!

Walkin' Through Old Silent Hill

A pitiable video-gamer am I. No SKILLZ, outside of RPGs. I can't shoot or race and I will invariably lose in fights. I can do a little jumping in forgiving platformers. But I never could get past the opening scene of Resident Evil 2. Couldn't shake the zombies off. Mostly I would ask my little brother to beat the games for me- just so I could catch the cut-scenes. This may be why I have a high tolerance to watching other people play, an activity that's pure Ambien for most people. AND this may be why I would read walkthroughs on www.gamefaqs.com, which is slightly funner than reading engineering manuals. And then I realized that YouTube has like, 1000s of video game walk-throughs and edits that allow me to watch actual talented dorks run through a classic in a fraction of the time.
Hence my recent VIEWING of the original PS1 "Silent Hill", spawner of spawn.

The Silent Hill franchise is second only to Resident Evil's in the survival horror game, a style characterized by J-creepiness, Lovecraftian mansions and tedious puzzle-solving... all suddenly interrupted by genuinely scary, drop-the-controller-and-exchange-underwear moments.
There's usually a creepy kid. Even if the kid's supposed to be a "good, cute character"- as in "Silent Hill"- something about their look will STILL be creepy, kind of like Dakota Fanning.

Anyway, this "cute" kid, Cheryl Mason, bolts off her Daddy's car during the family vacation. Her dad, Harry, follows her into a deserted, horrible, horrible place called Silent Hill, runs into a cop called Cybill Bennet.

Together they visit a compendium of places where angels fear to thread: creepy school, creepy hospital, creepy lighthouse? All dutifully checked. Much backtracking fun will be had by all as Harry, essentially, finds keys to open doors. Sometimes the key puzzles will pretend they're not key puzzles (It's a medallion you fit into a hole to open the door! It's a stone you slide into a hole to open the door! It's a penis you slide into a hole to open the door!) But no one's fooled. There will be a creepy nurse, a local demon-summoning witch, and finally Harry will blast the demon away- the way the walktrough nerd annihilated that final boss in 20 seconds suggests that demons are made of a silky, easily-disintegrating fabric.
The big, horrifying questions remain, though. Like, what kind of city planner would build a place called Silent Hill and have the streets named after horror writers: Bloch, Bachman (a.k.a. King), Bradbury, Matheson...? And what kind of father would take his daughter there for a restful vacation? IMHO, this is begging for trouble.

Aaaah, Pictures of Cuba! How Delightfully Exotic!

Ahhh, mi patria...

PICTURES OF CUBA!

Nothing seduces a Photographer like the exotic quality of Cuba, that Worker's Paradise. So seductive are the colonial buildings in the touristy section called Habana Vieja that reality seems to slip away from the Artist's mind. Like in some Quixotic transformation, the skinny, half-naked kids fishing in the polluted waters of El Malecon for their mutated dinner become proud fishermen engaged in manly games. The sick, ill-nourished old man sweating on top of his bicycle becomes a symbol of Communist endurance against the horrors of dehumanizing Capitalism. The badly-made up "jinetera" who sucks the Photographer's dick for a bag of M&Ms becomes a symbol of insouciant, carefree youth.

Usually I'm amused by "Vamos a Cuba"-type bullshit, but the following caption in the photo-essay pissed me off to no end. Delight in the powers of BRAINWASHING!

"Cuba essentially has two economies - one is based on socialism and applies to most Cubans, providing them with free education, free health care, universal employment, unemployment compensation, disability and retirement benefits as well as the basic necessities of life: food, housing, utilities and some entertainment at very low cost. The free-market economy based on the dollar operates in the tourist, international and export areas, and in large part sustains the socialist economy."

Wow! So much admitted and yet not faced! Let me edit that according to REALITY.

"Cuba essentially has two economies, based on massive hypocrisy: The real 'Capitalism' for the beloved tourists who are allowed inside hotels and restaurants and get to buy rum and fine cigars and shoot documentaries about how nice and free the hospitals were- FOR THEM AND THEIR AUTHORIZED CAMERA CREWS. Then there's the nominal 'Socialist' economy, reserved for worthless 'Cubans'. These 'Cubans' aren't allowed to do much more than starve, which is freely encouraged."

TRUE. All Cubans get free education- on how to properly worship Fidel and hate the foreign Yankee-loving pigs that Fidel Castro is, meanwhile, having mojitos with.

TRUE. All Cubans get free health care- in that they can visit a doctor to their heart's content without paying. There, the doctor will treat you to recycled Russian-era syringes and tell you there's an epidemic of dysentery going around, but the hospital only has aspirin left. Hopefully that will help you deal with the headache of burying your abuelita? Unless, of course, you have family in the U.S. who has procured you with dollars and can go to the HAPPY hospital with the signs in English. In which case, if you slip the Doctor five bucks, he'll gladly refer you.

FALSE. Universal employment... Huh? What? Did they copy this off a 1960 Soviet pamphlet? How the writer concluded that there was universal employment in a country that has no working industries outside of tourism is mistifying... Of course there's no universal employment in Cuba. Didn't you just take pictures of all the people standing around eating shit in a corner IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY? INFURIATING. If all of us had jobs in Cuba, then we would REALLY be in trouble, because then we couldn't stand in line for 6 hours to get our daily piece of bread. THIS followed by "unemployment compensation", no less! If everyone's employed, what's this about there being unemployment compensation?!?

"As well as the basic necessities of life: food, housing, utilities and some entertainment at very low cost."

Shit!!! Thank you, Communism, for providing me with THE BASIC NECESSITIES OF LIFE! Oh, magnanimous dictators who don't just hunt me for sport, how can I show my gratitude?!?

Still, even there the caption's a fail.

TRUE. Food. All Cubans are allowed to eat a little. This is a great improvement over countries like Timbuzkaine, where all citizens have their mouth sewn at birth in a religious ritual.
In 1994, when I left the country, things were particularly bad. Milk was forbidden for anyone over 6 years of age- (it probably caused cancer anyway). You COULD buy, (BUY, by the way, I don't know where the idea of Communism FREELY handing food came out!) a bag of sugar a week, a bag of rice every two weeks, four eggs a week, and a piece of bread a day. (How Pater Noster of the govt.) Once a month you could have meat (one month beef, the other chicken). The chicken was ok. The beef was NEVER okay, and most of the protein came from the maggots. (This was also a frequent problem with the rice.)
But why dwell in the past? Things have gotten considerably better since then, because now Cuba only bears the slogans of Communism but is pretty much the same corrupt, tourism-centered, foreigner's-dick-sucking place it was in 1959. Most Cubans now "resuelven"- a vague Cuban term that means we "figure out" how to get dollars to buy the "basic" necessities of life- at the hotel's "shopping".
(Tipically "resuelven" means you have a "jinetera" for a wife, sister or cousin, you ARE a "jinetera", or you just mugged a "jinetera" who was shambling back from the hotel with 20 bucks in her purse. Sucks, but at least Oliver Stone had a good time!

FALSE. HOUSING: There's crazy homeless people in every country. Our 'hood had Carlitos who lived in the ruins next to my building. God, how he could pee in our lobby! What a bladder that man had! (Before you think I lived in some atypical, bad side of town where Communism's magic touch hadn't arrived, I lived two blocks down from the University of Havana, the country's best.)

This is the BEAUTIFUL UNIVERSIDAD, (those photographers!):


These were the ruins I lived next to, two blocks down:

NOT SO PRETTY, eh, Commie Ansel Adamses?

MOST Cubans ARE guaranteed housing, though. Horrible, asbestos-filled cubicles partitioned inside old buildings now called "solares", where families are packed closely in a manner most reminiscent of the Transatlantic Slave Passage. Even the 'nice' houses in Cuba are paragons of neglect- we can't repair them, and the government long ago gave up on anything that wasn't directly outside the hotels and museums.

TRUE. UTILITIES: Well, most Cubans definitely get electricity for at least two hours every day at least five days a week. If you're lucky, this will happen between two and four in the morning so that you can turn your old electric fan and not die in the summer heat. Also, you will probably have running water at least once a day for half an hour, so that your family can run to the shower at scheduled moments and collect drinking water. Remember to boil it, or it's that dysentery for you!

FALSE? TRUE? Who knows what 'SOME' ENTERTAINMENT AT LOW COST means? I guess you can rummage around the ruins of Cuba and gather stones and then throw them at windows that remain unbroken? That can be pretty entertaining and it's free.

Not angry... Not angry... Must accept... power of propaganda...

Salman Rushdie's "The Enchantress of Florence"

I hadn't actually read any Salman Rushdie until "The Enchantress of Florence"- a situation I plan to remedy. This is a wizardly novel of a type I very much enjoy: the type that collides cultures and countries and surrenders to the overpowering might of story-telling. Here "The Decameron" and "The 1001 Arabian Nights" fuse into one, as do the Mughal Empire of Akbar the Great and the Florence of the Medicis and of Macchiavelli. It's told in a labyrinthine but seductive manner- you might get lost along the way but there will always be something to feed on in the maze. I think I'd abstained from Rushdie's work out of a worry that his prose might have the certain over-stiffness of a cause celebre consciously writing LITERATURE, but this is a book that does not trade erudition for fun. I consider myself invited to the oeuvre.

Jorge Luis Borges' "A Universal History of Iniquity"

Borges' first book was was a dabbler's (and a cobbler's) collection of biographies- like Roberto Bolano's "Nazi Literature in the Americas", but based on real people and real texts- yet sort of made up anyway. Too "shy" to write his own stories yet, he built them on solid sources. I'm reminded of my tentative process with Dumas' novel. Not that I would place my name and the illustrious Argentinian's on the same sentence- as indeed I haven't here.

Below are quatrains that will remind me of Borges' stories.


THE CRUEL REDEEMER LAZARUS MORRELL

Lazarus says: "For twenty bucks
I will remove your chain,
And for a mere twenty more
I won't put it back on again."

THE IMPROBABLE IMPOSTOR TOM CASTRO
If I was an impostor
I would have tried to look like me
But I look nothing like who I say I am
So that's who I must be

THE WIDOW CHING-PIRATE

The pirate widow saw dragons
Lazy flocks of fiery kites
I guess she'll see the burning work of her soul
One of these Eastern nights

MONK EASTMAN, PURVEYOR OF INIQUITIES

There's forty-nine nicks in Monk Eastman's cane
And tonight he's acting shifty
He'll let your brains run in the New York rain
To make an even fifty

THE DISINTERESTED KILLER BILL HARRIGAN

Cool killer Billy the Kid
Would shoot a man just for kicks
Killed twenty-one before he was twenty-one
Not even counting the spicks

THE UNCIVIL TEACHER OF COURT ETIQUETTE KOTSUKE NO SUKE

Forty-seven ronin
Died upon the spot.
Would you die for honor, mister?
I think not.

HAKIM, THE MASKED DYER OF MERV

My visions tremble like the virgins around me
My body is crumbling and my flesh begins to flee
My face is white but it's not white with holiness
It's white with leprosy.

CRITERION: Robert Bresson's "Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne"

Melo! Drama!
Ridiculously mannered even for its time- (Truffaut recalls a teacher describing it as: "The stupidest movie I've ever seen! The main character solves his romantic problems by driving eighty miles an hour!")- Robert Bresson's "Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne" is worth watching for Jean Cocteau's bon mots ("There is no love, there are only evidences of love"), and for Maria Casares' "Cruel Intentions" gaze. (She was unforgettable as Nathalie in "Les Enfants Du Paradis", one of my all time favorites.) Here, Casares plays a Jezebel type who notices her boyfriend has cooled off to her charms, and in an elaborate hissy fit, contrives for him to fall in love and marry a girl who (gasp) was once forced by necessity to be a cabaret dancer! What a revenge! Will he be humiliated and commit suicide or something?
Now, underneath all that there's a nasty effective story by Denis Diderot. The plot is GOOD. I feel tempted to steal it before someone else does. An ex-girlfriend hooks you up with a hooker? And then reveals to everyone that the girl you love used to be a whore? There's all sorts of story potential there, but this movie is so swaddled in soft lights and euphemisms and the "cabaret dancer-prostitute" is so sweetly virginal that all of the mess is rubbed out of the situation: The "proper" society girl is a bitchy, sensual vamp. The ex-prostitute is the shyest of angels. Really, one can't help but side with Truffaut's teacher. Pretty stupid stuff.

Pierre Morel's "Taken"

How does one go from Oskar Schindler to Charles Bronson? Still, Liam Neeson gives the best role of his career in the endlessly ludicrous "Taken": I mean, just the fact that he keeps from breaking into giggles of disbelief at every contrivance of the plot deserves an Oscar. God knows I didn't pass that test.
Co-written by Luc Besson, who knows a lot about serving up stylish junk, "Taken" is a doubly xenophobic exercise in patriarchal paranoia that works against itself by using the credible anxiety every father feels about his young daughter's sexual misadventures and mixing it with stupefying action scenes that make a lot more sense when looking at director Pierre Morel's tacky resume (he's done photographic work in Jason Statham movies like "The Transporter" and "War" and directed the parcour extravaganza "District B-13.")
Distant but concerned father Bryan Mills (Neesom) is not about to let his precious 17-year old Kim (Maggie Grace- Shannon from "Lost") travel abroad to France. They have Frenchmen AND Arabs there, so you know it's a messed up place! Still, little spoiled girl pouts, even though Daddy knows it's a wild world and it's hard to get by just upon a smile. The naughty girl hasn't even revealed that she's going too follow U2 on their European tour! You just KNOW she's due for punishment from God- which she receives, because the minute she steps out of the Parisian airport she's kidnapped by evil drug dealing sex traffickers Albanians. The moral? NEVER STEP OUT OF THE HOUSE, KIDS!
Anyway, Daddy Neesom is on the next plane to gay Paris to save his daughter by- well, murdering everybody that looks a little dark to him in a series of laughable scenes. Superman would have been sweating at some of these events, but Neesom is propelled by LOVE- or INSANITY or something. I was reminded of "The Searchers"- if "The Searchers" had been directed by the guy who did "Hostel".
The Euro-fears might be lost on an American audience, or else swallowed unquestioningly: ("The French government is worthless for allowing the immigration of Eastern Europeans. The Russians are monsters. The Albanians, though... Even the Russians fear the Albanians!") There's a HORRIBLE speech later in the movie by Neesom that will have them cheering in some places of Texas: "We are so soft not torturing you guys. You think you can immigrate in here because we're nice and tolerant, and then you don't follow our laws? Not in my country, you don't!" (Proceeds to electrocute a Muslim-type.)
The Eastern European sex trade is a devastating problem that deserves to be treated with intelligence, (see Lukas Moodysson's "Lilya 4-Ever" for an example- I sure can't watch THAT again.) As I get older, the more the idea that someone, anyone, could harm my (hypothetical children) horrifies me. But poking at my real world fears to bolster paranoid absurdities made me hate this movie doubly.
When the "little" girl (SPOILER?) is brought home to stupid California in triumph and the welcoming L.A. sun greets the returning hero, I smacked my forehead. What? There's no crime in good ol' U.S.? No abusive boyfriends, no drug dealers, no pimps and whores?
DONNEZ MOI UNE BREAK!

EPIC FAIL!!!

Someone with a camera please do me the favor of going to the Wendy's in front of Florida International University and, from that wonderful vantage point, take a picture of the mussed up sign touting the "FIU'S Children LEARNINING (sic) Center", then post that to the Fail Blog. (http://fail.org). That sign has been bothering me for a decade, for obvious reasons.

Larry Gonick's "Cartoon History of the Universe" Volume 1-7

It was a pleasure to revisit Gonick's madcap world history in anticipation of the new "Modern Era" volumes- the first seven blow out from the Big Bang to the rise of Alexander the Great. This is an irreverent, skeptical account of the past, so I can imagine it ruffling a few feathers in high school libraries- ("What was THAT the Greek heroes used to do with young boys?!?"), but it is a pun-filled run through time. I first loved this book in high school for actually enlightening me as to a life long suspicion:
As a kid I'd always just KNOWN that the Biblical story about Solomon's decision to split a baby in half failed in the "MAKING SENSE" department. You know the one, but let's recap: two women go to bed with their respective babies, one rolls over in the middle of the night and accidentally kills her child, so she steals the other woman's kid. The fight starts over whom the kid belongs to, it goes all the way to Solomon- and in the case that exemplifies his supreme wisdom, Sol says: "Well, let's make things fair. Cut the baby in two, give one half to each mom!" The "evil, fake mom" is like: "Makes sense!" The "good, rightful mom" says: "No, give it to her! I'll rather the baby go to her than die." Since such noble feelings could only have come from the real deal, Solomon knows whose claim is honest.
Is a cute story, if one doesn't dwell on it: why exactly is this THE most celebrated example of a wisdom that surely would have been spread among a thousand such cases? And since the point of the argument was that both mothers wanted to walk away with a living kid, clearly even the imposter mom would have been like: "Dude, if you split the baby it's going to die and be worthless to me too." If she was happy with a corpse, she would have kept her own baby's corpse! Wuldn't an advisor have been like: "Sol, have you lost it in your old age? Split babies DIE, smarter by far would have been to force the two moms to share the baby half the week- the fake mom might soon show her true colors."
WELL, thanks to the "Cartoon History of the Universe", my smarty suspicions were confirmed. The little anecdote does NOT detail an actual event, but is rather a political parable that has to be read by the revealing lamplight of historical context. Biblical scholars and historians now agree that the baby is actually supposed to represent the kingdom of Judah- Solomon was willing to let it be split in two by civil war to support his son's Rehoboam ascension. The split eventually took place, leaving Israel to the North and Judah to the South.
This blew my mind then! What other such legendary "events" were actually stand-ins for more complex encoded history? By then I'd moved on to Thucydides and Herodotus, the crafters of the historical profession, and truly began to get the idea of how story-telling and fabrication pervaded our collective records out of necessity. It was refreshing to hear from those two a suspected truth I had never heard in a textbook before:
"Look, this was a while back, so I'm going to have to make some stuff up. It's not an exact science, you know- how do you want me to know exactly what the queen said to the king 50 years ago? I don't even remember what my wife told ME this morning! But here's what I THINK they MIGHT have said, and it's juicy! Suspend that disbelief, people!"

This was also the birth of tabloid journalism.

CHAPTER 53: THE RETURN FROM ST. DENIS

So back in Chapter 1, Joseph Balsamo, a.k.a. The Count De Fenix, a.k.a. Acharat a.k.a Johnny Depp, lost his hostage wife Lorenza Feliciani (a.k.a Monica Belluci.) It took him 53 chapters but he got her back- in a trance.
Similarly, it's taken Gilbert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) 50-some chapters of being a rolling stone to roll to the feet of the beautiful Andree de Taverney (Keira Knightley), and he's just realized she pretty much considers him a mineral. Haughty Andree is not aware that she's probably inspired a folio of broken-heart poems with her unemotional reception- she would be just as surprised to learn that the supermarket check out boy has been drawing little hearts on her credit card receipts.
But Gilbert is wounded like a speared boar- and he roars through a crowd of all the ugly faces that have gathered outside the Cathedral of St. Denis to see Marie Antoinette and her cortege. It's finally hit him! No matter what, he's always going to be "that Gilbert boy" to his goddess- she's not even up for rejecting him, because you reject a suitor, and Gilbert is more like an uppity piece of furniture in her eyes.
Weak characters, says Dumas, are quick to bend to the blows of an unloving fate, just like weeds that bend to the wind. They rise again, and accomodate to a new set of delusions: "She WILL love me after all, somehow she will see how much she means to me!"
Strong characters, says Dumas, don't bend, they push forward against the wind, and for them love has a soupcon of hate. I'm going to guess that Gilbert is on the strong side, because he's pounding the floor: "She asked about the DOG Mahon, not about me! She's a fool, she's a fool, all she sees is how I'm just some commoner while she's surrounded by pretty laced-up nobles with idle hands and minds, people who have wealth but don't know how to use it beyond decking themselves with bling-bling. How can someone be so beautiful without that signifying inner goodness and sweetness and- aaacckk, how can she be so cold to me? Can't she see that if I was rich and had a pimpin' carriage and nice suits I would be just the same as all those preppy Court boys?"
I wonder. Are there any kind of characters in Romantic literature that simply say: "Eh, maybe this chick isn't worth the effort. Ooh, that brunette over there has a nice rack!"
Anyway, the raging hormonal frustration leads Gilbert to the banks of the Seine to take some sort of muddy cold shower while behind him the crowds retreat: the celebration at St. Denis has found an end. Gilbert eyes Philip de Taverney (Heath Ledger) as he retreats to Paris in his horse (is that dude ever not on a horse?), and so our young philosopher decides to trail Philip, and hence Andree, and continue the stalking- in the opposite direction, since the retinue is now going back to Paris.
Gilbert's cruisin' for more bruisin'- He's a sex addict, like David Duchovny, he just can't move on from this fixation. He goes through every rationalization imaginable: He MUST track Andree down to her new house in Paris so that one day when he makes it big he can mail her his autographed "Treatise on Human Nature" to her house and be all like: "Beeatch, #1 on "Les Temps de Paris' Non-Fiction Best-Seller List! How do you like THAT?"

We'll follow Gilbert and the Taverneys and the King (Robert DeNiro) and Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst, duh) and Madame Dubarry (Anne Hathaway) like in one of those Indiana Jones maps- from St. Denis the arrow goes to Muette, where the King forces M.A. to dine with Madame Dubarry, and M.A. makes a seemingly-nice-but-catty remark: "I'm glad your Highness likes me so much that he lets me hang out with even his most intimate of friends!" Meanwhile, Andree is partying in a tent with the rest of the retinue, and Gilbert spies on her partying silhouette from outside the tent. There's some sort of difference between crushy and creepy, but Gilbert hasn't been told.
The party stops because the rumor gets started that the Dauphiness is about to spread her graceful favors among the entourage. (She has been busily taking notes on all the court people whose backstabbing she will soon have to deal with). Marie Antoinette sashays among the crowd and eventually gets to bless the Taverneys. Philip gets a leave of absence so that he can spend it with his sister and the crack-potty Baron of Taverney (Gene Hackman)- but they won't go into Versailles until things have been settled there, so for now the Taverneys will have to settle for a Parisian apartment until the Gates of Eden open.
"It's going to be fine," says Philip to his sister, "I figured this would happen, so I sent the servant LaBrie to procure a small garden pavilion for us. Nicole awaits for us there too!" (Nicole Legay, you recall, is also played by Kirsten Dunst because she is Marie Antoinette's clone and there will be some sort of cloning plot twist like in "The Prestige")
The Baron of Taverney: "Hooray! A garden pavilion! Remember how we were just living in a crappy crumbling house?"
And there goes the coach with the Taverneys, and here Gilbert goes all ghetto, runs right up to the coach, jumps on the back of it, and hangs- how Indiana Jones of him!- all the way to Paris!
"Hey," Gilbert realizes, "they're going through very familiar streets! La Place des Victoires, the Statue of the King, this is where Rousseau lives! This is WHERE I live!" A bump on the badly-paved road sends our young philosopher down to kiss the pavement, but he's seen all he needs to see:
The Taverneys are staying at the Hotel D'Annenonville...
Around the block from Rousseau's house!
Andree is actually closer to him than she was when they lived at Taverney!
He can look from his garret right into her bedroom a la Rear Window!
Gilbert is one lucky admirer, I'll say that much for him.

The Wachowski Brother's "Speed Racer"

Watching "Speed Racer", the summer's big-budget disappointment, months after it stopped being a byword for ineffective eye-candy excess, it emerges as one of the greatest misunderstood masterpieces of the new Millenium, and possibly the definitive comment on the contrast between the temptations of commercialism and true devotion to one's God-given talents. I am reminded strongly of "The Agony and the Ecstasy" here.


No, hahah, geez, I'm just shitting you! Of course it's just a dumb kids movie!

But it's not worthy of contempt! Turn that finger around, disappointed buddy. How infantile are you that you had high expectations about a "Speed Racer" movie? Are you so at the mercy of your 10 year old id (when you went running around the living room making vroom-vroom noises and wished you had a cool monkey pet) that you flock as an adult to see the same thing and have the gall to be DISAPPOINTED? "Hmmm, I thought there would be more talk about metaphysics, perhaps an examination of Speed's morbid, homoerotic incestuous obsession with his departed older brother."

I actually thought Emile Hirsch and the cast gave it all they could- particularly loved John Goodman's turn as "the Dad that says the encouraging things every boy wishes his Dad would say" and Christina Ricci's pupil-expanding attempt to become Trixie, a living anime girl. She's getting cuter every time!

(Christie, I've been loving you since "The Addams Family", we share the same freaking birthday! Think about it, how convenient would that be? I know you need time to consider my marriage proposal. Holla back when you're ready for my jelly.)

If you ask me where this silly familly movie falters is in forgetting that it should be inspired by '60s ANIME, and not by mid-90's Super NES videogames. Other than that I'm not sure what more could be extracted out of a "Speed Racer" adaptation. I hated the two Matrix sequels at varying degrees and the Wachowski brothers have no particular place in my heart, but I simply can't hate this. It sets out to do something and does it right. 10 year olds rightfully dig it, and if you're in your thirties you should be GLAD you find it childish- you might as well be upset by the way the new (EXTREMELY COOL) "Electric Company" show on PBS neglects to depict the crack epidemic in urban settlements.

People Who Read People...

And I don't mean in that Tim Roth show, "Lie To Me"- with the fascinating, budget-solving premise of a guy who LOOKS CLOSELY AT FACES!!! OOOOH, that's almost as intriguing as "Lost"!
Nah, I was once more thinking about the dumb little things I get bombarded with at every grocery outing- I was sooo amused by a little feature on "People" about how our favorite celebs are "dealing with the recession".
To me, that's like the editor at People magazine emerged out of the glossy page with the express purpose of laughing at our communal idiocy. Do I want to know how Debra Messing is penny-pinching around her mansion?!? I don't care about how Paris Hilton had to let go her dog psychic! Ooooh, Britney wanted a Burmese Python purse but had to settle for a Taiwanese Cobra?!? POBRECITA!!!
If these things even come out of real interviews (I suspect PR agents just let People come up with harmless, all-purpose soundbites) I can imagine how the Will Smith phone interview went.



PEOPLE: "So, Will, we're doing one of those "Celebrities Are Just Folks Like Y'All" things. So how has the recession been hitting you?"
WILL SMITH: "Recession? No, man, my hair stylists say I don't even need Rogaine yet."
PEOPLE: "No, we mean, like... There's BEEN a big economic recession! Lots of unemployment! Desperation!"
WILL SMITH: "Is there a script going around about it? 'Cause I can see a superhero that's trying to solve people's problems, and there's some dope robbery kind of like in 'Inside Man'"
PEOPLE: "Will, concentrate. Just give us a little soundbite: how have you been trying to save money?"
WILL SMITH: (covers mouthpiece) (turns to his butler) "Hey, you, how are poor people saving money in this repression?"
BUTLER: "I do believe they may trying to save gas money, master Will."
WILL SMITH: (back on the phone) "Right, so I've been trying to save gas money! I hardly ever ride on the Rolls anymore..." (Off his chauffeur's startled look) "I mean, the Bentley?" (The chauffeur shakes his head.) "My Kiaa!" (both Chauffeur and butler sigh, relieved.)

CRITERION: ECLIPSE: Aki Kaurismaki's "Shadows in Paradise"

When dealing with the Finnish names in Aki Kaurismaki's 1986 dramedy "Shadows in Paradise", I hit a cultural wall bricked with umlauts. Let's just say the movie covers a few episodes in the life of a garbage man called Nikander (Matti Pellonpaa) who collides romantically with a middle aged woman called Ilona (Kati Outinen). This is the first Kaurismaki movie I've seen, (although as this blog will soon testify, not the last: this is part of his "Proletariat Trilogy") His world of everyday sad-sacks aspiring for dignity in love reminds me of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's, particularly as depicted in "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul". These people are warriors of small social battles they're bound to lose in the long run, with losses so undramatic only they could care. But Kaurismaki's compassionate look carries so much hope of its own that you pray for the best. Hollywood wouldn't touch these people with a state-long stick: A garbage man in love with a sorta frumpy check out lady? Maybe if they were more indie-eccentric, or in a Kevin James comedy- and then you can only imagine the pile of shitty trash bag jokes.

Super Screwed

There was supposed to be some sort of Bruce Springsteen concert today, preceded and followed by extra-clever commercials for cars that no one can afford to buy anymore, but my building's cable company randomly removed the LOCAL channel that carries it. How can this be? All is possible in the hands of the vindictive God who still hasn't forgiven me for not loving Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ."